Put all the damned budget numbers online and update them weekly (not salaries, which can be listed simply as Personnel, but everything else, as specifically as possible. Why not?)

During periods of flux, have a designated person from the administration, not the mayor necessarily, hold a weekly press conference to explain any new changes in spending or new initiatives.

Re: the libraries, apparently some people in the Free Library administration have had some alternative vision of how the system should run for some time. Siobhan Reardon has communicated at times, in some ways, the goals of committing to 6 day per week service and to making Parkway Central a real college-level research library; these are worthy goals, especially if the Community College -- which has a terrible library -- is to play a larger role in the city's future economy. Give her and the Free Library some time to regroup and put together a real, detailed plan, and then give them the task of selling that too.

But don't go on trying to push the current plan, and stop the practice of behind-closed-doors meetings, and the promises of alternative services at alternative sites that have no meat on them.

I'm just back from ten days away, and though I tried to keep in touch a little by email, I really needed some time off and I've not been reading the blogs and the papers.

Having said that, I find your analysis a little perplexing. Michael Nutter has always been excellent at PR. As a member of council he consistently found issues to push that had broad support among important constituencies (and that sometimes had support among a few constituencies that didn't always see eye to eye). He presented those issues in ways that maximized their political drama, creating good guys (which he lead) and bad guys (which he opposed). And he was the favorite of the press and endlessly and effectively worked them.

Or don't you remember how Michael Nutter championed tax cutting and ethics reform. Or have you forgotten how he worked with the Committee of Seventy and Neighborhood Networks to build support for two sets of Ethics Charter Changes that won by an record margins and that were widely, and rightly, intepreted as major steps toward reform of the city?

So the difficulties the administration has been having on the library issue and the larger issue of the budget must have deeper sources. I've been thinking about where the problems lay and have some very tentative ideas about how to interpret these misteps. But I've got to think a lot more (and get some sleep) before I put them forward.

One quick, somewhat facetious, suggestion: Michael Nutter has hired a lot of out of towners because he did not want to continue the usal defective practices of our city government. Maybe we need to borrow and idea of the ancient Greeks did and actually get a Mayor from out of town. The kinds of errors this administration has been making look an awful lot like the kinds our Mayors and Council members have been making for decades.

You said:

A judge dealt a crushing blow to Mayor Nutter's plan to balance the city budget yesterday, ordering him to immediately halt plans to shutter 11 library branches at the close of business today.

The Mayor's plan was to achieve over a $100 m in savings in this budget year, right? Mostly those cuts were made and the only thing rolled back is the $8 m cuts from libraries. And in fact, the judge's order did not undo layoffs. So that means that keeping branches open will cost the city $8 m or less--possibly as low as like 4 or 5. Plus, Dubow testified that there is now a $40 m surplus projected. And since we are likely looking at larger scale budget cuts for 09-10, how plausible is it that keeping 11 branches open alone--at a cost of $8 m a year--is going to tip the scales toward the red then?

So how in any way can you comfortably call this ruling a "crushing blow"?

Dubow consistently tried during the hearing to take the focus off mid-year budget cuts and contextualize those as a part of a five-year plan. It's certainly fair of you to report that, but it would have been interesting to see what economists and other urban leaders who deal with these kinds of budgets think about that logic. Certainly the majority of Philadelphians think that Mayor Nutter should have delayed ANY cuts until the Obama administration got started. The current surplus is proof that a delay in budget cuts is possible.

Yet the Mayor has been very successful--if nothing else--at creating a sense of panic about this budget year seemingly independent of real local economic indicators. That is something we'd all do well to remember as we start to talk about next year's budget.

I hope that you will write a comprehensive story to give context on Nutter's comments about the difficulties caused by the ruling with respect to his plans for "alternative" ways to provide after-school services that students currently receive at libraries. Your article missed much of the relevant context, (and, unfortunately, I've heard Nutter's statements numerous times on WHYY - without context provided). Here's some context for you to consider:

The plan to close branches has been in place for what, months now? That plan has been the subject of much discussion, rallies, community meetings, for months. Suddenly, in the last week, after suits had been filed, Nutter begins speaking of his alternative plan to provide substitute services -- without any detailed explanation for how that plan will be funded or implemented.

Then, it turns out that these alternative plans coincidentally become a basis for his defense in the suit?

And then when the judge rules against him, he complains about the hardships the ruling causes to a plan that was never fully explained and proposed just a few days before the branches were slated to be closed.

Yet, this is the only context you provided on that issue:

Fox also dismissed an announcement from Nutter Monday that he was seeking nonprofit agencies to operate programs in the 11 branches. City attorneys argued in court that the buildings were not really being closed.

Remember that Nutter himself was going to draw down the Street surplus anyway, before the crises came.