Pot, Kettle Call Each Other Black

There was some sparring at City Hall yesterday between World’s Greatest Leader Paul Vallas and Mayor John Street.

Vallas and Street’s back and forth was not really all that unexpected. The school district, you see, recently realized that (whoops!) it had a $70 million dollar deficit. It’s easy to realize how that could be misplaced. Street was not only angered at the deficit — he called it “a financial failure of the greatest magnitude” — he was angered that they just found out about the deficit now:

”I can’t think of a set of circumstances where somebody in the finance department wouldn’t know. I just can’t imagine that you just wouldn’t know that. Its just too much money. It’s 70 million dollars!… I have never seen anything like that in all of my 27 years in local government. I have never seen anything like that.”

Think about that for a second: John Street says he’s never seen anything this stupid. John. Street. Let that sink in. Yes, that’s how bad, uh, misplacing $70 million is. I guess.

Vallas, though, had some responses of his own, warning Street that “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” He’s using the nice old strategy of saying “Oh, you suck too, so it’s okay if I suck.” Excellent.

But Vallas’ real zinger came later:

“If I want schools to be adequately funded, I’d be better off petitioning Bloomberg in New York to make Philadelphia the sixth borough.”

Jesus. That was, like, what, a year ago? Last summer, even! People aren’t still quoting, say, Anchorman or making Napoleon Dynamite references, are they? (Uhh, don’t answer that.)

Mayor Street, Schools CEO Vallas Bicker Over Budget Shortfall [KYW 1060]
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