Red Light Cameras To Circle City Hall

At first, only Northeast Philly’s residents had to deal with red light cameras on the Boulevard. Now they’ve slowly been creeping around the city, collecting big fines for the state, big contracts for the red light camera companies and big campaign contributions for the politicians (from the red light camera companies).

And now they’re going to put red light cameras outside City Hall, because it will lead to instant free hilarity when a politician gets a fine in the mail and attempts to get out of it.

Councilman Jim Kenney is talking about the rampant red-light running around City Hall. He says a pedestrian could get hit: “Especially in some of the blind spots, when you step off the curb around Dilworth Plaza, and people are speeding up and you can’t see them coming until they’re right on top of you. We need to modify the behavior, and the cameras have clearly modified behavior in other parts of the city. And I think it’ll do it around City Hall.”

Yeah, cameras, the complete behavior-modification system. I can’t wait ’til they start to have these things for pedestrians. It might not happen until 2070, but there will be riots.

Next Location for Phila. Red Light Cameras: Around City Hall [KYW 1060]
Photo by functoruser used under a Creative Commons license

City Hall Is A Paris Cafe

Transformers 2 has been shooting in town recently, and currently City Hall has been transformed (ho!) into a Parisian cafe near the École Militaire stop on the Paris Metro.

Why the Transformers go to Paris, I do not know. (For culture?) My favorite little bit of movie-filming-in-town gossip comes from my friend John on Twitter, who passed a box labeled “hero plates” sometime last week.

You’re Reading This At City Hall, We Know

Philadelphia Chief Information Officer Terry Phillis told City Council today 65 percent of traffic from phila.gov computers is just people screwing around.

She added that the city now has software to monitor everyone’s Internet account; the city will probably start cracking down on idiots downloading porn at work and hilarious stories of employees fired for porn will grace our TV news channels during sweeps week. That’s all fine and dandy, especially since there’s probably also a large chance the city’s new Internet-monitoring technology Phillis said City Hall “had to go out and buy” won’t work.

Phillis also says she now wants to balance the employees’ right to privacy against the right for the city to not have its employees goofing off all day. I’m no fan of Internet filters (duh) but it seems like the city should have had at least a plan in place to filter Internet traffic if that’s what they wanted to do. Shouldn’t that actually have been done in like 1998?

Maybe, pretty soon the city will be offering free Earthlink Dial-Up Networking. Oh, and thanks for stopping by, phila.gov employees. Please continue to fight the man by visiting my blog as often as possible. It’s your duty as a municipal employee.

65 Percent of City Hall Internet Traffic Goes To “Improper” Web Pages [Clout]

Nutter Calls For Truce Between City Workers, Residents

Michael Nutter would very much like it if you weren’t such a dick to city employees, please?

“Quite honestly, sometimes the public is not as nice as they could be when they encounter a public employee. All of this is about how we treat each other. It doesn’t cost anything to be nice to someone. It doesn’t cost anything to demonstrate mutual respect. Treat people the way you want to be treated.”

Oh, man. Who knew Michael Nutter was Jesus, telling us to turn the other cheek, to love one another as ourselves. Call me a Doubting Thomas, though. I’ll need to see some water-into-wine action before I believe.

Nutter Wants to Apply the ‘Golden Rule’ to City Hall [KYW 1060]

Ron Paul Would Not Stand For This

Hillary is an hour and fifteen minutes late to her 1:15 appearance at City Hall. Thanks, Mike.

Hillary Clinton At City Hall Today

You now have afternoon plans! (Update: Just kidding, you aren’t invited.) Everyone’s favorite presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, will be appearing at City Hall at 1:15 this afternoon as part of some sort of non-campaign event.

Okay, no, there will probably be some campaigning involved; she’s stopping in the mayor’s reception room for a ceremony and then heading off to New Jersey, which has a primary Feb. 5 and so actually matters. Sadly, Bill Clinton will not be appearing in Cherry Hill as planned; he’ll be stumping for Ron Paul in Florida instead.

Update 2: Oh, Rendell is going to endorse her today. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania’s primary is after the 2008 general election.

Hillary Clinton will visit Phila. City Hall today [Inquirer]

Someone Moved In To A New Office!

A reader sends a screenshot from his blog.

Hmm… looking to buy an antique desk for City Hall, or looking to sell one leftover in the office in order to cut the wage tax?

Celebrity-Deprived Locals Flock To Nutter

See, See, I was right! Yesterday, Michael Nutter hosted at open house at City Hall and like 80 billion people showed up and the line stretched all around the street. It was like the Phillies were in the playoffs again. It was even 60 degrees outside. Only John Street got booed at the Phillies rally, while Nutter had people shaking his hands and whatnot.

The event was supposed to go until around 8:00 p.m., but Nutter stayed in line for two more hours (six in all) to accomodate all the number of people involved. (Thousands, actually.) And Erin O’Hearn — she’s good, this is the only reason I link Action News anymore due to the annoying talking guy — talked to some dude who waited for two hours with his 12-year-old daughter. Social services investigated after that, probably.

But, hey, he’s a master of PR and everybody likes him so far and now people are already cautioning us that he hasn’t done anything yet except that crime emergency thing and shake hands. But, for now, ah, hooray; without any celebrities or good sports teams, look what we Philadelphians are reduced to!

Thousands visit Philadelphia City Hall [6 ABC]

Mayor Nutter To Shake Your Hand

Last year, mayoral candidate Tom Knox said he was going to take the For Sale sign off City Hall. He didn’t win, so perhaps the sign is still up. But since Michael Nutter managed to outsmart everyone else to victory, he gets to put up whatever sign he wants. And he’s chosen a… well, I guess he’s chosen a for sale sign again, since he’s holding an open house today!

Well, why else would he be holding an open house?

Okay, so there’s no for sale sign, apparently. But as you may have heard, today from 4 to 8 Michael Nutter will be in Room 201 of City Hall, willing to meet all the crackpots in the city and probably pose for photos. With his crime emergency yesterday and today’s open house, Nutter already has the public relations side of the job down. Now who’s up for dressing in mascot suits and getting photos with Nutter in City Hall?

Some Kid Jerry Is Really Stupid

From a Daily News story earlier this week about how Michael Nutter managed to win the mayor’s race:

Shortly after Nutter’s victory, a postcard addressed to “Olivia Nutter, City Hall, Philadelphia” arrived.

“My dad voted for your dad,” the card said in childish block handwriting.

“He says he will make a great mayor. Will you live in City Hall and ride the elevator to your room? Thank You, Jerry.”

Yeah, she’s gonna live in Billy Penn’s hat, Jerry. If you want to make out with Olivia Nutter, there are better ways to do it than this.

Winning Formula [Daily News]