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Faxes Sent to Anna Verna

Letters

From:	AH
To:	Councilman Goode, Councilman Green, Councilman Greenlee, Councilman Kelly, Councilman Kenney, Mayor Nutter, Councilwoman Reynolds Brown, Councilman Rizzo, Council President Verna
Date:	Monday, 12/01/08
Subject:	Write the Mayor and City Council

Dear Mayor Nutter and City Council:

As a pet owner and frequent volunteer at PAWS, I urge you to
make the right decision today. Do NOT take the animal control
contract away from PACCA. The strives they have made for our
city's animals are incredible. A 600% increase in life-saving
in just 3 years! Every day I am in awe of what they accomplish
day in and day out. Let's continue to move toward being a no-
kill city and give these animals a chance at loving homes. They
deserve it, and in the words of PACCA, they can't do it without
us. Please, make the right decision today!

Sincerely,
Alicia Haupt, MD

To whom it may concern,

It doesn't make any sense why Philadelphia would choose to close
the largest animal shelter in the city. Every major city in the
United States that has made any lifesaving progress in the past
decade has been using the cooperative model outlined by the
ASPCA. I thought the new Nutter administration wanted
Philadelphia to be a "global city". The Health Department would
be wise to follow the standard practices of other cities and the
major animal welfare organizations such as the ASPCA, Maddies
Fund, the Humane Society and Best Friends Animal Society.

IF the PSPCA gets the animal control contract Philadelphia will
be the laughing stock of the national animal welfare community.
There isn't anyone nationwide who thinks that rfping the contract
was a good idea. Please consider the ramifications of having a
buffoon like Howard Nelson running your 3 Million Dollar animal
control contract.

Dear Mayor Nutter:

I respectfully request that you do not sign into law Bills No.
080741 and 080742, involving respectively, zoning for the
proposed Foxwoods Casino on Market Street between 10th and 11th
Streets, and the creation of a 24 block district in which
casino zoning would be made permissible. The borders of the
district are from 6th Street to Broad Street and from Chestnut
to Arch Streets.

I recall when you ran for the Democratic seat for Mayor of
Philadelphia, you gave your full support to the citizen driven
ballot initiative that required a 1,500-foot buffer zone
between casinos and neighborhoods. I also applaud your
announcement, immediately after taking office in January, of
the creation of a city-wide master zoning plan. Philadelphians
are hopeful that the master plan will create the kind of vision
for the entire City of Philadelphia that was created by Penn
Praxis for the Delaware waterfront.

Your support of the buffer between neighborhoods and casinos,
and your initiative to create a master plan, are undermined and
contradicted by the fast track zoning now before City Council
that would put a large-scale slot parlor in the heart of our
historic city - directly between Independence Hall and City
Hall.

Without proper planning, a 5,000 machine slot parlor could end
up in Center City Philadelphia --- immediately adjacent to
three thriving city neighborhoods, and at the disposal of tens
of thousands of office, service and government workers, and
commuters --- without any meaningful public debate or
independent economic or social impact studies to determine that
this is an acceptable site for a casino. Experts in planning
agree: high impact development of this magnitude should start
with a comprehensive planning process and then be followed by
the zoning process.

Philadelphians deserve a true planning process by which all
possible sites in Philadelphia are evaluated for the two
casinos slated for Philadelphia under Act 71, to determine the
least damaging locations. We ask for your leadership in this
endeavor by taking the first step - please veto these two
zoning bills.

Sincerely,

Copies to my representatives in City Council

Dear Mayor Nutter:

I respectfully request that you do not sign into law Bills No.
080741 and 080742, involving respectively, zoning for the
proposed Foxwoods Casino on Market Street between 10th and 11th
Streets, and the creation of a 24 block district in which casino
zoning would be made permissible. The borders of the district are
from 6th Street to Broad Street and from Chestnut to Arch Streets.

I recall when you ran for the Democratic seat for Mayor of
Philadelphia, you gave your full support to the citizen driven
ballot initiative that required a 1,500-foot buffer zone between
casinos and neighborhoods. I also applaud your announcement,
immediately after taking office in January, of the creation of a
city-wide master zoning plan. Philadelphians are hopeful that the
master plan will create the kind of vision for the entire City of
Philadelphia that was created by Penn Praxis for the Delaware
waterfront.

Your support of the buffer between neighborhoods and casinos, and
your initiative to create a master plan, are undermined and
contradicted by the fast track zoning now before City Council
that would put a large-scale slot parlor in the heart of our
historic city - directly between Independence Hall and City Hall.

