It's a great decision. It ought to be required reading among all mayoral appointees, all mayoral campaign contributors, all reporters and editorial writers, and all City Council people and their top staffers. I know the Mayor is terrribly busy doing all sorts of important things, but I would even recommend that he read it himself.

The bottom line is this: the Mayor is not God. Richard Nixon's famous saying that "If the President does it, it has to be legal" is erroneous and inapplicable to the Mayor in any case. Mayoral power exists to serve the people of the city, and the people of the city do not exist to serve mayoral power.

With this decision, and the November decision upholding the Ryers Will leaving what is now Burholme Park intact and available as parkland forever, two elected common pleas court judges--Idee Fox and John Herron--have shown how a democratically elected judiciary can reaffirm democratic values that tend to be ignored by those who believe in the Cult of the Omniscent and Omnipotent Mayor.

Judge Fox rejected all city attempts at delay today, and her ruling now goes to the Commonwealth Court, the Court that twenty years ago overturned a Common Pleas Court decision invalidating the ordinance and called for an evidentiary hearing by the Common Pleas Court instead. Newly elected Mayor Ed Rendell showed superb judgement in stopping the attempt to close firestations, and thus ended the litigation.

Irv Ackelsberg and Sherrie Cohen presented plenty of evidence on December 29, 2008, and Judge Fox was obviously convinced. The Commonwealth Court is bound by the facts that Judge Fox found, and is likely to be persuaded by the law found and articulated by the plaintiffs attorneys, Judge Fox's decision, and the previous Commonwealth Court decision.

Today is a great day for those who would like to be optimistic about the future of Philadelphia, the checks and balances within Philadelphia, and the state of democracy here today and in the years to come.