Friday news

1. Political bits
   
   
   
   • More on the Sen. Santorum residency debate (discussed yesterday): Rick fires off an angry defense to his Alleghany paper. However, embarrassingly, another paper's attempt to get his opinions for their coverage before the primary was returned marked "not deliverable as addressed." The editorial points out that while this doesn't undermine his legal residency, nobody really believes anything other than that he doesn't live in PA anymore. Why does he keep fighting this?
     (latter link via Tom Ferrick's blog)
     
     
   • Apparently Pennsylvania's Republicans have overcome any divisions and settled on a consensus candidate for state chairman.
     
     
   • I don't know Carl Singley, but he's apparently a local character of various sorts of fame. Anyway, Gar Josephs offers some out-takes from an interview with Singley in which he gives some opinions of the mayoral contenders of the sort you seldom find said for the record.
     
     
   • Philadelphia's City Council has apparently signed off on a budget that included many of the compromises discussed here recently, but which chose not to lock in cuts to business taxes (for five years) as some had hoped.
     
     
   • Tom Ferrick takes a closer look at Lynn Swann's property tax proposal (see prev. here) and concludes that the inequities it would create make it extremely unlikely to ever be implemented (or even legal).
   
   
2. Other topics
   
   
   
   • Today's Daily News opinion page looks at Mayor Street's attempt to reorganize the city's housing agencies and encourages him to get the deal done (while worrying that he's made promises he can't fulfill).
     
     
   • An Inquirer editorial applauds the new trade apprentice program announced yesterday, both for its current benefits and for its historic symbolism.
     
     
   • DL columnist Jill Porter looks at some regional institutions that have been revitalized in recent years and wonders whether the Philly papers could be next in line for a positive transformation. It could happen.
     
     
   • And finally, Above Average Jane does the yeoman's work of digging through State Senate journals to find interesting discussions and bits of debate, especially on the minimum wage bill -- a valuable resource for those of us who often find the proceedings in Harrisburg inscrutible and secretive. She reports that the House journals are also available online now, so we can get some glimpses of the other set of legislators at work.