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Week of April 14, 2008
Temporary plan on Delaware River flooding reported likely
By: Diane Mastrull, Inquirer Staff Writer
A temporary plan to reduce flooding along the Delaware River - a stop-gap measure Gov. Rendell called for earlier this month - is reported likely next week. Whether it will include increasing releases from three New York City-owned reservoirs has not been determined.
"We're just asking everyone to be very patient," Neil Weaver, spokesman for Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, said yesterday. "A result will come . . . within the next week."
His counterpart in New York City, Michael Saucier, would say only: "Discussions are continuing."
Their comments followed a late-afternoon conference call held by officials from the four Delaware River basin states - Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York - as well as representatives for New York City.
They are the parties to a Supreme Court decree that has provided the framework for water-flow management in the 13,539-square-mile basin since 1954. Under that agreement, any changes to flow rules must be approved by all parties.
Yesterday's private telephone meeting was a response to a call-to-action letter Rendell sent to the decree parties on April 2. The governor pushed for increased water releases through April from the reservoirs, located in the Catskills at the Delaware's headwaters. The man-made lakes serve the water needs of nine million residents from Ulster County, N.Y., to Queens.
Rendell reveals plan for air base
By: Derrick Nunnally, Inquirer Staff Writer
The entire footprint of the closing Willow Grove Naval Air Station will be used for a new multi-agency emergency and defense hub if Gov. Rendell gets his way.
Although Rendell said the conversion would come with strict limits for air traffic - and a ban on regularly scheduled commercial flights - residents of Horsham, the township surrounding the Willow Grove base, worried that the new installation would become a burden.
Rendell sent a letter to Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter yesterday formally asking to use "all lands and facilities" at the 1,100-acre Naval Air Station for the new facility. He said the decision will "save the base as an important government installation" after a failed fight to reverse the Defense Department's 2005 recommendation to close Willow Grove.
"Abandoning this installation means that its tremendous capabilities would be lost forever," Rendell said in a statement.
Under Rendell's plans, the base's buildings, airstrip and grounds would be used to house Commonwealth and federal agencies, along with other users with related duties. The base is planned as a nexus point for the Northeast Corridor's defense, homeland security and emergency preparedness needs, with each agency paying rent to cover expenses.
Horsham Township leaders sent a letter to Rendell last week outlining concerns about the proposed facility, focusing on whether increased use of the area will overwhelm the township's roads, utilities and other infrastructure, but Rendell did not respond.
Head Strong: Why the GOP lost its grip on Phila. suburbs
By Michael Smerconish,Inquirer Currents Columnist
Blue is not only the political color of the Commonwealth - it's also the mood of suburban Republicans.They're wondering what enabled the Democratic Party to take the lead in registration in both Bucks and Montgomery Counties, and to possess a majority when combined with independents in Chester and Delaware Counties.
Theories abound. One holds that it's simply the old story of voters' leaving Philadelphia for suburbia and taking their registration with them. I don't buy it. That was a partial explanation for some shifting patterns from the end of World War II until the 1970s, but not now.
According to U.S. Census statistics, Philadelphia's population slide began in the 1950s, and the city lost almost 123,000 residents between 1950 and 1970. In those 20 years, the four suburban counties (Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery) added a combined 846,138 residents - a 79 percent increase - obviously consisting of far more than displaced city-dwellers. That flight grew in the 1970s, when more than 260,000 left the city.
But by the '90s, the city's losses began to slow. Between 2000 and 2006, Philadelphia lost 69,156 residents. The four suburban counties, meanwhile, added just 104,904 - an increase of 4.5 percent. Bottom line: Since the 1970s, the city has lost progressively fewer residents with each passing decade. And while the suburbs continued to grow through the 1980s and 1990s, the rate slowed almost by half between 2000 and 2006.So there must be a more complete explanation of the GOP decline outside the…
Poll: Many avoid buying homes |
By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer |
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A growing majority say they won't buy a home anytime soon, the latest sign of increasing pessimism about the nation's housing crisis, a poll showed Monday. In a vivid sketch of how the sputtering real estate market is causing distress throughout the country, the Associated Press-AOL Money & Finance poll found that more than a quarter of homeowners worry their home will lose value over the next two years. Fully one in seven mortgage holders fear they won't be able to make their monthly payments on time over the next six months. "This is a great time to buy, but not necessarily to sell," said Robert Jackson, who lives in a two-bedroom house in Ferguson, Mo., with his wife and four young children. He said he would love to purchase a larger home, but can't because even if he found a buyer, he would probably lose thousands on his house, which he bought less than two years ago. "We're just going to have to slap a Band-Aid on it and stay here until the market gets a little bit better," Jackson, 30, said in a follow-up interview. |
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Foreclosures jump 20 percent in March
The Associated Press
Foreclosures in Pennsylvania rose sharply in March, but remained in line with the number in March 2007, according to new figures released Tuesday.
There were 2,900 properties that received a foreclosure filing last month, a 20 percent jump from February, but nearly the same as in March of last year, according to statistics from RealtyTrac Inc. in Irvine, Calif.
With one in every 1,880 households in foreclosure last month, Pennsylvania's foreclosure rate ranked 34th among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., well below the national average of one in every 538 households in foreclosure.
Pennsylvania was 21st in the overall number of properties in foreclosure.
Nationally, foreclosures rose 5 percent from February to March and 57 percent from March 2007.
Stainthorpe announces plan for spending cuts
By: Chris English, Bucks County Courier Times
On the deadline day for paying taxes to the state and federal governments, Lower Makefield Republican supervisor and state representative candidate Pete Stainthorpe offered a plan to make that deadline less stressful.
Standing in the sunshine Tuesday during a news conference at Newtown Business Commons in Newtown Township, Stainthorpe said that, if elected, he would push a plan to cut state spending by 2 percent — except for education and debt service — in both years of his first term. He's calling it his “2 for 2” plan.
Stainthorpe proposes to take the savings, which he estimated at about $600 million over the two years, and use it to cut property tax relief checks for state residents. This would give immediate relief to taxpayers while a permanent property tax solution is being put in place, he said.
Candidates back property tax reform
By: Freda R. Savana, The Intelligencer
Newcomer Benjamin Irey of Warwick and rival candidate Brad Kirsch of Warminster are each hoping to capture enough votes Tuesday to square off against Republican state Rep. Bernie O'Neill in the fall.
The Democratic opponents share some views, both believing property tax reform is needed, but their opinions differ when it comes to how to achieve that goal for a diverse district that stretches from Upper Southampton to New Hope.
Irey, a 24-year-old insurance marketing professional, making his first run at public office, said he supports changes in property taxes that direct more money from Harrisburg back to local municipalities.
