Tuesday round-up

• Politicians
  
  
  
  • Presumptive mayor-elect Michael Nutter made his peace with the political machine yesterday, most notably with party chief Bob Brady (might the mention of Nutter's desire to make the party "more open" mean an end to the treatment of "young activists as fungus" [to quote Ferrick]?) and to ward leaders, most of whom backed his former rival.
    
    
  • An Inquirer piece shows Evans' return to Harrisburg, where he begins his reign as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
    
    
  • Nutter was also in the capital, not only to make peace with Evans, but to attempt to improve Philadelphia's relationship with the rest of the state. Baer is skeptical, although he notes that Nutter intends to open a Harrisburg office to help facilitate better communications.
    
    
  • As long as we're talking about Nutter, his victory speech can now be seen online, a combination of deserved celebration with hopeful statesmanship. A new day!
  
  
• Casinos
  
  Surprising few, the shadow ballots run on election day showed overwhelmining opposition to placing casinos so close to residential neighborhoods; less clear is what the actual ballot measure result would have been (especially since many voters had to got out of their way to find the special poll locations) -- casino developers point to the small totals as a victory for their side. Noteworthy here is that Frank DiCicco has been "driving around" the Fishtown Foxwoods casino guys, in hopes of selling them on another location -- what do you think the odds on success there might be?
  
  
• Other bits
  
  
  
  • The former head of the Independence Seaport Museum has now been officially charged with embezzling heaps of money from the institution during his time there. The itemization of luxury items that he charged to the museum is really mind-boggling.
    
    
  • There's some interest in what Vallas' severance package will be. Given that he has two years left on his contract, it could be nontrivial.
    
    
  • Folks at YPP keep us abreast of developments nearly buried in the election fury: a city plan to prevent climate change that was released a few weeks ago, and a trip to Harrisburg tomorrow to rally in support of better state healthcare.
    
    
  • AAJane notes that Patrick Murphy is one of the sponsors of a 21st Century G.I. bill -- she also notes some different but overlapping bills by others that are languishing in committee...