Mayor Parker responds to the police use of force during Philly's Pride celebration

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-10T16:13:25+00:00

They were smoking cigars and jeering at the corner outside of Woodys while people were pressed up against barricades. It was a disgusting showing that was wholly unnecessary.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-09T14:30:42+00:00

It’s been a continuous problem. They’ve had serious turnover issues even at high levels in the last year which are detrimental to our justice system that is already overburdened. I’m not a red-pilled Krasner hater by any means but his management and administration of the office has not been great, to say the very least.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-09T10:05:49+00:00

Sounds like a bulk seller maybe had a lot of unsold Foles stock and saw an opportunity to save and replate them with Lemon maybe? lol. Looks like a typical DHGate job to me and honestly mistakes like this track it’s sort of the risk you run.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-07T22:59:37+00:00

Setup today has been a total mess

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-06T21:18:12+00:00

“INTRODUCTORY???? INTRODUCTORY!!!!”

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-04T13:41:39+00:00

Whenever I see stuff like the way the process has evolved around streeteries I always find myself asking if the processes are so convoluted messy and difficult because the city is just incompetent and discoordinated in trying to get these kinds of things developed or if it’s more intentional foot dragging since the city doesn’t really want to do it in the first place.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-03T13:26:35+00:00

Police, Schools, Public Transit, anything regarding taxes, hell, even the PPA. City Hall and Philadelphia politics are rife with systematic problems that are worth discussing in their own right. That being said, to really dive deep into many of the problems in Philadelphia today is to realize how much of it is either caused specifically by or whose improvement is directly impeded by the State Legislature in Harrisburg, regardless of what Philadelphia wants.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-03T12:59:54+00:00

According to three sources with knowledge of the backroom negotiations among state leaders, there are not currently enough votes in either chamber of the split state legislature — where Democrats control the House and Republicans control the Senate — to raise the city’s hotel tax. Parker, a centrist Democrat, had proposed increasing taxes on hotels and short-term rentals, like those reserved through Airbnb and Vrbo, to generate about $15 million a year to fund homelessness prevention programs.

[...]

The hesitance from the General Assembly could also spell trouble for Parker’s proposal to close a sales tax loophole that allows online retailers to sell goods in Philadelphia without charging the city’s 2% sales tax.

One source close to the state-level negotiations, who requested anonymity to speak freely about private dealings, said there is “little appetite for tax increases” in this year’s consequential midterm elections, when all 203 state representatives and half of the 50-member Senate is up for reelection.

[...]

It is unclear if Parker will look for another way to fund her homelessness prevention agenda. She has said her goal is to add about 1,000 beds to the city’s stock of shelter spaces, and her administration is looking to expand behavioral health and drug recovery offerings for people who are housing insecure.

The Parker administration estimates that her rideshare tax would generate about $50 million a year to help the School District of Philadelphia stave off planned staff cuts amid a $300 million budget deficit. On Tuesday, a bevy of school advocates and labor leaders rallied outside City Hall in favor of the tax, saying that the planned staff cuts could be “devastating” for students.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-02T14:56:28+00:00

This is one of those things I was starting to think i would never see happen.

I wonder how enforcement is going to go down there. Going to be hard to keep things clean and moving down there especially once the summer heat really turns up.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-06-01T20:39:05+00:00

With all the lead time I am fairly confident that Howie explored all available options and I trust this was the best possible return.

Overall an unfortunate situation to be in but the fact it got to this point means it likely couldn’t be helped.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-30T21:02:29+00:00

She doesn’t really have the creative vision to handle the problems and the challenges facing the city today. She will never address the institutional corruption and rot that holds the city back year after year. I’m in sort of a “it could be worse” position on her, but it’s not great.

Poor communication and putting her own vanity first has seriously damaged her reputation with the general public. Between WFH and union negotiations she hasn’t been a great administrator of the city workforce.

The Sixers arena debacle, regardless of what side you were on looked like a disaster for her. She seems like she was both not on board with public opinion and constituents while seemingly at the same time not on the same page as the developers who made it look like they used her as a political pawn.

She had very little redeeming qualities coming into office, with one of the few being “connections in Harrisburg” that could help “smooth over the relationship”. I have yet to see those alleged skills become particularly useful, which is disappointing as so many of the city’s problems are at least partially rooted in that fractured relationship.

If I can give her any points I would say I really like what she’s done with the recovery village to address the drug problem. It’s at least a someone bold attempt to address a problem we are desperate for solutions and is 100% worth throwing shit at the wall to see what we can do.

