1) Indicted State Senator Vince Fumo is in big trouble:

In another blow to State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, a computer technician who prosecutors said carried out an electronic cover-up for Fumo has agreed to plead guilty and is expected to testify against his former boss.

Leonard P. Luchko, 51, who worked in Fumo's South Philadelphia office, is scheduled to plead guilty on Monday before a federal judge, according to a document filed yesterday in U.S. District Court.

These computer guys were the ones caught deleting all kinds of information, allegedly at Fumo's direction. If nothing else, the feds now almost certainly will have him on obstruction of justice.

2) The City Commissioners story continues to have legs. In the last week or so, it has been in local media all over the place (The Germantown Courier, Mt Airy Times Express, Art Museum Home News, Northeast Times, etc). And on Monday, the Daily News had a nice editorial about it, as well. The story resonates because the premise- that election results are password protected- is just so ridiculous, and because hundreds of people signed on to force a change.

3) Speaking of corruption, Councilman Jack Kelly's Chief of Staff entered a not guilty plea yesterday. In the meantime, Inga Saffron has more on those shady developers also charged.

4) In site news, you can now get YPP delivered to you by email. Over there --->, just enter your email address in the box, and voila. It should be formatted for whatever device you are using, including blackberries.

5) And one more: From Its our Money, Ben has a a bunch of things up about recycling, including an op-ed today in the paper, a podcast with Dave Heller of WHYY, and a Q/A with Christine Knapp of Penn Future.

Wow folks -- what a victory for people fighting to make sure that we get casinos moved out of any Philadelphia neighborhood that doesn't want them --

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20080704_Evans__Fumo_give_casinos_a...

House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans and State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo said at a news conference that they would draft legislation to remove the casinos' tax breaks if they did not abandon their proposed sites on the Delaware River waterfront.

The locations, which were decided upon 21/2 years ago, are "untenable and contrary to the public interest," the Democrats said in a statement.

"We are sending a message to citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that we are trying to fix the problem," said Evans, joined by nine Philadelphia-area lawmakers in addition to Fumo. "We didn't think it would be the problem it is today, but it has created tension for people in the community as well as politically."

OK, YPP soon won't have Vince Fumo to kick around any more. I can see why he dropped out of the race: combine his heart issues with the massive indictments against him, and he probably figured it wasn't worth the trouble to keep fighting.

The big question is: who does this help? You've gotta think that the favorite now is John Dougherty, given his already high profile. Then again, either Anne Dicker or Larry Farnese could easily focus on Dougherty's faults as a candidate, and take him down a few notches. But could Dicker + Farnese, in effect, split the 'reform' vote, giving Johnny Doc an easy win?

Looks like lots of fun + games in the 1st PA Senate district,
-Z

Love them or hate them, the two state races sucking all the air out of the room (besides of course the Presidential race) will both be the subject of one of the only neighborhood head-to-head candidate forums of the season.

Come See the 1st Dist. State Senate Debate on March 12th
A THRILLA IN SOUTH PHILA!

Candidates Night

Wed. March 12th
Palumbo Recreation Center
10th and Fitzwater Street

7:00PM

State House Candidates at 7PM sharp!
Peggy Banaszek, Bob Gormley & Babette Josephs

State Senate Candidates at 7:30 PM sharp!
Anne Dicker, John Dougherty
Larry Farnese, Office of Vincent Fumo
& Jack Morley

Come with your questions,
concerns and comments.

Brought to you by
Bella Vista United Civic Association
www.bvuca.org
267- 872- 4686

Many have seen the recent commercial in which Vince Fumo claims to be 'indispensible' to Philadelphia's fight for sensible gun laws. Unfortunately for Fumo and for the residents of Philadelphia, the facts do not support Fumo's claims.

We produced a rebuttal for the Brady Campaign. Check it out and let us know what you think:

Pebbles Bam Bam it will be recalled predicted / championed Rene Gilenger running for State Senate against Vince Fumo, which many folks (including myself) pooh-poohed saying "But she's running Larry Farnese's campaign, pshaw". Well it appears she was half right. Rene Gilenger is running Larry Farnese for State Senate against Vince Fumo.

And also for State Rep against Babette Josephs at the same time - which much to my surprise is perfectly legal.

Under state law, Farnese can keep his options open for a long time - even to appear on primary ballots as a candidate for both House and Senate.

"State law does not prohibit multiple candidacies for public office," said Cathy Ennis, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of State. "They just can't hold more than one elected state office."

Well you learn something new every day.

There’s something funny going on when it comes to Vince Fumo these days. And I don’t mean funny ‘strange.’ I mean funny ‘ha-ha.’

