Philly’s property tax problem | Morning Newsletter
And what to do if you encounter a raccoon
The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
As PAFA alum and filmmaker David Lynch would say, “It’s a Friday once again.”
It’s mostly cloudy and temps will reach around 46. Cleanup continues from the gusty deluge that ripped through the region this week, but another windy rain storm may bring fresh rounds of flooding tonight and into Saturday.
Who is responsible for auctioning off tax-delinquent properties? Depends on who you ask. Our lead story covers how Philly’s top leaders play the blame game while millions of dollars of tax revenue go uncollected.
— Paola Pérez (@pdesiperez, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
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City Council, the Mayor’s Office, the Sheriff’s Office, and Philadelphia’s Law Department are pointing fingers at one another when it comes to millions of dollars in uncollected tax revenue and delinquent properties stuck in limbo.
Catch up quick: Last month, The Inquirer reported that Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s office hasn’t held a tax sale since April 2021. This has caused a backlog of properties that would otherwise have been sold at auction and potentially redeveloped.
Records show that the city has gone to court to authorize the sale of some 1,330 tax-delinquent properties. But the lack of auctions mean that property owners have been free to ignore the court notices, even as their tax bills grow.
Sheriff Rochelle Bilal places the blame on the city’s lawyers. But Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s office insists it’s the sheriff’s duty to fix this failure.
A larger problem: The ongoing hold on sales is undoing significant progress that the city had made in the years leading up to COVID-19 pandemic after struggling for decades to fight chronic tax delinquency.
Continue reading for more on what’s driving the stalemate among city leadership, plus Mayor Parker’s plan to return “vacant and tax-delinquent properties to productive use” within her first 100 days.
They’re cute. They’re smart. But they also can carry rabies, which is almost always deadly.
Word of aggressive and possibly rabid raccoons in West Philadelphia has been circulating online. Alleged sightings were reported at 48th and Warrington and 49th and Baltimore.
ACCT Philly has not captured any rabid critters or heard about the recently reported encounters, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t taken place. Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Game Commission and local animal control say the incidents don’t necessarily signal a rabies outbreak. Still, experts commend people for taking rabies seriously.
If you run into a raccoon, you should:
🦝 Keep your distance
🦝 Consider locking up food sources, like garbage bins
🦝 Bring your pets indoors
🦝 Look out for erratic behavior and contact animal control if you see it
Read on about the community’s experiences with the trashcan bandits.
What you should know today
Police have arrested and charged a 25-year-old North Philadelphia man in a 2022 shooting that left nine people wounded in the city’s Kensington section.
President Joe Biden will visit Allentown on Friday, the White House confirmed, making his second visit to the state in about a week as he looks ahead to the 2024 election.
Health officials in Montgomery County and Wilmington, Del. warned residents this week of measles exposures in their local health facilities from an outbreak in Philadelphia.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker tapped Pedro Rosario as the city’s first-ever Latino deputy commissioner to lead the Philadelphia Police Department’s strategy in Kensington, home to a sprawling open-air drug market that Parker has vowed to shut down.
A Port Richmond man has been arrested in the 2013 kidnapping and murder of Bucks County restaurateur and businessman Joseph Canazaro, one of the county’s most confounding cold cases.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner filed a lawsuit Thursday in an effort to block as unconstitutional a state law written by Republican lawmakers that removes his authority over crimes on SEPTA property and gives that power to a special prosecutor appointed by the state attorney general.
Penn Medicine plans to acquire financially stressed Doylestown Hospital. The deal would strengthen the nonprofit health system’s reach in Philadelphia’s northern suburbs.
A Philadelphia High School for Girls staffer has been ordered out of the school — at least temporarily — after a report of alleged “professional misconduct” surfaced.
A second U.S. House committee has launched an investigation into the University of Pennsylvania. This one explores its tax-exempt status in light of antisemitism charges.
🧠 Trivia time
On the eve of its 20th anniversary, Continental Mid-town in Center City has received a refresh.
Which of their iconic cocktails just got a reboot?
A) Frozen Appletini
B) Buzz Aldrin
C) Cosmo Spacely
D) The Astronaut
Think you know? Check your answer.
What we're...
🍿 Reading: Ayo Edebiri’s hilarious film reviews on Letterboxd.
😳 Cringing over: eBay employees sent live spiders and cockroaches to a Massachusetts couple.
🚇 Learning: Why the Broad Street Line is so slow between Walnut-Locust and Lombard-South.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
Hint: This Sixer, known as the pride of Erie Avenue, just got a key to the City of Philadelphia
ARMOUR SCRIMS
Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Dan Tureck who correctly guessed Thursday’s answer: Elkins Park. The hint was “Just north of Philly, home to a Gilded Age estate.”
Photo of the day
Have a great weekend, stay dry, and I’ll bring you the latest news bright and early on Sunday.
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