Philadelphia Demands Bloggers Purchase $300 License

In an obvious attemtp to stifle free speech the Philadelphia City Paper is reporting a city local blogger received a notice demanding she pay a $300 business privilege license due to her blog.

In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.

"The real kick in the pants is that I don't even have a full-time job, so for the city to tell me to pony up $300 for a business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, net profits tax on a handful of money is outrageous," Bess says.

It would be one thing if Bess' website were, well, an actual business, or if the amount of money the city wanted didn't outpace her earnings six-fold. Sure, the city has its rules; and yes, cash-strapped cities can't very well ignore potential sources of income. But at the same time, there must be some room for discretion and common sense.

When Bess pressed her case to officials with the city's now-closed tax amnesty program, she says, "I was told to hire an accountant."

She's not alone. After dutifully reporting even the smallest profits on their tax filings this year, a number — though no one knows exactly what that number is — of Philadelphia bloggers were dispatched letters informing them that they owe $300 for a privilege license, plus taxes on any profits they made.

Even if, as with Sean Barry, that profit is $11 over two years.

With all the recent problems over their Philadelphia Housing Authority director facing foreclosure while receiving a $300,000 per year salary and staff that gets a 6 figure salary while paying subsidized rent of $654.00 per month one would think Philadephia City Council would focus on straigtening out its own mess first.

Don't forget the fiasco with their DROP Program. DROP, which stands for Deferred Retirement Option Plan, lets employees pick a retirement date up to four years in the future. That decision freezes employees' pension benefits, but they start accumulating the payments immediately in an account that pays 4.5 percent interest while they continue working. When they retire, they get the amount in the account and start collecting their monthly pensions. Estimates state the program has cost Philadelphia $258 million over the last ten years.

I guess that is why they need $300.00 from bloggers.

Rendell's Abuse of Taxpayer Dollars To Solidify Political Base

The Pennsylvania Independent published a story about Ed Rendell distributing a disproportionate amount of Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) funding to the City of Philadelphia.

Philadelphia County received $109.5 million in RACP funds for 12 projects, a little more than a third of the total funding doled out in the bill signed yesterday by Mr. Rendell, including $10 million for the Sen. Arlen Specter Library at Philadelphia University. Mr. Specter, who served as Philadelphia District Attorney from 1965 until 1974, was Mr. Rendell’s first employer.

“I think that’s been this governor’s mode of operation,” said state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R – Butler). “Dole out the goodies from Harrisburg that he can grab a hold of for his base, for the Philadelphia area especially.”

The Legal Intelligencer penned this story about the Feds appeal of the light sentence imposed on former Senator Vince Fumo after his conviction in what amounts to one of the worst corruption cases in Pennsylvania.

Weighing in at 281 pages and more than 53,000 words, the appellate brief filed by the Justice Department on Thursday to challenge the leniency of the 55-month sentence imposed on former state Sen. Vincent Fumo is like a Harry Potter novel for the judiciary -- highly anticipated, loaded with entertaining vocabulary, and chock full of talk about darkness and wicked ways.

What are the similarities between these two stories? Here is more information from the appeal by the Feds in the Fumo Case.

"The corruption exposed in this case was breathtaking," they wrote.

Fumo was a 30-year member of the Pennsylvania Senate, they wrote, who "used his control of a well-funded Senate committee and of a nonprofit organization he created and supported (Citizens Alliance), as well as his influence over another nonprofit institution, to support a lavish lifestyle and illegally amass political power."

The brief says Fumo used funds and resources of the Senate and of the nonprofit organizations "to provide him with staffers who served his every whim, from running political campaigns, to aiding his personal business ventures, to attending to his needs at the five homes he maintained."

Fumo used the funds of Citizens Alliance "for political purposes, and to acquire over $1 million of luxury vehicles, merchandise, farm equipment, and myriad other items," the brief says, noting that Buckwalter calculated more than $2 million in losses from Fumo's crimes when "in actuality, the loss was at least double that."

And "just as strikingly," the prosecutors wrote, "once the federal investigation began, Fumo embarked on a determined effort to obstruct justice, directing his public employees to destroy extensive computer evidence of his crimes."