Let’s face it. It was never any great stretch of the imagination to expect that Vince Fumo might end his career being labeled a crook. There was always an air of shadiness to his powerful dealings and his money deals. People recognized that he brought a lot of money to the city even as they suspected he liked to take a little taste for himself. People recognized that he was a powerful politician, while at the same time recognizing that sometimes that entailed running roughshod over people, legal procedures and common ethics.

I don’t think anyone was really surprised when that 139 count indictment came down, and if in the end he is found guilty…well, it will only be surprising in that he didn’t figure out some way to weasel out of it all.

"It is an honor just to be nominated."
-Lying award show losers.

Following my ode to Donna 'See No Evil' Miller, now we find that out that our very own Vince Fumo has been nominated for an award. OK, so it is not an Oscar. And it is not an award for best local governance, or most creative use of staff time (well, it sort of is).

In fact, national blog Talking Points Memo has nominated our own Vinsanity as a nominee in the 'best local scandal' category of their annual awards show.

Let's all be honest here, Vince Fumo is no Susan Lucci. He will accept nothing less than a win. And, if he wins, Fumo could be at a kick-ass awards after-party with national nominees such as Alberto Gonzales and Larry Craig.

Let the lobbying begin!

I usually enjoy Mary Patel's "Political Notebook" in the City Paper, but today's issue just gets some basic facts dead wrong about the race for Fumo's seat.

Patel writes:

Another female grassroots activist could soon enter the picture, as Sheila Ballen is said to be planning a run. Ballen, the state Department of Education's spokeswoman, ran unsuccessfully in 2004 against then-state Rep. Marie Lederer. Ballen and Dicker may wash each other out, and possibly draw from the same money pool of supporters.

The problem with this claim is that it's totally false, and has been so since ray Murphy posted about it LAST WEEK.

Dear friends,

Philadelphia, PA, Nov. 27 -- Today, the Anne Dicker for State Senate Campaign is running the first in a series of three full-page ads aimed at educating voters about the particulars of the Vince Fumo indictment. The three full-page ads will run on successive Tuesdays with the next two running in the Daily News on December 4 and 11.

To download a copy of the full page ad: www.DontFeedtheAlpacas.com

So recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Joe Vignola and a couple of other progressives over a cup of coffee. I had never met the guy before and I am a recent enough resident of Philadelphia to mostly know him in his former capacity as the head of PICA.

Of course I know that Joe was swept onto City Council with Rendell on Rendell's first win as mayor - back in the days of symbolically cleaning the toilet in City Hall. Back when they inherited a city many didn't believe had a viable economic future, a city with an operating budget $250 million dollars in the hole, with a bond rating in the toilet and host of infrastructure problems. Somewhere in the back of my head there was some vague stuff about City Controller and an unsuccesful long shot race for Senate against the vast Heinz personal fortune.

As many of you have heard, State Senator Vincent Fumo recently put his Fairmount area mansion up for sale. The asking price is a whopping $6.95 million dollars. According to the listing on Fox & Roach's website, the property has been "restored to it's original grandeur" with elevators on all 6 floors, a brick oven and spa, wine cellar, 7 fireplaces, 3 powder rooms, a large custom vault, and a state of the art security system.

However, the City of Philadelphia has the value of this famously opulent home listed at only $250,000. Accordingly, Fumo only pays $6,611 in property taxes--a tiny fraction of what he would owe if the building were taxed at its current sales price. On Thursday, in a vote that stunned reporters and drew widespread outrage, the BRT upheald the current listed value. The property will not be reassessed until 2009.

I know, it's such a cheap and easy target...but that's the sort of mood I'm in tonight, so I wanted to have a little fun. So Vince Fumo, needing to raise money for his high-priced legal defense against the 139 count federal indictment against him for conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice and filing false tax returns, has decided to put his Green Street house up for sale.

One would have to assume that this can't be good for Vince Fumo:

n a surprising move, Richard A. Sprague and his firm asked today for permission to withdraw as lawyers for indicted state Sen. Vincent J. Fumo.

The request comes just three weeks after U.S. District Judge William Yohn ruled that Sprague and his firm, Sprague & Sprague, can represent Fumo, despite conflicts of interests alleged by prosecutors, as long as Fumo waives and acknowledges any such conflicts in court. Yohn had set such a hearing for later this month.

Instead, Sprague and colleagues Mark Sheppard and Geoffrey Johnson filed a motion this morning, seeking to withdraw.

Withdrawing from a case is pretty unusual. Not that it doesn't happen, but, considering that these guys were just fighting the government's request to remove them as Fumo's lawyers, this is pretty weird. I have no idea why (and as the article notes, we will probably never know), but Sprague is a Philly super-lawyer, feared by many. Losing him has to hurt.

That said, not to go down this road again, but if Vince did everything that was alleged and is convicted, we will both likely have justice served, and lose quite a lot of clout and state resources coming from from Harrisburg, especially when Rendell hits the road too.