Phila. sees money in meters

Here's an interesting and potentially lucrative idea that has been making the rounds in City Hall: Privatize big chunks of the Philadelphia Parking Authority by selling or leasing assets - from meters to parking garages - to private companies. Get a big fee up front, save on operating expenses, and put a dent in Philadelphia's biggest patronage operation.

Chicago received a whopping $1.2 billion late last year when it sold to a private company the rights to manage and collect cash from its parking meters for 75 years. Which is great. Then the private operators quadrupled meter rates. Not so great.

City Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler acknowledged that she had been "looking at" privatizing meters, and last week, Mayor Nutter had a poll in the field that asked (among other questions) how Philadelphians would feel about privatizing the agency's off-street garages.

A spokesman for the Parking Authority said the agency was aware that the city was exploring the ideas, but declined to comment further.

Politically, privatization would be a challenge. The Parking Authority is run by the state, not the city. The agency also has powerful supporters, such as Reps. John Perzel and Dwight Evans.

Certainly, no changes are imminent. But there are plenty of reformers who might back privatizing Parking Authority functions, given that it could generate extra cash for city services and the school district.

- Patrick Kerkstra

Just how much money U.S. Rep. Bob Brady owes from his 2007 mayoral campaign seems to be a number in flux.

As reported in this space last week, Brady's mayoral campaign committee reported a debt of $572,588 in 2008. Earlier this year, though, the committee said in a campaign-finance report that it carried a debt of $11,780, with no record of most of the half-million dollars being repaid.

Last week, yet a new number surfaced, and it trumps the other two: $738,817.

What's going on?

For one thing, it seems a technical error was to blame for the earlier campaign-finance report that said the debt was $11,780. That report was filed electronically to the city's Records Department, as required by the Philadelphia Board of Ethics.

Apparently, though, an accountant entering the data for the campaign committee "put a space where there shouldn't have been a space" in the text files, said Shane Creamer, executive director of the Ethics Board. That caused the Records Department computers to read only part of the information that was entered, and made it seem as though much of the debt had disappeared. It hadn't.

Brady's committee became aware of the error last week - and also became aware that it had not submitted a paper report of its finances to the City Commissioners' Office. That also is required by law. (The committee will be fined $250 in late fees.)

The paper report showed that the debt was actually much higher, and that it included $448,468 to Cozen O'Connor, as previously reported.

But other people and firms owed money appeared in the report for the first time, including $84,312 owed to the law firm of Willig, Williams & Davidson.

Both firms represented Brady in a lawsuit in which rival Tom Knox tried to knock him off the primary ballot.

- Marcia Gelbart

There was an awkward moment at a city budget meeting last week, when Councilman Bill Green - who is often mentioned as a mayoral aspirant - blurted out, "Nobody wants a green city more than me," in the midst of a discussion on sustainability

The way he said it, it sounded a lot more like a "Green city" than a "green city."

There were laughs all around as Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler said, "That's a discussion for another day."

The remark was not lost on Mayor Nutter, either.

His eyebrows immediately shot up. He said, "Well . . ." And then he chuckled to himself for a few moments. One of Green's aides, meanwhile, shook her head as though to say: Why must he do these things?

Heard in the Hall would call it a Freudian slip, except it didn't seem like a slip at all.

- Patrick Kerkstra