In a previous post I highlighted the Ogontz Avenue Revitalization Corp, the tax-exempt, taxpayer-supported nonprofit group founded by State Rep. Dwight Evans, chairman of the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee and the waste of $1 million in Pennsylvania taxpayer's money on a jazz festival.

From Eachus's office Brett Marcy this comment back on May 09, 2010.

"We have worked hard to trim costs and find ways to improve efficiencies," said Brett Marcy, press secretary to House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne.

Over at the Capitol Wire With John Micek he quotes House Majority Leader Todd Eachus about the budget:

"This is a responsible budget, and it's a win for Pennsylvania taxpayers. It holds the line on state taxes and it keeps our commitment to invest appropriately in our children's education and protect our local property tax payers from having to shoulder more of the burden for funding our schools."

How he can make that claim with the obvious waste of taxpayer money is beyond me.

Family Court Building In Philadelphia Creates More Controversy

Family Court development deal canceled
By Joseph Tanfani and Mark Fazlollah

INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

After spending 18 months and more than $10 million, Philadelphia courts administrators under the supervision of state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille have canceled their no-bid development deal on a new Family Court building.

Castille decided to dismiss developer Donald Pulver after The Inquirer disclosed that Pulver had made lawyer Jeffrey B. Rotwitt a partner in the project - at the same time that Rotwitt was being paid as Castille's representative.

Castille says Rotwitt never told him about what he calls a possible conflict of interest. Rotwitt insists Castille knew about it all along, and says he has no conflict because he wasn't acting as a lawyer in the deal, but a broker.

The terse termination letter, sent Wednesday, says that the courts are exercising their option to cancel Pulver's deal in three days.

The state Division of General Services, not Pulver, now will supervise the construction of the $200 million project at 15th and Arch Streets, one of the largest public works projects in the city in a decade. There will be public bids for the construction contracts.

The Philadelphia Parking Authority, which owns the land, also is preparing to cancel Pulver's development rights.

But the courts, on Castille's direction, have already paid out millions in fees to Pulver and Rotwitt, nearly emptying a fund collected from a surcharge on all Philadelphia Family Court filings.

Castille personally spearheaded the project, meeting with politicians and architects and signing off on the fees to Pulver and Rotwitt. He said he authorized the payments, even though there was no signed development agreement, in a gamble to keep the project alive.

Philadelphia Courthouse Building Questions

In a developing story coming out of Philadelphia over a new courthouse building Democratic candidate in the 103rd district- Gene Stilp filed complaint against Chief Justice Castille in the Philly Courthouse bid scandal according to RoxburyNews.

Over the weekend the Philadelphia Inquirer penned this edtiorial concerning its eleventh-hour disclosure by an Inquirer investigative team that a courthouse consultant holds what appears to be a conflicting role as codeveloper of the project, casts doubt on the fairness of the $200 million price tag.

In this story published May 21, 2010 by staff writers Joseph Tanfani and Mark Fazlollah the reporters discovered that real estate lawyer and developer Jeffrey B. Rotwitt was working both sides of construction project to build a $200 million courthouse. He was paid $3.9 million as fees on the project from the courts.

But Rotwitt found a way to make even more money from the courts project, a 14-story tower planned for 15th and Arch Streets. It would be the largest current public works project in Philadelphia after the Convention Center expansion.

He made a separate deal with Donald W. Pulver, the Conshohocken developer who has development rights at the site. For more than a year, he and Pulver said, Rotwitt has been splitting the monthly development fees paid by the courts, fees that Rotwitt proposed in the first place. So far, that arrangement has earned Rotwitt close to $500,000.

"It was all open and above board," Rotwitt said.

State Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, who has been working closely with Rotwitt on the courts project for two years, said he had no idea about that arrangement until The Inquirer's architecture critic, Inga Saffron, reported it and started asking questions about how Rotwitt could be on both sides of the deal.

Because he was relying on Rotwitt's advice, Castille said in an interview in his Philadelphia office, there's no way to know whether the public has gotten a good deal thus far on the $200 million Family Court project.

After the story broke Governor Rendell came to the rescue with an announcement that he would release the $200 million for the courthouse project but only with competitive bidding.

Rendell said he would release the $200 million for the huge courthouse at 15th and Arch Streets, but would require competitive bids, even if that means delays, to make sure the project is scrubbed of any conflicts of interest.