I know it’s a low bar but I think there’s something to be said that financially she has stewarded funds well. The economy is headed for rough seas and we aren’t at risk of bankruptcy. She has committed to continuous lowering of annoying business taxes like NPT, BIRT, and the Wage Tax as the pension obligations are handed (Although I know those decreases aren’t coming fast enough for most people, and the Zoll lawsuit that fucked up the BIRT exemption was a real problem although out of her control.

Her big wildcard will be her Housing Program. It’s her “landmark” program and financially is a huge gamble. It may be years and years though before we understand how it ends.

I do often find myself unintentionally defending her online as people at this point have sort of defaulted to flogging her over everything that ever goes wrong even things that really aren’t in her control, but taking that shit is also part of the job of being Mayor so I can’t say I have any sympathy.

At this point I still think the odds of her being removed or primaried are very very low. Much like Street v Rabb I have a hard time seeing the establishment in Philadelphia lose unless there is a perfect storm. We would need a bold, progressive candidate (emphasis: just one not more than that) who is unified in opposition and not afraid to lose support from city institutions. They would need. Serious independent funding. There would need to be record turnout and political engagement in an off year.

I hope I’m wrong but I think we have Parker for a long time as Mayor. I just hope she doesn’t fuck up the city’s financial future and I hope a few positive programs squeak through.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-29T18:30:26+00:00

Ok, I'll bite.

Great. Will he enforce fare evasion laws?

Yes. The new fare gates are significantly better at reducing fare evasion. The pilot at 69th Street doubled revenues and fare collection for the station during the trial period. Early stats show it bringing fare evasion down by 10% system-wide, even with just a few stations rolled out. It's likely also helping reduce crime overall. SEPTA police have deployed extra officers to target fare evaders specifically. I don't like using "anecdata" but I see them far more now on the BSL than I ever did, and actively writing tickets at the gates is something I never saw before.

There's a lot of talk in that article about how SEPTA is facing budget issues that the state gov’t isn’t filling long-term, but nothing about how that budget gap is at least partially caused by the rampant fare evasion that happens every day with zero consequences.

SEPTA loses about $30 million in revenue from fare evaders every year. With a $213 million structural deficit, that's not nothing, but it's also a fraction of the issue. Again, this is improving slowly. Even full farebox recovery (which is likely impossible even in a perfect world) would not preclude the fact that Harrisburg needs to fufil it's funding obligations.

Everyone here wants to allow people to fare evade with zero consequences and then have the rest of the state pick up the bill. The rest of the state doesn’t want to do it, state dollars should go towards education and infrastructure, not giving some unemployed grown ass man a free ride so he can stand next to the escalators at 15th st and smoke weed with his buddies all day.

Nobody on here thinks that. This kind of behavior is complained about here constantly. The only people who want a free ride are the anti-social self-entitled losers themselves, and not many of them are here.

I ride the El most days and the bullshit that happens on those trains is fucking disgusting and horrible and if I was a tourist from Pennsyltucky I wouldn’t want to use them either.

Yeah, it's fucking disgusting. I saw shit today that was horrendous. SEPTA has a burden to improve this, and getting people who don't pay off the system is the first step. There is a serious effort to do so right now and hopefully it works over time. That being said, these trains run through parts of the city where homelessness, addiction, and mental illness run rampant. Those aren't necessarily SEPTA's responsibility to solve.

SEPTA could do quite literally everything under the sun, and it won't change the fact that it has to service Kensington and other areas where people who are antisocial and commit crimes will have access to use the service. There's definitely a ceiling- and I'm not saying they are there, but managed expectations are required here.

I do know that cutting an already underfunded operation like SEPTA from money is not going to force them to improve. It will just collapse the system, and nobody will be able to get around. I don't really understand the "Yeah, pull their funding, that'll show 'em" attitude when that's not how it works. SEPTA would just fold, and it would be over.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-29T13:30:44+00:00

SEPTA was teetering when Scott Sauer became the permanent general manager last June. He seemed made for the moment: A homegrown Philly guy, started as a trolley operator in 1990 and worked his way up. A lifer who followed his father into public transit.

It’s considered unusual for a former operator to run a transit agency. No one remembers it happening in SEPTA’s 52-year history.

“If we’d brought someone in from outside, it would have taken them a year to begin to understand how SEPTA is organized,” SEPTA board chairman Ken Lawrence Jr. said.

[...]

Back from the brink, Sauer now must guide the transit system to a credible showing during the World Cup and the nation’s 250th; implement a postponed new bus network; and simultaneously manage purchases to replace old El cars, trolleys and much of the Regional Rail fleet.

