City Council Approves FiOS

Hot diggity! Today City Council gave final approval to a 15-year franchise to Verizon for its FiOS TV service.

Here’s my favorite part of Catherine Lucey’s Clout post on the decision:

Councilman Bill Green had proposed adding an amendment to make the company pay more for public-access programming. But he withdrew those plans today after Mayor Nutter resolved the issue with local public access advocates.

Hey, know what we should do before making Verizon pay more for public-access programming? GET PUBLIC-ACCESS PROGRAMMING!

Council Gives Final Approval To Verizon FiOS Franchise [Clout]

City Council To Vote On Verizon

If Comcast is circling the PR wagons, that can only mean one thing: Competition is coming!

And, at least in Philadelphia, what do you know: Today’s City Council meeting has just started, and today our fine public servants will vote on Verizon Fios’ entry into the city.

Though, reports the Inquirer, we won’t be sitting with faster Internet speeds and cheaper TV anytime soon:

[T]he council’s public works commission may finally decide whether to allow Verizon to offer cable television inside Philadelphia. Building the Verizon network would be a multi-year construction project.

I’m still not sure how this isn’t a done deal already, as Philadelphia is not known for needing palm-greasing or any other kind of back-scratching in order to get things done. We will have to wait and see.

Cleanup A Success No Thanks To Me

Michael Nutter was scheduled to announce this morning the citywide cleanup Saturday was a success; if cleanliness is next to godliness, then Philadelphia has escaped hell for purgatory.

On a report on Fox Saturday night, the mayor said that a clean city is a safe city. And then he added: “23,000 public employees, a million and a half citizens, we can’t do it all by ourselves. Your work, Kerri-Lee, and the many others who have gotten involved in this, it really makes a difference.”

Woo-hoo! Anybody tells you Philadelphia Will Do makes a difference, you can tell them I didn’t post about the citywide cleanup¹ and that I strive every day to not make a difference. I do enjoy Nutter’s shirt from benevolent corporate sponsor Verizon. There is no doubt Nutter is simply trying to emulate Bernard Hopkins and his GoldenPalace.com temporary tattoo.

Report from Fox 29’s Kerri-Lee Halkett after the jump. (Standard Redlasso it-could-kill-your-computer warning.)

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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.

Fumo Unable To Get Verizon To Just Give Him $15 Mil

Turns out Vince Fumo’s “I’m being unfairly targeted by President Bush” letter to his constituents (which was also paid for by his constituents) was pretty timely after all. Currently, Fumo’s lawyers are in court arguing for their right to represent Fumo in the most boring hearing in American history. The Inquirer is, of course, liveblogging it.

During yesterday’s portion of the hearings, prosecutors alleged Fumo and Verizon struck a “gentlemen’s agreement” that if Verizon gave the state senator a handjob (in this case, “handjob” means “millions of dollars to a law firm of his choosing”) he wouldn’t push to break up the company.

As talks proceeded, prosecutors say, Fumo offered to drop his fight and pushed Verizon to give $15 million to Citizens Alliance. Unlike Peco[, who gave $17 million], Verizon refused to do that. But according to the testimony yesterday, [ex-Verizon prez Dan] Whelan did agree to give an unspecified amount to the Philly Pops - orchestra conductor Peter Nero and Fumo are close friends - and to hire a law firm designated by Fumo.

Then everyone involved went to their vaults of gold coins and swum around a la Scrooge McDuck. Ha ha, rich people are awesome, aren’t they?

Details emerge on Fumo, Verizon [Inquirer]
The Case Against Sen. Fumo [Philly.com]

Leftovers: The T-Shirts Are Coming!

• The Daily News takes on t-shirts again today in an editorial, saving their greatest wrath not for me (aw, you guys!), but for the t-shirt manufacturers. Fair enough. But, please, nobody tell the editorial board about T-Shirt Hell (actual shirt pictured) — they might have an aneurysm. [Daily News]

• A building being demolished in Mt. Airy collapsed earlier today. Two men were trapped and later rescued. [NBC 10]

• If SEPTA doesn’t get a billion more in funding, fares will have to be increased or services will have to be cut. Oh, that’s okay, SEPTA’s better than perfect right now; they can afford to cut a few things. [Inquirer]

• Just as soon as the government has gotten rid of the fee added to all DSL services, Verizon is replacing it with a fee of its own. But of course. Inky biz columnist Andrew Cassell thinks it’s totally boffo. But of course. [Inky]

• Just one day after he was called up… Michael Bourn was back down to the minors. Quoting Paul Hagen: “Then, after the game ended, it was announced that Bourn had been optioned to make room for Hernandez. He arrived at the park just in time to get the news and never even put on a uniform. He’ll return to Florida and then accompany the U.S. Olympic qualifying team to Cuba tomorrow.” This is the second time he’s been called up and immediately sent back down this year. He’s going to punch out Pat Gillick pretty soon, I bet. [Daily News]

• Liberty Property Trust learns that it’s pretty easy being green at the Naval Yard. [Metro]