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Deni Playground Improvements Coming

Councilwoman Sanchez laid out plans for major improvements to Deni Playground at a community meeting on November 27th.

The project will completely rebuild the children’s play area at a cost of $345,000.  Work will start this Spring and should be completed early in the Summer.

The meeting at St. Marks’s was very well attended with families who brought their children to see what was in the plan.  In addition to Councilwoman Sanchez, State Representative-Elect Joe Hohenstein, and ward leader Dan Savage were present as well.

The improvements were welcomed by everyone but there were some questions about the use of the playground for the future.  Accessibility and security were concerns with past experience of 4 wheelers getting onto the field and tearing it up.  The children’s play area is always open but the field below is locked now and is closed annually between December and March.

Sanchez made a point that the Friends of Deni group is very important to the future of the playground.  Friends groups work with City officials to plan and communicate neighborhood concerns.  Future issues to be addressed are the tennis courts, bathrooms and improved lighting.

Slideshow from the meeting is below.  It shows some renderings of what the plan is now.

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The Savaging of Tina Tartaglione

Political Commentary by John Buffington is the first in a series.  His opinions are entirely his own.

My friend Joe Menkevich and I were planted on adjacent bar stools when Danny Savage strolled up looking for the possible vote.

Joe is always ready with conversation for a politician. This time my ears started to vibrate when Danny said that his opponent, Sen. Tartaglione, voted twice against taxing Marcellus Shale gas production. I got Danny to repeat that one directly to me, and he promised to send me the details.

No follow-up from Danny has ever arrived. Danny’s campaign literature doesn’t include a phone number. The number at Danny’s website is disconnected; it forwards to another number that is also disconnected. Danny is unreachable by telephone.

So I researched Sen. Tartaglione’s record on shale gas taxation without further help from Danny.

What Sen. T voted against was Act 13, which includes a modest “extraction fee”. Republicans who have sworn to avoid new taxes need euphemisms, so the Act 13 tax became an “extraction fee”.

Tina Tartaglione wasn’t alone in voting against Act 13. Every Democrat in the state Senate voted No on final passage.

Act 13 is the Corbett administration’s vehicle for turning Pennsylvania into the Saudi Arabia of Shale gas production. It isn’t especially controversial hereabouts, yet, because there’s a moratorium on fracking in the Delaware River basin and the pipelines haven’t been built through here yet. So you can’t smell or taste fracking in Philadelphia. Yet.

Danny Savage’s campaign flyers claim that he will “fight to pass a real tax will on natural gas drilling…”. Maybe so, but it’s not good to start the effort by lying about your opponent’s record.

On March 31, Sen. T. and four other senators started circulating a request for additional sponsors for SB 1333, which would impose a 5% tax on shale gas extraction.

I have been observing politics with horrible fascination for more than 50 years. I have seen plenty of politicians blowing smoke like Danny. It is a pleasure; believe me, when I occasionally stumble on a politician who is doing the right thing for purely virtuous reasons, and doing it quietly.

It isn’t politically correct around here, yet, to do the right thing about shale gas extraction because you can’t smell or taste the poison here, yet. Tina Tartaglione looks to me like a politician who is doing the right thing quietly.

I asked the Brendan Boyle campaign about his position on taxing fracking proceeds and learned that he voted against Act 13.

I asked the Daylin Leach campaign and they referred me to a staff member in Senator Leach’s office. It turns out that Sen. Leach is devoting a lot of resources to this also, despite the lack of promotional potential.

Imagine that. I stumbled on not one but two politicians in the same campaign season who actively care about the public interest.

Senator Leach voted against Act 13 and has signed on as a sponsor of SB 1333. His staff member gave me enough material to write a book on fracking.

I also heard from a third school of thought. The Delaware Riverkeeper takes the position that fracking to produce natural gas is inherently disastrous for both air and water, and taxing it is just a distraction. Their website is a good place to start finding out about the issue. www.delawareriverkeeper.org

I plan to do an occasional piece on local politics for the Gazette. If you spot a politician blowing smoke, please let me know.

John Buffington
May 2014
Johnbton47@gmail.com
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State Representative Elect James Clay Jr. Escorts Members of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly

State Representative elect James “Scoot” Clay Jr. (D HR 179) along with 23rdDemocratic Ward Leader Danny Savage took time out this past Tuesday on election day to guide an international group of elected Parliamentarian election observers to a number of polling places in his district.

The group of observers from the independent organization that is recognized by the UN is called the Office for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The observers included Lord Dubs from the House of Lords in the UK Parliament, Trond Helleland from the Norwegian Parliament, Dutch Senator Pauline Meurs and Swiss Parliamentarian Hugues Hiltpold.

Clay was elected Tuesday as State Representative in the 179th District.  Clay said, “It was a pleasure to meet with these international elected leaders and show them first hand how the citizens of the 179th district take part in the election process for our President. Our well-informed and committed citizens impressed our visiting guests from the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland. It was great meeting with them and sharing our experiences.”

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Post Election Notes

The primary election on May 17th was a low turnout event as was expected.  Councilwoman Maria  Quiñones-Sánchez defeated Danny Savage for the Democratic party nomination for the 7th District City Council seat.  Congratulations to them both for a hard fought contest.

I was curious about who was supporting which candidate.  Sanchez raised over twice as much money as Savage did, so I took at look at the contribution reports.  Both candidates got  a lot of money from other politicians, businesses, unions, lawyers, PACs and such.  There were also many small donors in the hundred dollar range.

There was only one surprise and I found it on the Sanchez contribution list.  The 8th largest contributor gave $5,200 on April 4th.  This contributor, COSAN LLC is the owner of the property where the Bridge has proposed to relocate on Adams Avenue.

 

A zoning variance is required before that can happen since the property is now zoned G2 heavy industrial.  At present the Northwood and Juniata Civics have both indicated that they would write a letter of support to the zoning board for the change (past coverage here).  Tony Payton, State Representative has also indicated support.  Councilwoman Sanchez at last hearing said she was undecided.

Jason Dawkins Says:
April 14th, 2011 at 12:04 pm edit

Bob, Councilwoman Sánchez did not express any decision on the Bridge. She stated before that she was going wait until all community members voted, before making any public decision.

There is nothing wrong with giving to the candidates.  Many of the donors gave to both candidates, I guess to cover all the bases.  Many of the donors gave to other candidates for other offices in the election.  The donors make their donations for various reasons.  See the Inquirer story from Sunday about the donations from the soft drink folks.

Thanks to a commenter, I have another surprise.  I did not know Terrence McSherry but he is the CEO of NET (Northeast Treatment Centers).  He donated $100 to the Savage campaign and $100 to Sanchez.  Thanks Kathleen. If anybody finds anything else, let me know.

Elections cost a lot of money.  Money has to be raised and there is nothing inappropriate in taking any donation you can get.  That is a fact of life.  It’s politics.

You can see what the donations for Sanchez and Savage look like below.  If nothing else, it’s interesting.  Thanks to the Committee of Seventy for help in finding the information.

Sanchez donations here.

Savage donations here.