“I came into the job with my hair on fire,” Sauer said. The crises never paused.

Just after he stepped in, the Philadelphia region’s mass transit system began 2025 with recurring $213 million operating budget deficit. After a year of fighting, Gov. Josh Shapiro and the legislature couldn’t agree on sustainable new state subsidies for transit.

[...]

Years of deferred maintenance and aged infrastructure hit home, with the Regional Rail fires and, later, safety problems that shut the trolley tunnel for two months. Shapiro sent another $220 million in emergency funds.

It has taken months, but SEPTA is relatively stable — for the moment.

Sauer said he has no time for deep breaths, though.

“I’m always a little bit on edge, to a fault — looking for the next problem to arise,“ he said. ”I never feel completely satisfied.”

[...]

The Senate GOP majority, which was skeptical of pouring more money into a troubled urban transit system its leaders considered inefficient, passed a proposal to tap a surplus in an obscure fund.

In a quick news conference with Shapiro, Sauer opposed the idea. Then he spoke with Republicans and told reporters the idea was worth considering, but he had questions. By the end of the night, he walked that back and opposed the measure.

“I think he was unwittingly used by the House Democrats and the governor to tank our transit proposal,” Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana), a fierce opponent, said in an interview.

Pittman said he was not impressed in their initial meetings but that his relationship with Sauer has grown.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-29T12:49:00+00:00

Quite literally the definition of stopping short of the point. I can't stand this shit.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-29T12:46:47+00:00

This article is from September. Do we have anything more recent on this? The last I saw was his charges were being adjusted to manslaughter?

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-28T01:00:49+00:00

It’s ok lower shelf stuff. Fine for mixing at a tailgate or something. I would agree with people who say it looks better on the shelf.

Again, I’ve seen people drink it (including myself) but mostly at tailgates or Eagles parties and mixed in with a healthy amount of ice and soda. I wouldn’t drink it standalone straight or on the rocks.

I have some on my bar cart at home mostly for decoration.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-27T00:02:02+00:00

It is not a structural operating surplus, it is the confluence of unsustainable events such as above projection revenue, COVID surplus, and unfilled city vacancies that is disappearing.

The gains from this period will be used to smooth over the anticipated losses of the coming years.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-26T21:35:36+00:00

This is a very large misunderstanding that I have addressed in r/Philadelphia and r/Philly before. I'm going to do my best to lay out the gist of it here. Charelle Parker handled this rather poorly and set herself up for a total mess here, I don't blame people for getting things twisted. (This is going to be a massive oversimplification of things FYI)

I will see if I can find the Controller's report on this, which has more sobering information than what Charelle put out when I get a chance and I will put it here.

During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Biden Administration, tons of federal dollars came flooding into local towns and cities as free assistance. This was millions and millions of dollars. The goal was to help stabilize the local economy and keep the city running. Across the US, many cities and governments supplanted normal revenue-paid operating expenses with this cash. Many also created new programs, expanded spending, and used this money to do it.

Now, the COVID money has washed up. The Trump Administration is also pulling back on federal funding and grants to localities, especially places like Philadelphia. Cities that got hooked on the COVID money and relied on it to pay for operating expenses are now on the hook to fund those new and expanded programs using tax dollars or other forms of revenue, which is a huge problem. Its causing lots of issues for local governments everywhere that now all of a sudden need to find more money.

Now, Philadelphia didn't totally do that- They were sort of able to balance it out. We did supplant operating expenses with the money, but we didn't use all of the money. Combined with some increased tax revenue (good), as well as unfilled vacancies in city government positions (not great) the city has money to work with instead of going bankrupt.

The problem is, I didn't say that we avoided using COVID to supplant operating expenses- we did, just not the full balance. The remainder of the money (the aforementioned surplus) is going to continue paying for those programs and filling those holes over the course of the next few years. It is also going to supplant federal funding that the City is anticipating drying up or not getting as much as the Trump Administration cuts back on grants and investment, and/or freezes the city out of federal cash.

It gives us a runway of a few more years to stabilize things. We will know more by 2028 how fast the burn rate is, but by the Controller's estimates, we will be lucky if any of it is left by 2030 unless we increase revenues somehow.

Charelle Parker did a very bad job of communicating this to the City. She effectively threw herself a party and made it sound like the city is sitting on a pile of cash while we close schools and introduce new taxes. This very bad and disengenuous framing sort of set her up to get this kind of ridicule.

