City Council challenges Parker, Krasner during busy final week

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didn't renew its lease at the terminal. They moved to a cheaper curbside business model. And that left riders, though, to be picked up and dropped off without a permanent shelter. So what is next here as far as making this happen? The parking authority is going to begin to arrange for contractors to refurbish the terminal, updating the lighting and flooring, modernizing the bathrooms. And the city streets department is also planning to allow a left turn off of Market Street so that... The inner city buses can use 10th and 11 streets to access the terminal to keep buses from clogging traffic in Chinatown along Arch Street. And it's amazing. Two to three years of inconvenience for everyone just to basically get back where we started, right? Pretty much, yep. All right. Thank you very much, Mike. That's KW's Mike DeNardo joining us, and we are just getting started on this edition of the Week in Philly. Much more to come. Hope you'll stay with us. We'll be right back. Without one of these changes, the Parker administration will not support this legislation. We continue on on this edition of the week in Philly. And once again this week, Mayor Shirel Parker's affordable housing plan was center stage in city council. For more on this, let's bring in KW City Hall, Bureau Chief Pat Loeb. And Pat, last week we talked about council moving forward with the plan, but really putting its stamp on it. To set the table, give us a quick review of what happened last week with the mayor's home initiative. Well, the mayor didn't like council stamp. What council did was shift. the program budget away from moderate income, Philadelphians, toward those with very low incomes, which is one of those things that feels right. I heard the phrase, the least of these in the context of who should get this money, like, more times than was necessary, honestly. But Mayor Parker feels very strongly that residents who are working but struggling also need a hand from the city. She has a couple of favorite phrases. She says she wants to help those that have been shut out of programs because they make a nickel over the income requirements. And so taking money away from them, she says pits the have-nots against the have-just-a-littles. So these changes that Council made really undermined one big component of her program, which is after all, Her signature program, counsel was not talking about raising this money itself. This was her idea. So then what happened this week when it was backing counsel again? So after counsel changed the budget, it had to go back into the bond authorization bill. It passed in June to make sure the bill and the budget agreed. So it added a line that said, counsel has the power to establish what income level the programs are aimed at. The mayor staff said,

We prefer you not, but if you do at least say that you will cap low-income set-asides at 60%, no more than 60% to the very lowest income and then gradually raising who was eligible after that. If this sentence is not amended, then we cannot and will not support this ordinance in its entirety. Council really dug in its heels. Counsel, at least I hope, will not be bullied into being a rubber stamp for a proposal that does not serve the most vulnerable people in our city. The council president. cut off the mayor's chief of staff when she tried to talk. He refused to let one of the council members introduce the amendment the mayor asked for. And counsel passed the bill with no changes, which did not sit well with the mayor. Yeah, so what happens here? Because it's really seems like it's turning into quite the power struggle. Yeah, the mayor's team says she's not giving up. She's going to be campaigning for this, explaining that affordable housing includes row homes that need repairs that the owners can't afford even if they are employed, even if they make a moderate income that the city needs to help them too. This has worked for her in the past. She has gotten a lot of things that she wanted over the objections of counsel, and we'll see if it works this time. Also in City Council this week, there was a hearing Tuesday on the tragic kidnapping and murder of Cato Scott, the Mount Airy woman who was killed back in October. DA Larry Krasner was questioned by counsel. What exactly was focused on here? Well, the focus was the fact that the man accused of killing Scott had previously been charged with violently attacking an ex-girlfriend and the district attorney's office dropped the charges and let him go. And that, of course, raises a lot of questions. But the key question was, does law enforcement in general take domestic violence crimes less seriously? So the DA said he had to drop this case because the victim wouldn't testify in court. Now, he acknowledges that's because she was terrified of the defendant. But he let the case go. Spent a lot of time. passing the buck. Oh, she was scared because he was out on bail and the judge shouldn't have let him out on bail, but we didn't appeal the bail. And for a long time, he said he didn't appeal the bail because he thought the judge would get mad. They don't like being asked for bail appeals and he risked getting the bail lowered. But in counsel at the hearing this week, he admitted he didn't appeal the bail because it was $200,000. And he thought that was adequate, which again begs the question. It was adequate for kidnapping and strangling an ex-girlfriend. If it was a stranger or another man and not domestic violence, would that really have been adequate? Relatively speaking, it was a pretty high bail. And so 200,000 is a high bail for kidnapping.

