Asshole of the Week
See Ya Sundee...
Hello. I’m former Mayor of Philadelphia John F. Street for the new Apple 3G iPhone.
Continue reading "Former Mayor John Street On the New 3G iPhone"
1
Chelsea Clinton was at Penn yesterday, stumping for her Mom, and said we should expect to see her and her family a lot in the near future. Which sounds like a threat to us. Beware, Philadelphians! They're coming! Watch the skies! Keep watching the skies! (BTW, in a related story, voter interest is surging in Pennsylvania suburbs.)
It's not clear how much it will cost, but the Nutter administration is determined to get a 311 system installed in Philadelphia by the end of the year. If you're in an emergency, you'd still dial 911, but for any other city service, you could call 311. Officials also plan to implement PhillyStat, "a program that will track data from city departments and from 3-1-1 calls to assess how agencies are performing."
Michael blasted Safe and Sound, the organization that Mayor Street had reallocated $75 million to in the twilight of his administration. Michael said Safe and Sound shouldn't have assumed they would get the money, because it wasn't designated to them in the city's budget, and you know what happens when you "assume." ZING! But he did pledge to work with Safe and Sound leadership to find more financial support for the organization.
Due to the fact that local schools had received recalled beef products through the National School Lunch program (products that were part of the largest recall of beef in US history, announced this past Sunday), the school system announced yesterday that all dishes made with beef will be taken off Philadelphia school menus. The district spokesman pointed out, however, that "the risk of children getting ill from this beef recall is negligible" and they "have not received any notification of a child being ill because of this beef recall."
A 17-year-old male knocked on the door of the security booth inside the lobby of the Queen Lane Apartments late Sunday. When the cop inside opened it, the young man fired one shot with an assault rifle, striking the officer in the left hip underneath his bullet-proof vest. Luckily the officer was able to immediately slam shut the door of the bullet-proof booth before the gunman fired twice more. The youth then ran off and Zahir Boddy-Johnson was arrested an hour later for the crime, and will be charged as an adult with attempted murder, aggravated assault, robbery, firearms violations and related offenses. The officer is in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery.
Saint Joe's will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 5PM today to officially open its new Hawks' Landing parking and retail facility at 54th and City Avenue. Hawks' Landing is a $19 million project that features a five-story, 460-space garage, a new and expanded University Bookstore, and a Cosi restaurant underneath.
Area artists, lingerie designers, the burlesque troupe Bawdy Girls, and avant-gardistes will gather tonight in Northern Liberties to begin a month-long online auction of eighteen "corsets for a cure," with proceeds going to Philadelphia's Linda Creed Breast Cancer Foundation. A raffle and prizes donated by area merchants will benefit Andrea Collins Smith of Fishtown, whose blog about her battle with cancer is widely read.
Delaware River Port Authority officials announced yesterday that a $4 million network of cameras with "intelligent" software will be installed along the PATCO rail line and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge starting in April and scheduled to finish up by the end of the year. The cameras are designed to detect intruders or unusual activity in stations, parking lots, platforms and along the rail line.
Both the Inquirer and the Daily News are taking a look this morning at the three finalists for the job of chief executive officer of the School District of Philadelphia, and the Inquirer also has a look at the 45 advisory committee members who will actually be interviewing the finalists and selecting the CEO from among them.
Also in the Daily News this morning is an article providing more details on the case of the three North Philadelphia teenagers killed in a car accident on Saturday.
In a lengthy hearing yesterday, more sordid information came out about Andy Reid's sons Garrett and Britt before they were sentenced - Garrett to two to 23 months in jail, and Britt to eight to 23 months in jail and four years probation. The judge held Garrett and Britt responsible for their own actions, but also laid some guilt on the heads of their parents.
Organizers say the 10,000 Men project was a great success, and generated 12,000 sign-ups. But they still need support from Philadelphia's business community, in the form of donations to the project and jobs for young people. Orientation sessions begin today and continue on Wednesday and Thursday; click through for details.
A whole array of services are now being offered to college students nationwide - as well as right here in the Philadelphia area - with names like DormAid, DormMom, CollegeBellhop and Soapy Joe's. They do things like clean up your room for you, wash and fold your laundry, drop off cases of water, and arrange for groceries to be delivered. In other words, they help you push back the time when you'll have to learn to take care of yourself. Awesome.
There aren't many details available, but a schoolbus accident occurred before 8AM yesterday morning at 28th Street and Passyunk Avenue, injuring nine of the passengers, six of them children. All passengers were taken to area hospitals - the uninjured for evaluation and the injured for treatment.
