Nutter meets resistance on higher parking rates

The considerable hullabaloo about Philadelphia's imposing a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks has drowned out another proposal that Mayor Nutter is pushing.

Higher parking rates.

The mayor wants to increase the hourly cost of street parking in Center City and University City to generate an extra $6 million as part of a strategy to come up with at least $75 million for the Philadelphia School District.

Higher meter rates are hardly music to the ears of those working day and night to keep breathing life into two of the city's most popular neighborhoods.

While this would not technically be raising a tax, "it is clearly a way that would increase the cost of doing business, and it would increase the cost for people to shop in the downtown," said Paul Levy of the Center City District.

Unlike the sugar-sweetened-drink tax Nutter is pushing, also to raise money for the School District, this proposal does not need City Council approval, his aides have said. Or does it?

Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who represents University City, said that the neighborhood's meters had gone from $1 an hour to $1.50 in 2009 and to $2 last year - and that they were capped at that rate by legislation.

And guess what? Blackwell is unwilling to introduce a bill to change the cap. "I called my university presidents," she said Friday. "They're not for it. And I'm not sponsoring it."

Philadelphia Parking Authority executive director Vince Fenerty thinks Blackwell got it wrong, because University City parking is $1.50 right now. "She must just be a little mistaken," he said. - Marcia Gelbart

Last week's scurrying by Council to come up with a solution to the School District crisis - or, as some suggested, to run away from one - provided an excellent leadership contest before the Council presidency changes next year.

The leading candidates to succeed Anna C. Verna are Majority Leader Marian B. Tasco and Majority Whip Darrell L. Clarke, who hold the second and third leadership positions. They have been busy, and the company they kept suggests some interesting presidential pairings.

Clarke started out of the gate the previous week with a proposed amendment to raise property taxes 3.5 percent, combining with other city measures to give the schools $50 million, about half of what Superintendent Arlene Ackerman requested. Clarke also proposed that the new tax funding go first to the city - to be doled out to the School District in grants only if it met certain conditions.

Then Thursday, Tasco met with Ackerman in Verna's office with a number of other Council members; Clarke said he had found out about the meeting only well after it had begun.

Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sánchez, an old Tasco friend, pushed for the meeting. And Councilman Bill Green, Sánchez's colleague and sometime ally, backed Clarke's "accountability grant."

Verna leaves at the end of the year after 12 years as president, 36 as a member of Council, and 51 working for the city. "Heard in the Hall" will be ringside in January for the fight to replace her. - Jeff Shields