Yo, Philly in the News

• Fellow Philly bloggers Albert Yee, Howard Hall, and Tulin Ozturk sat down with Senator Vince Fumo, his son, and a couple of City Councilmen on May 10th to talk off the record about politics in general, the next mayor's race in particular, and the internet. Fumo's son is a computer software engineer, and suggested the meeting after reading some posts expressing frustration with local politics. Fumo (who doesn't have time to read "that stuff," apparently) is hoping to connect with the younger, tech-savvy audience, and it sounds like both sides felt the meeting was a success, at least as an introductory thing. Fumo's even planning to hire a staffer who'll serve as a contact for bloggers - a sort of Secretary of the Internet, perhaps? Anyway, we have only one question - why weren't we invited?
• After reading about that whole connecting with the blogger thing, and remembering his heroic antics from way back (in fact, that was the first "Yo, Philly in the News" article written by this Phillyist), we were starting to really like Fumo. And then we read this story, in which it's alleged that two of his staffers deleted e-mails and other electronic evidence to protect him from a federal investigation into Fumo's possible use of a nonprofit to funnel money. Hopefully it's not true, but if it is...for shame, Fumo!
• Speaking of federal investigations into the illegal use of nonprofit money by politicians (how's that for a segue??), check out the first story here. Former Streets Commissioner William M. Johnson allegedly approved spending Keep Philadelphia Beautiful's money (some of which came from federal funds) for his own birthday party, as well as for a party honoring him when he left his job. These were no little office parties featuring cakes from a local bakery, either; the birthday party cost $2,000 in nonprofit funds, and the other party came up to $14,000 total, with $8000 of that coming from the nonprofit. The defense attorney says his client was just "a dupe" (which is a pretty harsh word to apply to your own client!) and thought only private funds were being spent. But what was he doing approving the spending on parties for himself, anyway?

Image Credit: Friends of the Free Library of Philadelphia