… doesn’t have a readily accessible link yet. Good thing I still have a rough-draft here for cutting-and-pasting. Enjoy …
The Trashman Speaketh
By Brian Hickey
As the mayor shared his administration’s screenplay for 2010: A Budget Balancing Odyssey, State of the Union-esque applause breaks outshined even the inexplicable animosity of a swastika-laden sign likening the city’s nursing homes to “Hitler’s Final Solution.” The M. Nutter plot twist? The future of America’s birthplace officially depends a community-wide willingness to trade three Ben Franklins for a heretofore-free service (not to mention Mr. Pibb sales), but little uproar roared up.
Smelted down to basics, the “Keep Philly Clean Service Fee” is “an annual service charge” for expanded sanitation offerings worth $107 million to the “People’s Hall.” But as I grabbed Michael Nutter for a one-on-one post-speech chat – his ‘no-layoffs, no-big-service cuts, reduced-overtime, pools-and-rec-centers protected’ rallying cry still fresh – my question was this: “Why would it be unfair to call it the ‘You Wanted to Live in Philly Surcharge’”? Because that’s what it is when you stick a flat-price tag on each property owner’s forehead. His answer? A shocked-it-was-even-asked “Because that’s inaccurate” before delving into how this is a mission to change behaviors and “to get people excited” about take-pride-in-community lessons generally learned in preschool. “Creative solutions” apparently don’t come cheap.
Last year, I defended Nutter as a business-savvy guy handling an unimaginable fiscal quagmire. This year, I’m less inclined to do so because my question wasn’t inaccurate; semantic new-global-economy shell-games won’t convince me otherwise. Should KPCSF pass Council, the City will dust off Curby Bucket’s brass-knuckled cartoon-cousin singing jingles like, “If you see a litterbug, don’t you run. Just call Oscar the Narc at three-one-one.”
It’s Three Card Monte to find the loot-vacuum that won’t anger the electorate. But, city government will sap the people of discretionary income that keeps local economies churning. Should Nutter’s brigade just collect back taxes as ferociously as they’ve threatened to, a nine-digit repo would take seconds.
But worse than that is what a sanitation worker told me Monday morning after a Spring Cleaning trash heap was taken from my alley.
“I don’t think people will start (jumping down our throats or harassing us) until they have to start paying,” the affable civil servant said. “We’ve all been joking about how we’re going to have to pay for it, too.”
That’s right: Philadelphia’s trash-removal folks will get charged $300 just to do their jobs off-the-clock too!
It’s just the surcharge for wanting to live in Philly.
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