Clout: Need GOP petition signed? PPA's just the ticket
ANYONE WHO drives in this city will tell you that the Philadelphia Parking Authority tows cars and writes tickets with an efficiency that borders on ruthless.
ANYONE WHO drives in this city will tell you that the Philadelphia Parking Authority tows cars and writes tickets with an efficiency that borders on ruthless.
But the agency, the lone bastion of Republican patronage in Philadelphia, can do much more.
Say you need to collect at least 1,000 signatures on nominating petitions to run for mayor.
Add a little pressure: Let's say you're a longtime Democrat recruited for the race at the very last minute by Republican leaders with just four days to collect all those important signatures.
That was the position Karen Brown, a Democratic committeewoman-turned-GOP mayoral candidate, was in last week.
The army that fanned out across the city for Brown, collecting more than 1,500 signatures, was loaded with Parking Authority employees, from the folks who write the tickets and tow the cars to the director of enforcement and a registered lobbyist.
We counted at least 30 people on the PPA payroll among the circulators for Brown's petitions. That's about one-third of Brown's swift petition army.
Brown tells us that local GOP chairman Vito Canuso and the party's general counsel, Michael Meehan, delivered on a promise to help her collect signatures. She and friends collected about 400 signatures in four days while the party gathered more than 1,000.
Vince Fenerty, a Republican ward leader and executive director at the Parking Authority, said he gathered his senior staff before petitions were circulated to remind them that no petitions could be circulated on PPA time or property.
"Our policy here is no politics on work time," Fenerty said.
The Clout Line: Mayor 2011
This week we introduce the Clout Line, in which we ask five locals who have toiled on Democratic and Republican mayoral elections to estimate the odds for the four candidates for mayor in the May 17 primary election.
We will average the estimates from our experts, who will remain anonymous, and present them for your consideration.
This week's chances of winning:
DEMOCRATS
Mayor Nutter: 82.8 percent
T. Milton Street: 17.2 percent
REPUBLICANS
John Featherman: 44.8 percent
Karen Brown: 55.2 percent
Disclaimer: Clout does not endorse gambling because anything can happen in this city's politics.
Slap-fight of the week
Banker Marty Bednarek, a Democratic candidate for the 6th Council District, in Northeast Philadelphia, complains that his rival, Bobby Henon, is getting "unfair assistance" from his employer, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which had him appear in the union's sponsorship television commercial for Sunday's St. Patrick's Day Parade.
Local 98 leader John Dougherty fires back, accusing Bednarek of violating federal banking laws by having outgoing Council member Joan Krajewski serve on the board of his employer, Washington Savings Bank, while helping his campaign.
Bednarek calls Dougherty's accusation "very frivolous."
A brief note on Nazis
A state official in charge of natural-gas drilling on state-owned lands last week compared a documentary filmmaker critical of gas drilling to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda.
It's a controversial issue. Some people think that the film, "Gasland," uses bogus science. Some people think the Corbett administration is bought and paid for by deep-pocket gas interests.
We received several calls and e-mails - our favorite was the boldly anonymous voice-mail calling us sissies - from people who wondered why our story didn't mention that some protesters used Nazi comparisons against a Republican governor in the Wisconsin state budget battle.
Here's PhillyClout's policy for newspapers, unions, politicians, government staffers, television commenters, anonymous callers and so on: Only people who do things similar to what the Nazis did should be compared to Nazis. Let's all hope we never have to use that comparison. And the knee-jerk the-other-side-does-it-too defense is just plain lame.
Quotable:
"Remember how everyone was down on Brother Mike? When I was at Lewisburg, nobody liked him. Then he starts winning and people start liking him. Well, give us a chance to win, too."
- Former City Councilman
and prison inmate Rick Mariano, calling Philadelphia Eagles quarterback and former prison inmate Mike Vick his hero in testimony on legislation to make it easier for felons to find jobs.
Have tips or suggestions? Call Chris Brennan at 215-854-5973 or e-mail
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