philly

I went to a City Council At-Large forum at the Academy of Natural Sciences on April 12th. Chroist this is getting up late, but hey, better late than after the election! The election is around the corner and I hope the notes I've taken help some readers get a feel of at least a few of the candidates. A field of 83 doesn't help, but hey, what are you gonna do. So, this is Part I of I have no idea how many parts. I'm going to keep them as manageable as possible. The forum was put together by the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. From my count, twelve of the 83 showed up for the forum and 75 – 100 people were in attendance for the forum. The place looked very empty, but it can hold, I think 500. It was a good crowd, just too big a venue.

Matt Jansen, of the LSNA, welcomed the candidates and the crowd. He said a few words and then introduced the President of the LSNA, Rob Stuart.

I know Rob from around the way. He's the President of Evolve Strategies, a one stop shop for all the things you need to get your message out whether it be a political campaign or a non-profit's cause. I know that they're working on several city council races.

Next up to the podium was the moderator for the evening, Signe Wilkinson, the prize-winning cartoonist for the Daily News. It was very cool to see her in person. She brought along a fly swatter in case some of the candidates went over their time limits while answering a question; she didn't have to use it. Since there were so many candidates there, it would've been impossible to have all of them answer each question. Questions were assigned to groups of three at a time and then opened up to the rest if anyone else had something to add. I think this format worked well.

The first question of the night was: What would you have done in response to the plumbing situation during the construction of the Comcast Center – referring to the local plumbers objecting to the 'waterless urinals' saying jobs would be lost; Bob Brady stepped in and solved the problem by negotiating to have a second set of pipes installed – completely separate from the actual sewage system – in addition to the 'waterless' technology. Caryn Hunt, writer and neighborhood activist, said that talking with developers to better develop lands to better environmental standards is key.

Bill Green, a Pepper Hamilton lawyer, son of former Philly mayor and U.S. Congressman William Green III and grandson of U.S. Congressman William Green Jr. was next up. He pointed out that the question assumes that the council will react instead of being proactive. Green would develop proactive plans now and not let last minute negotiations dictate affairs.

Marc Stier, a teacher, activist and committeeperson, noted that the larger problem is the lack of a master plan in the city and that the planning commission hasn't been doing their job.

So I have a new laptop thanks to Lady. It's a refurbished Dell E5150 Core2 Duo loaded with 2GB RAM. I haven't had much time to sit down and write though – too busy with work and loading apps onto this laptop and tweaking it so it's just right. But here's one shot from the wedding Lady and I went to down in Atlanta a couple weekends ago.

I got an email from my friend yesterday. She wrote a mass email telling everyone of her change of emails to reflect the change of her last name. Crazy. she's got a new last name! For the last fifteen years, I've known her as a "Z" and now, she's jumped waaaaay up the alphabet and left me in the dust.

I was an usher at the wedding (rocking my tux from 1998!) and I was at the back of the temple for the ceremony, but I got off this shot with my 17-55mm f/2.8 before we were all told, by the Rabbi, to withhold all photographs to keep the ceremony sacred. The ceremony was in a gorgeous temple in midtown Atlanta. I was told this was in the movie Driving Miss Daisy. It was the most ornate temple I've ever been in and it came as a surprise to me after growing up in a pretty rich Jewish suburb of NYC where I went to about 100 bar and bat mitzvahs.

Lady and I had so much fun over the weekend. I got to catch up with a very old friend and his parents and his new girlfriend. We spent most of the weekend together. It was great. I met some people whom I have heard countless stories, and now, I finally got a chance to put a face to the stories. And I got to see my dear friend on her special day.

I don't think I'll be able to properly post about the wedding until after the primary, but I wanted to at least get one shot up.

Crazy.