The truth is that there's strangulation on top of the kidnapping make it either more serious than the slap. It was better than we usually get. So is any legislation or guidance emerging out of this hearing or is this more just kind of getting all the facts on the table? Well, I think what they're really looking for is an attitude change. I think it was an opportunity to bring in all of the people who are in charge of. prosecuting domestic violence, the police, the Office of Violence Prevention, the district attorney, they all testified. And just saying, you know, you need to take these crimes, especially the counsel women, we're getting the feeling you don't treat this as seriously as you would another kind of crime. And I don't know that that's something you can legislate to get them to take it more seriously. But it was at least an opportunity to. to ask them to look deeply into how they approach these crimes and see if they really are doing their best. All right. Thank you, Pat. KW. City Hall Bureau Chief Pat Loeb joining us. We need to take a break. More of The Week in Philly coming up. Don't go anywhere. It's the Week in Philly, sponsored by your Delaware Valley Honda dealers. Get a deal you'll like on a Honda you'll love. This is the week in Philly, and this week we learned of some stunning news out of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office as one of its top prosecutors was disbarred by a federal judge. For more on this, let's bring in KW Crime and Justice reporter Kristen Johanssen. So Kristen, give us the details here. Who's the prosecutor? What happened? And also... Explain what getting disbarred means and what it means in this context. So the person at the center here is Paul George, who's an assistant district attorney for the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, he dealt with appeals. So post-conviction appeal cases, looking into cases that maybe had issues at the forefront, just seeing whether or not there was anything they were going to do with them. He was head of the law division and really one of Larry Krasner's right-hand guys. He turned to him a lot. And in this case, what happened is there's a case that went to federal court. an appeal and a panel of three judges reviewed how he handled that appeal in federal court. They came up a report and basically alleged that he lied to the judge at the center of this. Repeatedly, he was purposely dishonest and... They recommended that he be disbarred, meaning he cannot practice law in a federal court at all. He would have that license taken away. And a judge signed that order disbarring him from basically appearing in federal court and peering in front of a judge. And obviously there are implications then for his license here in Pennsylvania. How did we learn of this? This would seem to me as a layman to be something that would be behind the scenes and not. necessarily public knowledge. Funny you should say that. This was supposed to remain behind seal. This was supposed to remain kind of behind the scenes. So he was actually disbarred in October. We actually found out about this this week after he filed an appeal, basically saying he shouldn't be disbarred. He was supposed to keep everything under seal. So the order, in the order, it actually says that all future proceedings, including appeals.

and other court proceedings documents should all remain under seal. He went and filed the appeal in federal court and never kept it under seal and then attached that order and also attached the report that these three judges came up with with all their claims of what he did. So really at the heart of this, Paul George is in trouble now for basically trying to advance a big part of Larry Krasner's policy agenda. Of course, that is that Krasner's anti-death penalty and doesn't believe it's constitutional. So when George got involved in a death penalty appeals case, that's where we hit this flashpoint of trouble, as he allegedly misrepresented facts in an attempt to get someone off death row. So then this led to an investigation? So the case that this kind of centers around is there was a couple in 1984 who... was strangled to death and the killer left actually turned off the heat in the Mount Airy home to let their baby daughter die in the freezing conditions. The man was convicted by a jury in 1985 and with that there comes a death penalty phase of the trial that the jury also decides whether or not this person should be put to death. The jury decided that this person, Robert Wharton, should be put to death. He obviously appealed it. and exhausted all of his peals at the state level. He went basically federally and said, I really need relief here. I need you to take me off death row, really look at this case. And also said that his counsel should have brought forth good behavior while he was in prison. Basically. What they allege is that Paul George knowingly lied to a judge saying that they looked at the entire case and that he did have good behavior. The judge didn't really buy that immediately. The judge then turned to the AG's office and said, we need you to investigate this. The Pennsylvania AG's office, they did. And they said, it's right there in open public documents. So the idea that Wharton was a model prisoner that was found to be untrue? Basically, Wharton tried to escape custody. He pushed a deputy into an elevator when they were back at City Hall. took off and tried to flee. And then there was something else that happened in prison that maybe he was going to escape again. There was like some sort of tool maybe that he was going to try and escape again. That was the first part of it. The second part of it is he didn't contact the family. Essentially this little baby daughter. She's now 40 never contacted that daughter and told her said anything about we're trying to just get this guy off death row. So there are two parts of this that they just, the judge just admonished George. right there in that part of the case. And then that judge ordered for there to be an investigation by separate federal judges to look into what happened here. And essentially those three judges, that panel, that report, those recommendations that recommend for disbarment, basically said he 100% lied. He tried to lie. He tried to just move ahead the policies of the office and really took down everybody else in its path. He wanted what he wanted and that was that. And he was going to lie to a federal judge about it. What does this mean for his future? You know, it's a really good question. We asked the district attorney about this. We asked him, I asked a series of questions whether or not he still has a job in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. As far as we know, according to Open Data in Philly, he was paid last quarter, his $175,000 salary. We have not received.

