Lousy mayor
I recently bought a 12-pack of soda, and the price was very high and I asked the clerk to double check the price. It had to be wrong. He said no, it’s right, it’s the tax and I should buy outside the city. I will.
Only a mayor could impose a tax where the tax costs more than the product itself. No one knows how much has been collected, where the money goes — general operating fund or to repair the children’s chairs that the mayor sat in.
Nothing has opened in the city, and only God knows when it will. We won’t have a Puerto Rican parade, or a Polish one, or an Italian or German one, nor a Thanksgiving one, or a Mummers New Year’s Parade, and I’m sure the mayor is working on 2021 events. How about St. Patrick’s Day?
However, any protester, peaceful or not, can march without masks or social distancing.
Former Sen. Fumo was right when he called you a “putty cat,” although you’re more like Frank Morgan standing behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz, pretending he’s a mayor.
Michael Hartey
Burholme
Misplaced priorities
Out of every adversity, there comes a benefit. It seems Mr. Kenney has adversity down to a science. He creates adversity. He did it with the soda tax and now he is doing it with the restaurants. With the imposition of the soda tax, I have more stores to shop at outside the city and save another 2% sales tax to boot. His indoor dining ban has opened up the dining opportunities outside the city. The opportunities are amazing. The shame of it is he will hang the hammer over the city restaurants to the point of putting them out of business if they aren’t already out. Maybe he should be as tough on the O.K. Corral that is going on in his city. He is supposed to be protecting us from all kinds of harm, not just COVID.
Richard Donofry
East Torresdale
Caught on camera
Our moronic Mayor Kenney got caught in Maryland eating in and patronizing a restaurant when so many Philadelphia restaurants are starving for business.
How many Philadelphians are still unemployed who used to work in restaurants?
Philadelphia has a lot of vacant commercial buildings where businesses once were early in 2020.
The city hasn’t disclosed the reduction in all the various taxes that they will not be getting in the 2021 fiscal year.
Who is going to make up that shortfall?
We loyal Philadelphians are spending our money to support our local restaurants unlike the mayor, who earns his money here but spends it elsewhere.
Mayer Krain
Modena Park
No to secession
Secede from the city? Sure, NE residents may be frustrated with the current state of the city and its leadership, but our issues demand practical solutions, and this isn’t one of them.
First, how do you plan to start a county of around half a million people from scratch? What kind of government do you form, and who decides? Can you create new public safety, maintenance and social services, plus school and judicial systems, all at once? Who pays for this, and how? What would our taxes look like?
Second, tell us how a new government will make the Northeast’s problems of crime, poverty, drugs, homelessness and aging infrastructure go away? Where will the new leaders come from? The GOP in the Northeast, with two state representatives and a city councilman who last year won his 11th term on a platform of resisting change?
Are the petitioners willing to partner with Democrats to write a county constitution? Change takes vision, innovation, municipal management experience (beyond the Parking Authority) and multi-partisan civic engagement.
Show us your proposal; form a commission, invite all stakeholders to the table, and let’s put our heads together to find real solutions to the issues that frustrate us all. Until then, ditch the secession talk; we’ve seen how that’s worked in the past.
Paul Kaplan
Modena Park
Postal workers needed
Where but in the USA would our rulers cut back on the mail to our citizens to cut costs so that, eventually, work cannot be done smoothly and faster. Who knows, they may save money, so our postal workers will not be needed to process mail that is being held up. How many postal workers will have to be laid off? Just what we need. A new way to get rid of “excessive” workers. I doubt they want to go on unemployment. The lines are already too long. God help us.
Rita Reiter
Bustleton
Speed bumps needed
OK, friends and family of Philly, I’m by far an old fuddy-duddy. As a young man, I, too, enjoyed the thrill and rush that fast vehicles and wheely-popping bicycle days did to gain some extra adrenaline. However, our city streets have become a rather safe haven for illegal motor vehicles, ATVs and bicycles as well as cars and other modes of transportation. Remember Jan. 9, 2006, the nun crossing Cottman Ave. at Hawthorne, a 61-year-old woman’s life taken at the hands of a red pickup — no suspect was ever captured. I was hit while crossing Frankford by a dirt motor bike in a high-speed-getaway chase by the police — no suspect in the hit-and-run that left me in the emergency room. My proposal is an attempt to place speed bumps along certain stretches of streets and avenues in Philly, even if the city installs these deterrents as a temporary trial basis. Hey, it’s got to be worth a shot. What’s the worst thing that can happen, perhaps a child’s life will be spared.
Bill Heiser
Mayfair
Get rid of all Philly Democrats
Hey, Philadelphia. Wanna ax the bev tax? Want to end business- and job-destroying taxes and regulations, attacks on Second Amendment rights, attacks on police and rioting and looting by Antifa and Black Lives Matter?
Well, first, you gotta ax the Democrat Party. All Democrats must be removed from power in Philadelphia and replaced with Republicans. Only Republicans cut taxes and regulations and defend our police and Second Amendment rights. And only Republicans can reverse the destruction Democrats have wrought in Philly for many decades.
Democrat arrogance and willful ignorance are poor substitutes for Republican will, skill and intelligence.
Stuart Caesar
Parkwood
