Monday, July 17, 2006

Monday deluge I: Philadelphia bits

  • Increasing use of electronic tax returns is putting IRS employees out of a job, and will prompt the closing of a tax processing center in NE Philadelphia by next fall. The center (one of many being phased out around the country) used to employ several thousand folks, and claims that it will be helping them find positions elsewhere in the IRS, federal government, or private sector.

  • City tech czar Dianah Neff is taking some flak for her frequent business trips, including some underwritten by wireless vendors, etc. I'm all for spreading buzz, but let's get an actual program up and running too!

  • Philadelphia insider politics follows the population to the shore, where a Brady fundraiser became a speculation fest about mayoral aspirants, city council wannabees, and others.

  • Speaking of speculations, the Inquirer connects the dots on Nutter's mayoral plans, including advertising for a campaign manager.

  • City gun violence is in the news again, with two pieces in the Daily News covering (1) and Anti-Violence Summit yesterday, at which organizations and individuals pledged to work together for community healing, and (2) John Baer shares a heap of reader response to his discussion of proposed gun legislation and other aspects of the problem. Unsurprisingly, he concludes that there are no fixes, which gets us back to the longer-term undertaking of (1)...

  • Meanwhile, as attention is focused on the high rate of gun homicides, it turns out that drug overdoses are killing even more people in the city than are their fellow residents. Some of them are due to a new component, fentanyl, showing up in local drug mixes. [This article can't actually decide whether it's about drugs or gun violence. A little weekend ADD?]

  • A visiting DN opinion columnist would like to see the Olympics come to Philadelphia, but thinks that we shouldn't wait for that external prod before investing in our own infrastructure and carefully planning the city's growth.

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