Without proper planning, a 5,000 machine slot parlor could end up
in Center City Philadelphia --- immediately adjacent to three
thriving city neighborhoods, and at the disposal of tens of
thousands of office, service and government workers, and
commuters --- without any meaningful public debate or independent
economic or social impact studies to determine that this is an
acceptable site for a casino. Experts in planning agree: high
impact development of this magnitude should start with a
comprehensive planning process and then be followed by the zoning
process.

Philadelphians deserve a true planning process by which all
possible sites in Philadelphia are evaluated for the two casinos
slated for Philadelphia under Act 71, to determine the least
damaging locations. We ask for your leadership in this endeavor
by taking the first step - please veto these two zoning bills.

Sincerely,

Copies to my representatives in City Council

Dear Mayor Nutter:

I respectfully request that you do not sign into law Bills No.
080741 and 080742, involving respectively, zoning for the
proposed Foxwoods Casino on Market Street between 10th and 11th
Streets, and the creation of a 24 block district in which casino
zoning would be made permissible. The borders of the district
are from 6th Street to Broad Street and from Chestnut to Arch
Streets.

I recall when you ran for the Democratic seat for Mayor of
Philadelphia, you gave your full support to the citizen driven
ballot initiative that required a 1,500-foot buffer zone between
casinos and neighborhoods. I also applaud your announcement,
immediately after taking office in January, of the creation of a
city-wide master zoning plan. Philadelphians are hopeful that
the master plan will create the kind of vision for the entire
City of Philadelphia that was created by Penn Praxis for the
Delaware waterfront.

Your support of the buffer between neighborhoods and casinos,
and your initiative to create a master plan, are undermined and
contradicted by the fast track zoning now before City Council
that would put a large-scale slot parlor in the heart of our
historic city - directly between Independence Hall and City
Hall.

Without proper planning, a 5,000 machine slot parlor could end
up in Center City Philadelphia --- immediately adjacent to three
thriving city neighborhoods, and at the disposal of tens of
thousands of office, service and government workers, and
commuters --- without any meaningful public debate or
independent economic or social impact studies to determine that
this is an acceptable site for a casino. Experts in planning
agree: high impact development of this magnitude should start
with a comprehensive planning process and then be followed by
the zoning process.

Philadelphians deserve a true planning process by which all
possible sites in Philadelphia are evaluated for the two casinos
slated for Philadelphia under Act 71, to determine the least
damaging locations. We ask for your leadership in this endeavor
by taking the first step - please veto these two zoning bills.

Sincerely,

Copies to my representatives in City Council

Closing nearly twenty-percent of the libraries in this city is
unethical. Closing libraries in some of the city's poorest
neighborhoods and leaving them open in wealthy neighborhoods
where people have access to other resources is immoral. At a
time when more people will be looking for jobs, for information
about government programs, and for opportunities to build
their skills and knowledge to better position themselves in an
economic downturn, you are making access to this knowledge and
information harder to get than ever. One of Philadelphia's
challenges is to move from the industrial age into the
information age. Closing libraries moves us away from this
goal. Start thinking creatively about how to keep these
libraries open, or at least show us evidence that you tried.

Dear Mayor Nutter and Members of City Council,
I encourage you to include sensible signage restrictions in bill
to create the Commercial Entertainment District at the Gallery.
Although I would prefer that that be no casinos in Philadelphia,
I do not object to the Gallery as a potential casino location.
But please include in the bill provisions to protect our City
from excessive and oppressive signage clutter. The core of our
City has been well-served by sensible restraint regarding the
size and location of signs. Large flashing signs are especially
out of character with the heart of our City.
Thank you for your consideration.
Gary Spahn

Please stop and think before declaring a whole 16 block area for
casino zoning. Do we really want to turn Center City into Las
Vegas? This is my home, and what you are proposing is like a
nightmare to me. Please reconsider the consequences of the
proposal. Thank you.

I can't think of any one thing that would have a greater
negative impact on the city that more and brighter huge ugly
signage. We have too much already. The designated area is not
Times Square - and its charm and appeal to tourists and
residents is its small, intimate scale and resulting sense of
history. Now when tourists visit our historical district, the
mood is such that they can get a sense of our country's history
and going back in time to our roots, to where we came from. Do
you think that will happen if your surround them with the kind
of signage allowed by the proposal? This could be a win/win -
why damage this crucial area of Center City unnecessarily? Are
you out of your mind or just being paid off? (Mayor Nutter,
that last statement doesn't apply to you.)