Rendell's announcement means the apparent end of the court system's two-year-old development deal with Donald W. Pulver, a developer from Conshohocken.

The Inquirer reported on Friday that Jeffrey B. Rotwitt, a lawyer the courts hired as a real estate consultant, has also been collecting fees on the other side of the deal as Pulver's co-developer.

"The commonwealth always looks at potential conflicts of interest, particularly when it comes to the taxpayers' money," Rendell said. "We will make sure there is no conflict of interest in this deal, even if it means slowing it up."

Rendell, joined by Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and Mayor Nutter, appeared at City Hall to announce the funding for the 14-story, 29-courtroom building. Family Court handles some of the most sensitive cases in the justice system: juvenile crimes, divorces, child-neglect hearings.

On Tuesday, lawyer Henry E. Hockeimer Jr. of the firm Ballard Spahr, which represents the courts and Castille, sent Pulver and Rotwitt a letter asking them to detail their partnership and list everyone who received any money from the courts.

Rotwitt did not respond. Lawyers for Pulver did not provide the information, but said, "We previously advised your firm of the involvement of Deilwydd Property Group L.L.C. and Mr. Rotwitt in this project months ago."

Feeley declined to comment on Rotwitt's dual roles, other than to repeat that documents showed that court representatives knew about his work as developer.

Stilp's complaint isn't the first time he and Castille have clashed over an issue. As reported by John Micek at CapitolIdeas on January 15, 2008 after he was sworn into office yesterday, new state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille got hit with a disciplinary complaint from professional gadfly Gene Stilp.

In what we're pretty sure is Stilp's millionth court filing since the short-lived 2005 pay raise, the Dauphin County activist and onetime Nader Raider claims that Castille ran afoul of disciplinary rules when he told Philly Daily News columnist John Baer late last year that he was soon going to allow a grand jury probe of casino owner Louis DeNaples to proceed.

According to Stilp, that action violated Canon 3 of the judicial code of ethics, which says "judges should abstain from public comment about a pending proceeding in any court."

To quote John Micek "Here we go again".

Court Outburst Over Bonusgate Style Tactics

Writer Chris Brennan of the Philadelphia Daily News penned this article about a lawyer's courtroom outburst that almost cost him some jail time.

Apparently Pete Fiorentino, a former City Council attorney, had his nominating petitions challenged in the race against State Rep Mike O'Brien.

He demonstrated to the court that the challenges eminated from O'Briens office by the stamp on the faxes used to make the filings.

Fiorentino claimed the challengers broke the law by doing their legal paperwork with the help of a fax machine in the local office of state Rep. Mike O'Brien, the Democrat he hoped to unseat in the May 18 primary.

Commonwealth Court Judge Johnny Butler denied Fiorentino's request to toss the petition challenge, saying the faxed paperwork did not justify that ruling.

"This is a joke!" Fiorentino yelled in court. "This is a kangaroo court, your honor."

Butler told Fiorentino he had never held an attorney in contempt of court, but was getting ready to make him the first.

O'Brien, who represents the 175th District, which extends from South Philadelphia to Port Richmond along the Delaware River, later dismissed the complaints about faxed legal paperwork as a non-issue.

"Obviously at the end of the day he had no ground to defend against our questions on the validity of his petitions," O'Brien said. "He chose to launch into a series of personal attacks against a staff member to cloud the issue."

Mary Isaacson, O'Brien's chief of staff, and Democratic City Committeeman Peter Butterline filed challenges two weeks ago against Fiorentino and Daryl LaFountain, another candidate.

LaFountain found the faxed paperwork and his attorney, Larry Otter, asked the court on Monday to dismiss the challenge. Otter compared the faxes to the ongoing "Bonusgate" investigation in Harrisburg, which resulted in the March 22 conviction of a former state representative and two legislative staffers for using state resources for campaign purposes.

A line at the top of some of the pages in the legal challenge were printed "Rep. Michael O'Brien's Office," a sign that it had been faxed from there.

It is amazing that after AG Tom Corbett arrested 25 persons for allegedly misusing taxpayers dollars for campaign work that some people still don't get it.

Fiorentino and LaFountain say they have reported the faxes to the state Attorney General's Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office. LaFountain said he has a meeting today with the U.S. Attorney's Office to discuss the issue.