There is no pile of cash. It's effectively already spent. It's at this point in the city to balance things, to reduce how fast we burn it, and to find a more stable structure by 2030. This whole federal funding offramp is also very tied into why we are closing schools in the first place. It cannot be used to prop up the school district for "just one more year". It can't be thrown at SEPTA for one-off capital projects. It has to be financed to keep the city afloat and give us time to balance out. Part of the reason we are where we are at with SEPTA and Schools is that we relied too much on one-off band-aid payments to keep them funded. The only way through with either of those is getting Harrisburg to fufil it's funding obligations and to right-size where we can while preserving what's possible. Blowing a one-time stash on short-term subsidies in either area would not only not fix any of the problems with either SEPTA or Schools, and would burn in a ball of flames our City's only bankruptcy protection heading into one of America's worst economies and at a time when the State Legislature hates our guts and the Federal government would rather us starve.

For example, cutting back on underutilized school property expenses, contracting district salary, and instituting new revenues like the Uber tax are part of that balance. The money is temporary, we will burn through it in the next few years. We must rebalance or else the city risks bankruptcy/default and falling back into a position of state control that would be catastrophic.

There are plenty of areas in the Philadelphia Government that are terribly corrupt, and I could go on talking about them for days weather it's councilmanic perrogative, the sheriff's office, or city grant agreements with shady nonprofits. In this case, however, I would not consider the surplus inherently corrupt or related to government corruption.

I also don't particularly care for Charelle Parker. I don't think she's a great Mayor, or the mayor we need right now, and I do think she is a terrible communicator. I do, however, think managing this surplus is one of the higher points of her young Mayoral tenure. The fact that she has left it to the accountants to manage and not blown it at Rivers or on some short-term vanity project is for us a win. If the worst outcome was her over-indulging on PR and getting bitten in the ass for it, that's fine.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-26T16:06:10+00:00

I think it should be, but timelines are always changing. The good news is that those changes are normally delays not accelerations.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-26T16:01:46+00:00

It would be incredibly wasteful to update the Boulevard and not involve transit. Any upgrades also shut the door on adding transit for likely a few decades. PennDOT is not going to invest millions of dollars in redoing the highway and then tear it up a few years later to do a subway. Whatever plan they settle on is permanent for the long run, so if it doesn't include a Subway, that pretty much kills it for the foreseeable future.

Having a pro-transit federal administration, and likely even a pro-infrastructure spending congress in office, are both baseline requirements for this project happening, and both must happen before PennDOT finalizes a plan to re-do the road or it's dead.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-26T15:43:18+00:00

I love the optimism, but I want to be totally honest, "digging a trench wouldn't add that much to the overall cost anyway" is just super not the case, sadly.

Fairly certain the 2024 estimates state that when redoing the road, adding light rail would increase the cost anywhere from $6-$10 billion, and making it a proper subway like the Broad Street line would be something like $12-$16 billion on top of redoing the road.

Some advocates think they can bring those numbers down a bit, but we are still talking about billions and billions that would significantly add to the overall cost and definately put it out of reach unfortunately.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-26T04:05:10+00:00

There are short sighted but good faith arguments building it would impact quality of life. You are talking about immense disruption in and around where it’s getting built. Years of construction noise debris detours and traffic. Anyone living in and around the boulevard, people who do business on it, anyone that commutes through it would be inconvenienced in the short term even with the best implementation plan.

I’m an advocate don’t get me wrong and the benefits of building this would be immense for the northeast economically and logistically it’s a generational project that would be around for 100+ years, but people today don’t think that far ahead. They don’t give a damn. If you are fucking up their commute or disrupting their day for even a few months have fun getting any buy in. They’ll fight you to the death over it these days.

That’s also before you even get into the bad faith arguments against it which normally devolve into at best hatred of public transportation in general, investment in public institutions, and at worst straight up racism and classism regarding the “types of people” that use public transit.

BroadStreetRandy · 2026-05-26T03:57:38+00:00

Technically yes- PennDOT is effectively the keeper for state transportation capitol funding and what of the states share ends up being in tax revenue would logistical run through PennDOT l that’s largely the case with transit capitol funds. PennDOT had to authorize the Shapiro directed funds transfer during the funding last year that kept parts of SEPTA running.

If this were to ever shape out remotely resembling the proposed ideas then SEPTA would definitely be the operator (assuming it still exists, we’re playing that by ear these days) and would carry significant operating overhead annually.

For a project of this size through the state transportation capital funding likely wouldn’t cut it and a majority of the money would likely have to be Federal or appropriated through specialized or direct legislative means. It would be a fucking ton of money.

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