I am shocked at the state of financial affairs that the city
government finds itself in. Surprised since Pennsylvania has a
city and state tax that all working Pennsylvanians pay. k I am
surprised at the salaries that city hall/city government
workers make. As a public servant of the taxpayers, I would
not think that ANY public servant would be making the EXCESSIVE
salaries that I have discovered in various media articles. I
have learned to live on $24,000 a year, the least I have EVER
made but count myself among the lucky in these trying times to
have a job at all. A mayor that earns almost $200,000
yearly.....hmmm....just how much money do you need to live on?
Assistants and gofors that earn $70,000+ yearly....shameful.
And what is this I have learned about employees that have cars
bought and fueled by our tax dollars? Why can't these
employees do what the rest of us do, walk, public transit, or
drive their own vehicles to work? How much money would that
save? And that day off city hall people got to watch the
parade downtown last Friday, was that a paid day off at the
taxpayer's expense? I hope not. I work downtown, did not get
a day off to see a parade and certainly was not paid even if we
had gotten time off. I would think that the top earning public
servants would cut their salaries more that what the mayor has
done also....again, why does the mayor need so much money a
year...if I earned that much, 18% would not hurt so much to
give up....if he were truly one of the people who elected him,
his salary cut could be much more as could others in city
hall. And speaking of city hall, what has the city done
to "green" city hall to keep the costs down of heating,
lighting, and cooling...not to mention water usage and
recycling? I would think if these issues were dealt with then
our city government could save even more money to help keep
libraries open, pools open in the summer, and other services
that are being cut. I am going to send a copy of this to local
publications and local TV channels to see if anyone else wants
to pick up on the suggestions/questions. It is time the
taxpayers start to question what is really going on down at
city hall and why we are paying public servants to get paid
vacations, insurance, pensions, vehicles to drive, gas to put
in them, over-blown salaries, encourage waste, invest badly,
and tell the taxpayer/lifeblood of your daily routine at city
hall, to do without.

Regards,

J.G. Nesbitt, jr.

I am writing to urge that CED Ordinance, 080742, be amended to
include signage provisions which will protect our beautiful,
historic Center City Philadelphia.

I have not chosen to live in historic Center City in order to be
surrounded by enormous, garrish, blinking, scrolling, video
casino signage. If this ordinance passes as written and such
signage is erected, it will destroy Center City's visual
environment and change the entire atmosphere of the neighborhood
to something cheap and ugly.

As now drafted, the Ordinance covers a large 16-block area, from
Broad to Sixth St., from Arch to Chestnut St., and it has these
major flaws:

* The pending bill places no cap on the size or height of
signs this large 16-block district. As a matter of right,
Foxwoods Casino will be able to put up a total signage area of
8,404 square feet with no limits on the size of a sign.
(Existing zoning laws limit signs to a maximum of 100 square feet).


* Rooftop signs, electronic signage, scrolling LED signs,
video screens, or other kinds of blinking, flashing, and
illuminated signage will be allowed under the CED Zoning. All
such uses are now prohibited by Center City Zoning Laws.


* CED Zoning will defeat Philadelphia's goals to be a "Green
City". The proposed CED zoning ignores the adverse environmental
factors caused by the carbon footprint created by digitalized
signage. The carbon footprint of one 1200 square foot digital
sign equals 49 traditional billboards and emits 108.41 tons of
carbon dioxide each year. It would take the planting of
approximately 4,517 trees to off-set the impact of one digital
billboard for one year.

PLEASE amend CED Ordinance 080742 to add restrictive signage
provisions and protect Center City's environment.

Thank you.

I am greatly saddened by the thought that the Mayor and City
Council are in favor of a Casino in the center of our city and
so close to the wonderful Historic District---not to mention no
restrictions on signage.What kind of city do we live in??What
do we teach our children and what do we tell the world about
our VALUES?????

Dear Mayor:

i request the following to improve income and fairness of our
streets for the taxpayers:

Take out ALL of the meters in the city and replace them with the
Muni Meter system. This would increase the amount of parking
spots in the city, increase the turn over of these spots, and
reduce by 90% the time and expense of coin collection and
maintenance of the current system. The savings would pay for
system in only a few years.

Get RID of the Valet Parking system that has taken the available
parking in many of the most popular parts of the city that hurts
business and creates traffic nightmares with valet's routinely
double parking cars and blocking traffic and people circling
around to find parking. Even using relaxed parking priveledges
that are on sundays in front of churches to stow the valet cars
so they don't have to pay garages, the valets are doing this! At
the very least, make it SO expensive to have Valet Parking that
only the most expensive restaurants will be able to afford to
offer it. These are PUBLIC streets, not for only the wealthy.

