Thursday round-up

Chewy

• The Inquirer speculates about Bob Brady's entry into the mayoral race (official announcement fest tonight), as a test of his personal pull and the strength of The Machine. The Daily News focuses on his everyman pull.
  
  
• This year's elections also features some interesting judicial races, including some for the State Supreme Court; these posts are getting more scrutiny after the pay hike furor of 2005... (More on the ratings offered by the Bar Association here.)
  
  
• The PA state legislature is getting some reform activity underway: O'Brien's Reform Commission started meeting yesterday, talking about setting hours for legislative deliberation, a minimum period between introduction of bills and voting on them, and other sanities. (More here.) One young freshman Democrat isn't waiting for broader transparency rules to be enacted; he's putting his legislative expense accounts on the web for public inspection.

Quick Bits

• The City Paper traces the history of the North Philadelphia train station, including numerous failed plans to revive its fortunes.
  
  
• AAJane asks and answers the question What is a County Controller? in anticipation of this year's local elections.
  
  
• The Inquirer is planning an "express" version? perhaps to compete with the Metro?
  
  
• Opinions on who's in and out: Mary Patel wonders about Anastasio, likely to challenge DiCicco again in the 1st District Council race. (I'd call this a low suspense question!) Another CityPaper columnist is glad to see Doc out of the mayoral race, but not for the reasons named by others.
  
  
• Stu visits the slots so you don't have to.
  
  
• The Next Great City project hopes to put environmental and quality-of-life issues on the table for city leaders.
  
  
• The DN opinion page likes Wilson Goode's suggestion of how to fund Philadelphia's schools with tax-stream magic.
  
  
• The CityPaper makes a plea for the repopulation of City Hall public spaces.
  
  
• And finally, a pleasing slice of imagery from the WashWest part of Philadelphia, with musings on the pedestrian commute that so many of us know and love.