Letters: Tax amnesty is a symptom, not the cure

IFELT SHOCK and awe reading Councilwoman Joan Krajewski's recent op-ed,

"Let's Make a Deal on Tax Amnesty."

Shock that she's just realizing that people in Philadelphia are struggling to make ends meet - and, yes, some proud Philadelphians are behind in their city taxes and need help. And awe that she feels amnesty is the answer. Doesn't she understand that if the city continues to not control its costs when our tax base is shrinking, we will be in this same budget situation in the future?

We've learned in the last few weeks that the city has a problem collecting, even from its own employees, the taxes and fees all citizens are required to pay. I recommend that if we do a tax amnesty that it not be run by the city but by an outside agency that will also help the people manage their fiscal affairs. The cost will be offset by the tough decisions that the city obviously can't make to collect its debts.

Dennis J. Regan, Philadelphia

The best part of Councilwoman Krajewski's recent op-ed was her reference to "Let's Make a Deal," because City Hall is so much like a game show.

The councilwoman starts out by letting us know that 90 percent of the calls her office gets involve help with city services like trash pickup and vacant lots.

While she may think it's great to let people know how much constituent service she performs, in reality it's embarrassing. What it shows is that she's known for years that people don't expect to get city services by calling the appropriate department (or the 3-1-1 system we now have in place), and she hasn't done anything to fix that problem.

Did City Council increase its budget during a financial crisis because they need to pay more staffers to answer phones? When it comes to permanently fixing the delivery of city services, Councilwoman Krajewski is obviously "The Weakest Link."

Next, the councilwoman goes into a story about a lady who owes $13,000 in back property taxes because she didn't always pay them every year since 1997. She then blames the interest and penalties for the current hefty bill and proceeds to say "it wasn't until she was threatened with a sheriff's sale that she finally started to ask for help."

So, from her own mouth, we see that penalties and interest aren't the problem, but the fact it took the city 12 years to address an issue of tax delinquency. If the city addresses delinquency before all the penalties add up, then for the tax bill, maybe "The Price Is Right."

Until City Hall seriously deals with the problems of taxation, from rates to assessments to collections, our budget will always be in "Jeopardy."

Adam Lang, Philadelphia

Spiffing up Philadelphia

Some suggestions for the city:

Take the cars with loud mufflers and even louder radios off the streets. Put speed adjusters on motorcycles and motorbikes.

Get rid of the patios and decks built illegally. Condemn properties altered without permits. Fine all stores that let their trash and ad circulars blow through the neighborhoods. Make people use parks, rec centers and playgrounds instead of letting them have permits to close streets for private block parties.

If the uninsured drivers were taken off the roads, there would be a lot less wear and tear on the highways, and half the parking on the streets. You might even have an upswing in ridership on SEPTA.

There are many things that can be done before you think about raising taxes.

Bob Sutherland, Philadelphia

Those mystery 'flash mobs'

Both the Inquirer and Daily News have run articles on the "flash mob" beating, using the same term that I've never heard before.

The DN defines a flash mob as a group "consisting of more than 100 teens and young adults who converged on the area after responding to invitation posted on social-networking Web sites."

So who are these young adults? Computer geeks? Penn students? Gangs? A guy on a bicycle was savagely beaten.

We need to identify who these young adults are and what caused them to come together and riot. How else can we know how to avoid them? How can we deal with this issue if we just give this crowd of criminals a metaphoric title?

You do this city a disservice by not telling us who they are!

Yankel Gorokhofskij, Radnor

9/11 phoniness

In just a few days it will be the eighth anniversary of 9/11.

We'll hear speeches by politicians. We'll hear them pay tribute to the brave, selfless, heroic firefighters, 343 of whom perished that day. Then the next day we'll hear how the firefighters in this city and state are pleading to have their pensions left alone by those same politicians.

How disgusting.

Joseph Lee, Philadelphia