Sincerely,
Matthew Weekes White

Dear Mayor:

Please be aware that these traffic signal lights have been burned
out for over 5 months and I have encountered and observed folks
almost get hit as a result.

Traffic Lights out at
13 and spruce SEC green and NEC green
22 and Lombard SWC green
11 and spruce SWC
17 and spruce NWC
12 and pine NWC green light
9 and pine SEC green light
13 and pine SEC green
20 and Lombard nwc green
18 and locust NWC yellow
20 and Lombard NWC
20 and spruce NEC

I have been reporting them to 911. Someone is not doing their
job! Please let me know when they will be fixed. (and i don't
accept that because some of these poles are being relocated that
this justifies the traffic signal light bulbs going un-replaced.)

Sincerely,
Matt White

Iam a 65 year old female,with disables have been trying for 4
years to get help with my home,repaires I was put on the list
2005 for help.I have call and call,I can never get a anwser
about the work that is suppose to be done.they have seen what
is to be done,wrote it all down but as of this date nothing has
been done,my ceiling is falling in, in my middle bed room,my
roof is leaking bad there,my drain pipes in the basement is
leaking the water back in the basment and its always wet.they
were to put in windows in front bed room,and basement,Ihave to
put up plastic sheets to try and keep out the cold wind.please I
need help,I have work over thirty years in phila. and always
help myself until now ,I had to retire early because of my
disable.the lady at phdc that has my case on this program is
ms.Loretta Maree,her phone#215-448-2169.
please give me a helping hand here.thank you very much.
willie m johnson

Dear Ms. Verna,
I am writing this to you in shear frustration. I am a
homeowner who purchased this home over 10 years ago. It is
evident that the property value has deteriorated and that no
consideration has been extended when realestate agencies have
purchased the homes in this area without thinking about the
quality of life issue. On this 2500 block of Hobson street
many of these homes are now being rented out and the owners
don't have to deal with the trash and filth filtering out of
these homes. My question to you is, that with the economy
being what it is, and with realestate having sky rocketed the
way it has, do the people who are hard working and financially
responsible have to accept the horrible conditions in which the
renters in this area have created? I try after working 10 to
11 hours a day to keep the front and side of my house clean,
yet the filthy renters on this block have mattreses, trash and
even food scattered about the street until I come out to clean
it. Are the owners of these homes held accountable at all for
what they allow into these homes? Are there any ways in which
these people can be cited for the filth?

Dear Mayor Nutter:

Please take full responsibility and terminate the inexusable
city employee behavior of staff aid Bryant and investigate your
city council member Goode. they are paid by my tax dollars and
i dont want them working for me! What is this DETROIT?!

Sincerely,
Matthew Weekes White

I am outraged and appalled that the Philadelphia Department of
Public Health is signing a death sentence for thousands of
animals. The lifesaving achievements of the last three years
are to celebrated and furthered, not abandoned. We will not go
back to a time when most homeless animals are killed.
Classifying them simply as objects to be collected and disposed
of like garbage is unacceptable. We demand that the Health
Department rescind its current request for proposal for animal
control services and rewrite it to require lifesaving. The
agency that holds this contract must achieve progressive save
rates – with a starting place of 60% of the total number of
animals who enter the shelter alive, the current level – so
Philadelphia continues moving closer to the goal of
guaranteeing a home for every healthy and treatable pet. We
will not allow this city to turn its back on Philadelphia's
animals.

I have already written a letter to you all expressing the
importance of moving toward a "no-kill city," a feat that is not
unrealistic given the strides that the ASPCA and PAWS have made
in recent years. I am now writing again because this cause is so
incredibly important. There are many people who care and are
willing to adopt these wonderful animals. We cannot take away
the animals' chance at a forever home by disposing of them!
Please reconsider the plan put forth by the Health Department.
It is wrong for innocent animals to be killed - they deserve the
loving homes that await them.
Thank you for your time and consideration. Your help in making
the right decision by promoting neuter/spay services and
adoption is much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Alicia Haupt, MD

I have been an active PAWS volunteer for almost 2 years, and in that time have seen
the organization make huge strides in improvement. The dedicated staff and the
many volunteers who devote themselves to the animals are nothing short of
amazing.

To allow Philadelphia to take a giant step backwards after so much success (going
from an 11% to over a 60% save rate!!!) would be a horrific embarrassment to the
city and to your constituents.

I have grown proud to call Philly my home, but if the city does nothing to stop the
DPH's proposed new contract from going into effect, I will broadcast this disgusting
turn of events far and wide, and I will continue to do so until changes are made for
the better.

THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN.

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