Nutter Asks For 10,000 Cleaners

By now you may have heard that Michael Nutter is attempting to clean up our city. He’s going to go out with a mop and bucket himself and clean up City Hall (or something), and he wants 10,000 men people to clean up with city on April 5.

He wants us to remove on million pounds of trash from our city’s streets on 5,000 city blocks, and he even has a nice press release quote that even tells us when we have to be clean: “I want thousands of Philadelphians to join me out in the streets of this city from 9am to 2pm on April 5th to make our city beautiful.”

And after 2 pm: Littering party!

Mayor Finds Way To Watch ‘Wire’ For Free

Now that The Wire is ending and everyong is letting you know they watch it so they seem so hip, urban and cultured — and ‘cuz it’s a good show, no doubt — it’s obvious Michael Nutter is going to get in on that action. He’s holding a screening at City Hall on Sunday for the show’s finale. He also got HBO to sanction the showing, so he’s not committing piracy like we’re warned not to on so many FBI and INTERPOL bulletins we can’t fast forward through on some DVD players.

“As a fan, it’s tremendous,” said Nutter. “I want to say thank you to HBO for responding.” Oh, yes, benevolent HBO, allowing this free publicity and endorsement from the mayor of a major American city. The final episode of The Wire airs Sunday at 8 p.m.; you can win tickets for the City Hall screening through a couple of newspapers.

What’s excellent is how angry people are. Oh, wait, it’s the Internet, that’s why things are always excellent. The comment on the Daily News story is angry; the comments on Catherine Lucey’s blog post about it yesterday were angry. Hey, it’s Sunday night at 8. What else is Nutter gonna be doing?

Nutter to screen “The Wire” finale in City Hall [Philly Clout]
Nutter opens City Hall for HBO finale [Daily News]

Ex-Con Hired To Hire Ex-Cons

If you’ve been in Philadelphia for a while, you might remember Ron Cuie, the deputy mayor who tied up and tortured a friend back in 1999. Well, ha ha, he’s back in the deputy mayor’s position!

This time, though, he’s the head of the Mayor’s Office for the Reentry of Ex-Offenders, which is appropriate. It seems that as long as you are a former deputy mayor, you can return to your old job (deputy mayor) eventually. Anyway, Nutter, Cuie and (of course) Arlen Specter want to make it so that you don’t have to be a deputy mayor in order to have a job coming out of prison.

And here’s the best sentence written about his appointment, over at Young Philly Politics: “If he hadn’t gone too far, and hadn’t ended up beating, tying up, and torturing a companion, it is pretty unlikely that his coke habit would have gotten him thrown in jail.”

Nutter taps ex-con for prisoner re-entry office [Daily News]

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]

Media-Shy Mayor Makes TV Appearance

Oh, so here’s Michael Nutter on ABC World News Tonight last night. This is notable because last night’s evening news pushed Michael Nutter past John Street on “number of media appearances made as mayor.”

Mayor Nutter Drinks Brains Of John Street

Last night at TLA/Philebrity screening series at National Mechanics — I’m totally going next week for Dr. Strangelove — Michael Nutter was there. Super cool. And, if you know anything about National Mechanics’ pint glasses, they have photos of, erhm, famous Philadelphians on them like Bill Cosby and Gary Heidnik.

And somebody was smart enough to get this photo:

Yep. That’s Michael Nutter, drinking from a John Street glass. This is way better than when I was in high school and we used to see John Street at Franklin Mills.

Photo by Pete Radocaj
Thanks, Alex!

The Mayor Has Forgotten How To Drive

Michael Nutter has been mayor for only 24 days, but he’s already missing his car. KYW 1060 caught up with him at a preview event for the Philadelphia Auto Show:

Surrounded by local mascots, Nutter drove the [hybrid] car a few yards on the bridge between the Main Hall and Grand Hall, to promote Saturday’s opening of the show.

He says that as as mayor, he doesn’t get the chance to drive himself much anymore: “What I’d really like to do is just kind of go up and back for the rest of the afternoon and really test my driving skills.”

Come on, Mike! You have many, many more years of being chauffeured around town; by the end of your term(s) you won’t even remember where the turn signals are. All that info’s going to be pushed out of your brain anyway. Driving up and back a few yards isn’t going to do much.

Mayor Nutter Eyes Preparations for Upcoming Auto Show [KYW 1060]

Michael Nutter At Little Pete’s!

You know, Mayor Nutter, I were really starting to feel like I could get sick of you — already, I know! — and then you go and eat breakfast at Little Pete’s, and all is forgiven.

Then I find out you’re at Little Pete’s pretty much every day, and it actually gets confusing: How have I never seen the mayor there? As regular of a customer as I am… oh, Nutter probably goes before noon. Still, pretty awesome.

Breakfast With The World’s Best Mayor [FrankRoche.com]

Verizon Workers Get New ‘Lower Wages’

Yesterday, Michael Nutter’s office sent out a press release about 400 new jobs in Philadelphia Verizon would bring to the city. It’s unclear what, if anything, Nutter did to bring the jobs into the city; perhaps he carried in 400 new workers on his back over City Ave.

But it is clear one thing: Verizon’s workers get kinda sorta screwed in the deal. Any of the 400 workers — relocated from Conshy, Ardmore and Upper Darby — who doesn’t live in the city now have to pay the non-resident city wage tax of 3.7 percent.

It’s okay, though, Verizon’s Pennsylvania president thinks the workers will be just thrilled: “I think the opportunity to work in these new buildings that have been rehabbed, to be part of the city, to work downtown, is going to be very exciting for people. I think they’re really going to like it. I think our employees are going to be very pleased.” He made sure to note the workers wouldn’t be getting higher wages.

Mayor Nutter On Hardball

Mix Master Mayor went on Hardball last night to talk to white-haired goon/political pundit Chris Matthews.

Matthews — a Philadelphia native who was going to run for the U.S. Senate in ‘06, remember??? — tells Nutter he watched his campaign and asks him how we can bring the country together during a presidential election.

Nutter says if the Republicans decide to run a former landscaper or maybe Larry West, the campaign should be pretty upbeat.

Matthews then asks the mayor about young people, but Philadelphia doesn’t have any of those.

[via The 700 Level]