By Jason Kleinman
Two recent developments now appear to put the planned SugarHouse casino on a fast track for development. Yesterday’s Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision to appoint a Special Master to mediate disputes, along with increasing pressure from Harrisburg, now brings the plan closer to reality. As a result of this new momentum, SugarHouse may have [...]

The City of Philadelphia has been a bad boy lately. At least that’s the way it appears to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court who sided with Sugarhouse Casino in its request for a Special Master to mediate any future disputes between the city and the yet-to-be built casino.
Sugerhouse believes the city has been dragging its feet [...]

The City of Philadelphia is facing a projected $1billion budget gap over the next five years. The mayor and his top budget team have sought out public input over the past couple of months and presented the administration’s budget proposal to city council. One man who has been in the middle of all of this [...]

Not to be outflanked by the “people’s budget” mayor, City Council President Anna Verna announced this afternoon that council will hold a few public forums of its own. In a statement released this afternoon, Verna went out of her way to signal that the public will have a role the council’s budget.
“Because citizens deserve to [...]

Harris Sokoloff, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Project for Civic Engagement, planned and led the recent citizen budget workshops in Philadelphia  (which WHYY co-sponsored).   He writes for It’s Our City about how Mayor Nutter’s budget proposal connects (or doesn’t) to the input at the workshops, and about what should happen going forward to maintain the civic [...]

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter presented his spending plan last week, outlining his ideas for eliminating a five-year $1 billion budget gap.
He went out of his way to say there will be no layoffs in the city’s police or fire departments. Both departments’ workers are represented by unions. However, Nutter did not have that same message [...]

If there is one thing about Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, he knows how to wage a ground and air offensive on city council. Last Thursday, he marched in to council chambers and proclaimed that he had the will of the people tightly wrapped up in his 2010 budget proposal. If he succeeds with this populist [...]

A story in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer indicates that folks in the PA and NJ region are driving fewer miles as a result of the recession and the gas price spikes last year.

Impact on the roads
Reporter Paul Nussbaum says Pennsylvania drivers in January drove 4.5 percent fewer miles and in New Jersey the decline was even [...]

(new details) A Phila Inquirer story 3/24/09 has new details of the firefighter charged with arson. Robert F. Tracey was named Officer of the Year in 2004 and was a volunteer firefighter until last month when he was promoted to a paid position with the Coatesville West End Fire Company. More from the Inquirer.
Tracey is [...]

I was listening this morning to WHYY’s Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane, when finally I heard an explanation of why Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell won’t call legalizing video poker an expansion of gambling. The guest speaking was Chris Brennan, a reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News who covers the casino, who told Marty the following:
There’s [...]