Earlier this spring, when the whole thing came out about the Philadelphia School District's budget problems, their chief financial officer and budget overseer resigned. But it's just now coming out that, despite the fact that she only worked for the district for two years, she left with a ridiculously good deal: she was paid for unused vacation time, will keep her benefits for a full year, and will be paid at full salary for an extra nine months. Sounds like the deal was put together by departing School Reform Commission Chairman James Nevels and was not approved by the full commission.
Apparently every summer Senator Arlen Specter likes to visit all 67 counties in Pennsylvania and have a little Q&A session. Here's how the trip's going this year.
It was announced yesterday that a company called Pacifica Ventures would be opening a $75 million "entertainment production facility" (read: film studio) in the Delaware Valley by the fall of 2008 - and it's all thanks to our new tax-incentive package for filmmakers. "Pacifica is looking at sites in Bucks, Delaware and Philadelphia Counties for a 500,000-square-foot facility."
More news about toxic gas leaks! The Oxford Valley Mall in Langhorne was closed early yesterday morning when employees of the J.C. Penney's started showing symptoms of exposure to carbon monoxide. Eight people were taken to a nearby hospital to be treated and released. Testing revealed that there was indeed quite a lot of carbon monoxide floating around in Penney's, caused by the collapse of a chimney on the roof. That store will remain closed until at least today, although the rest of the mall reopened early yesterday afternoon.
Yet more information is coming out about that shooting in South Philly (a story which has now been appearing on national cable news stations). It turns out the victim, Steven "Butter" Miller, was high on marijuana laced with embalming fluid ("wet") and that he called his brother shortly before the incident to tell him "I can't take it anymore." A series of stresses in the man's personal life apparently led to him snapping. Which still doesn't explain why the cops fired so very many bullets, more than 20 of which struck Miller.
In yet more local school news, the faculty and staff at the Community College of Philadelphia went on strike yesterday morning, as threatened, when an agreement could not be reached on their new contract.
The casinos are apparently sending attorneys and private investigators to harrass people who signed those anti-casino petitions. Smooth, guys. Smooth. Meanwhile, a Bucks County judge has been appointed to decide whether those groups successfully collected the 20,000 signatures they need to get the casino question on the May 15 ballot.
As we suspected, lots of people are not too hot on Fattah's "congestion charge" idea.
A couple of crazy bastards parachuted down off the Comcast Center Sunday morning. Of course, as is requisite these days when you do something stupid and dangerous, a video was taken and promptly posted on YouTube (although sadly, it has since been taken down). Police are looking for the guys, whom they plan to charge with "criminal trespassing, reckless endangerment and risking a catastrophe."
Now that it's become clear that Tom Knox is doing exceedingly well, and has a great deal of money, a bill has been introduced to temporarily cancel the campaign contribution limits in order to even things out a bit.
Results tagged “schooldistrict”
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
tweet this
add to facebookContinue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Nutter? I Don't Even Know 'er!: Michael Gets Rebuffed"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Last Friday & the weekend: Michael's search for a new CEO of the Philadelphia School District got down to two contenders—apparently—after Temple College of Education dean Kent McGuire withdrew his name from consideration for the position.
Continue reading "Nutter? I Don't Even Know 'er!: Michael Learns It's Not Easy"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
The latest in the case of Ebony Nicole Dorsey, the 14-year-old girl allegedly killed by her mother's boyfriend: the Daily News has an exclusive interview with the girl's mother, Danielle Cattie, who calls her boyfriend a monster. Meanwhile, the Inquirer quotes Cattie's brother defending his sister; he says she's "a great mom who deeply loves her children," and "She's a good person who made some bad decisions. She's paid a horrible price." It may seem...
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Two separate laws aimed at making most government records public by default are making their way through the state legislature. The House bill, which was approved by a committee yesterday, is stronger than the bill that was passed by the Senate yesterday, 48-1. Another day, another shooting in Philadelphia. Two officers responding to a call about a man causing a disturbance in West Philadelphia early yesterday morning chased the man into an alley, where he...
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
What's new and/or interesting on TV this week.
Continue reading "TelePhillyist"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"
We've been a little disdainful of Valentine's Day over the past week. Really, though: what is a blogger without a healthy serving of disdain? But it does occur to us that there are some people out there who actually want to do something for Valentine's Day that isn't simply sitting around and trashing Valentine's Day, even if they don't have a specific romantic "Valentine" with whom to share the holiday.
Continue reading "Phillyist Wants to Know: What Are Your Plans for Tomorrow?"
Continue reading "Yo, Philly in the News"