Monday trickle

Mayoral bits

• John Baer has a piece on Fattah as policy wonk with ambitious plans and ideas on every front.
  
  
• The Brady campaign is getting Rendell's press secretary, on loan for the duration of the mayoral race. (Note that Rendell himself plans to make no endorsements for Philly mayor.)
  
  
• Among other Inquirer short bits is the question of who's polling for Lynn Abraham's chances as an independent mayoral candidate?? (Also here, Sharif Street running ads on some buses.)
  
  
• Albert gives us photos and impressions from the Next Great City mayoral forum held 10 days ago. He was lucky to be able to be in the room for the actual event, and gives some of the candidates' answers to questions, peppered with his colorful takes on the speakers and their points.

Other news

• Apparently PA is one of few states that doesn't tax tobacco products like chewing tobacco and cigars, making Rendell's proposal to add such a tax more palatable. Another line of new revenue being considered by the governor is a charge on landfill dumping that would help fund clean-up of contaminated industrial sites.
  
  
• Ben at YPP asks progressives to help forge a joint strategy for 2007 that will last beyond one set of elections into a longterm effort to reform Philadelphia. Subsequent discussions indicate "progressive" is still a pretty big tent, with plenty of room for disagreement on both strategy and goals.
  
  
• A useful effort at YPP: compiling a list of known candidates for all (District and At-Large) City Council races. It's "unofficial" at this stage, of course, until the final ballot petitions are in a week from now, but it's a way to keep track of the races that affect you.
  
  
• The Inquirer recommends regulating contributions to state campaigns, and points to a system of public election financing that has had numerous beneficial effects in Maine.
  
  
• Another Inky editorial looks at New Jersey's attempts at redevelopment of existing urban areas (in the face of open land being almost completely developed already!), a recent forum in Trenton on the topic, and challenges that need to be addressed.
  
  
• Meanwhile the Daily News opinion page is plugging a Delaware River waterfront planning summit that will start later this week, which culminates in a public presentation on Saturday afternoon.
  
  
• Finally, another piece from Inga Saffron on local design/development battles: historic waterfront neighborhoods being allowed to slip into neglect and then be demolished for newer development -- a slow enough process that nobody objects, but whole areas are completely transformed (and whole types of buildings disappear). Interesting issues are raised here, as ever.