Philadelphia has elected a new District Attorney. Seth Williams is the first African-American D.A. in Philadelphia after a landslide win against Republican Michael Untermeyer: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/69051812.html

Seth also joins a growing list of candidates who have won using Drupal. Zivtech was proud to support Seth and is looking forward to seeing what he can accomplish as District Attorney.

See Seth's site: http://www.votesethwilliams.com

As an activist, writer (occasionally), and Drupal developer, it only makes sense that I'd spend a beautiful Saturday at the News Innovation conference.

The subject is the future of journalism. The print newspaper is dying. Newsrooms are being slashed. Meanwhile the social web is growing. How can we preserve the elements of journalism that are necessary for democracy? How can we take advantage of this shift to push those elements further? How can we have a more diverse, accurate, just and responsive media? What are the social and technological configurations that can get us there?

Read the full breakdown by MMP:

School Commission Votes Up Plan for Charter Handover

Here are some clips from the School Notebook and Daily News on the yes-vote by the School Reform Commission tonight on the Imagine 2014 plan. The plan includes a wide range of changes for the district, which most agree on. However, questions still remain of what role parents, students and teachers will play in deciding which schools are closed and reopened as charters.

congrats to my friend Caryn who was selected as Philadelphia NOW's activist of the year!!!!

see below:

In the past decade, 13 hospitals in Philadelphia have either closed altogether or closed their maternity departments, because, they say, childbirth is unprofitable. We are now in danger of losing Northeastern Hospital. Nonetheless, the babies keep coming. According to the very excellent report "Insuring Healthy Births" by the Maternity Care Coalition, "pregnancy and childbirth now account for 25% of all hospitalizations in the United States". Yet pregnant women have an increasingly difficult time getting adequate, affordable insurance and access to the care they need. Philadelphia NOW will join Maternity Care Coalition in Harrisburg on May 4th to promote needed fixes to maternity care delivery in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia NOW Celebrates
Local Women Leaders

Philadelphia Ethical Society, 1906 Rittenhouse Square
Friday, May 1, 2009 - 5:30 to 7:30PM

Please join us as we honor
CARYN HUNT
for
HER LEADERSHIP FIGHTING CLOSING OF MATERNITY UNITS IN PHILA HOSPITALS

DEE JOHNSON
for
HER ADVOCACY FOR WOMEN IN PRISON

DORIS PRIDGEN
for
HER MANY CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHILA NOW AND PENNSYLVANIA NOW

here is a press release from Acorn. they've done some # crunching and found that Comcast gets $4.6 million a year in tax abatements. given the current crisis that should be reconsidered. this is part of the Coalition of Essential Services which I've participated in:

Yearly Multi-Million Dollar Abatements and Poor Customer Service:
It’s Comcastic!

Taxpayers to rally, say, “We’re not satisfied either!”

Who: ACORN members along with the Coalition for Essential Services
When: Wednesday, April 22nd – 12 Noon
Where: 1701 JFK Boulevard (The Comcast Center)

In light of the City’s budget crisis, ACORN and its allies are calling for an end to tax abatements for Comcast and Liberty Property Trust and other large corporations.

Here is Jonathan Stein's (head attorney at CLS) letter to the Daily News that never got published in response to this. He says it better than I:

To the Daily News Editor,

If there's living proof that the Reagan era's legacy of unabashed subsidies for the wealthiest lives on, despite the biggest recession since the Depression, its the People's Paper zealous embrace of tax abatements for buyers of $7.7 million condos at Two Liberty Place. (Editorial of Apr. 6, 2009) Beyond your bold assertion of the necessity of this tax give-away, there's no convincing evidence that the private market place would not have developed these prime locations for mega-millionaire purchasers.

New York state recently enacted tax increases on the wealthy creating two new tax brackets for those making over $300,000 and $500,000 a year. The state will raise $4 billion from the increases. While this is represents what the NYT describes as "signal of the new balance of power in Albany, where Democrats won control of both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office in last year’s election" it is interesting that the democratic governor, accepted the plan after winning significant spending cuts in areas like health care and education.

So while this is a victory for those who have been dismayed by the rising inequality in this country over the last thirty years it doesn't necessarily represent a move on the state level to significantly reverse that trend.

In recent months there has been a great deal of hand wringing in the national media around the global economic meltdown. We hear about the failure of banks, large payouts to executies, and the downward turn of the financial markets.

Locally, our media has focused on the city's budget gap with the only fix an increase of taxes on working people and making "touch choices" about city services.

as helen g. points out at ypp:

In a shocking turn of events, both the Inquirer and the Daily News are reporting that School Reform Commission Chair Sandra Dungee Glenn may be off the SRC. Media reports say that she may be replaced by attorney Robert Archie.

A video from the NORGs confence: http://www.buzzmachine.com/2006/03/25/saving-journalism-and-killing-the-...