Yo, Philly in the News

• The City Council's hearings on Mayor Street's budget opened Tuesday with Street's chief of staff painting a bleak portrait of the city's fiscal future: "a weak tax base, high tax burden, escalating costs, high service responsibilities and low state financial support." Healthcare costs, prison costs, the homeless, and tax cuts are all contributing to the problem, which may lead to the city's surplus slowly shrinking over the next five years.
• The snow led to some school closings and flight delays, but it doesn't look like anybody got trapped on a highway for over 24 hours this time, so it's all good.
• The Daily News has a pretty hard-hitting article about the violence in Philly and the violence overseas and the government's questionable way of dealing with them both. It's called "Where is the real war?" and you should read it.
• SEPTA could be in trouble - again. The Rendell administration has announced that there will be no stopgap financial aid as in previous years for the transit agency, and no diverted federal highway funding. "It's sink-or-swim time." Rendell's hoping his proposed tax on oil companies' gross profits will eventually help SEPTA with their funding problems, but in the meantime, it looks like the usual service cuts and fare hikes for SEPTA riders.
• Well, the anti-casino petition looks to be dead in the water; a judge ruled that of the 27,000 signatures submitted, fewer than 7,000 were actually valid. City Councilman Frank DiCicco isn't giving up yet, though; he says he's going to try to get 12 Council members (the required supermajority) to support putting the casino question on the May 15 ballot. Yeah, good luck with that, Frank. Meanwhile, there will be an appeal of the judge's decision; apparently he didn't even feel it necessary to review the signatures.
• And finally, in mayor's race news, candidate Dwight Evans has secured the coveted endorsement of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity.

Photo of Evans at the endorsement announcement by Flickr user Dwight Evans for Mayor