After multiple requests, we've not received a response at all from the district attorney's office about this case. Quite a story. Thank you so much, Kristen. KW. Crime and Justice reporter, Kristen Johanssen, joining us. We need to take a break. We will have more of this edition of the week in Philly right after this. This is the week in Philly from KYW News Radio and homeowners in Delaware County, getting a property tax hike in 2026. For more, let's bring in KYW's Vic Roggiapathy, Vic. How big is this tax hike here? Give us the details. Yeah, I'm at. So this is the third straight year that they're really getting a hike. The second year in a row of a really dramatic hike a couple years ago, it was 5%. Last year was almost 24%. And then on top of that this year, Delaware County Council voted 4 to 1 to enact a 19% tax hike for property taxes in Delco. Council says that this is what they need to finally overcome the structural deficit that they've been... talking about that they said they inherited that has been in place for years. And you say inherited, not to cut you off, but Delaware County Council is now Democrats. For years, it had been Republicans, correct? Yeah, correct. You know, there were, I think, the majority of this council. took office in 2019. And counsel's rationale has been they inherited a structural deficit and that was exacerbated by COVID. They didn't want to raise taxes to address it during, you know, the COVID years. An officials say that they didn't want to foist as dramatic a tax hike as they would have needed in one year to address the structural deficit. You know, there were some residents who were saying like, I wish it was a little more gradual. I wish that, you know, we got it broken up over a few years. But according to counsel, that is what they did is they essentially broke it up. And they must have been facing a pretty large structural deficit. So we've got the percentage, but to give us some context, like the average homeowner, can you kind of tell us what this means, the actual money that will be coming out of their pocket as a result of this? Yeah. So the average Delco home. as an assessed value of $255,000. And so that's what the property tax is based off of, is that assessed value. So according to officials, the average Delco homeowner will have to pay between $15 and $16 a month. That translates to $188 over the course of the year. And I think on one hand, not a huge deal, but we are in an affordability crisis. And it's easy for me to say not a huge deal when it's not my taxes. But it's one of these things where I think you're putting this on top of higher prices for energy, on top of higher prices for food. Like it can feel overwhelming.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are people that told me, like, that's gas. That's the grocery bill. You know, you're getting hit with this around the holiday. It's like maybe that factors in to your budget for your Christmas presents. And then, again, it's the consecutive nature of it. It's back to back to back, especially these last two years to get hit with 24 percent and then get hit with 19 percent. It ends up being a pretty significant amount to budget. And specifically, I know you talked with a lot of residents, like... What were some of the comments you heard from people? Right. After the dramatic rate hike last year, counsel actually formed a 60-person citizen budget task force that was meant to look line item by line item. And there were different sort of subcommittees of that task force, some that looked at cost-cutting measures, some that looked at revenue-generating measures. It seems like they made a lot of recommendations to counsel. I think a few things did get implemented. I also think that's the kind of thing where... It doesn't bear fruit immediately. And the benefits, you know, as long as they keep it going, it seems like they're going to see further down the line. And they had some ideas. They, you know, ways to cut spending in terms of increasing the efficiency of energy usage, the kinds of lights they use, ways to cut down on spending by buying in bulk or from certain favorable vendors. There was one member of the task force I spoke to who said that the... counties should be more aggressive pursuing sponsorships for the events they have in Rose Tree Park or for their festival of lights celebration. So I think that measure was something that really engaged the citizens, the residents. A couple people who spoke who were on that tax force did say that it was eye opening because it got them to sort of look at the county's finances and get a closer look under the hood as to what they're dealing with. And you mentioned back to back years of big hikes, three straight years of tax hikes overall. A year's a long time. Who knows where we are, you know, this time in 20, 26. But any rumblings if this is the end of tax increases in Delaware County? Was anyone hinting that or telling people that we think we're on the other side of this? Any indication of that? That's what officials say. That's what, you know, multiple council members have said. That's what the county communications director told me. This gets us over the hump in terms of the structural deficit. This was necessary, but we're not looking for big tax increases anymore. So I think the thing is to monitor counsel's words and to see what they're saying and hold them to that this time next year. All right. Thank you very much. KW's Vic Rocky Potty joining us. We need to step away. More of the week in Philly is coming up.

A lot of things that stuck with us through our last four years in Philadelphia, and knowing that there were so many great things in the future. Welcome back to the week in Philly. The Phillies are in the midst of a very important offseason, and they made what will probably be their signature move this week by resigning Slugger Kyle Schwerber. Let's bring in KW's Dave Uram to talk about this. First off, Dave, give us the details of the new deal for Schwerver. Well, Matt, it's a five-year contract, reportedly worth $150 million. So if my math is correct, that would be $30 million a year. It averages out to. And to compare it to his previous contract, the one that he signed with... the Phillies in March 22. Schwabber had a four-year $79 million contract with the Phillies previously. So this is obviously a big bump up. And what appeared to be, according to reports, a pretty competitive market for Kyle Schwabber. Yeah, to that point, as you would expect, it seems like he had a lot of interest on the market. I mean, arguably the best pure power hitter going right now. But the Phillies, they really had to do everything in their power to make this happen, didn't they? There's two sides. to that question. The first one is, yes, absolutely, with the season that he had last year, his importance in terms of the baseball aspects, his place in the lineup, as well as his place in the clubhouse as a leader, and just his popularity amongst the fans. Yes. The other side to that is you might have some fans who feel... This team, this core, it hasn't worked out over the four seasons, the past four seasons with their finishes in the postseason. And why run it back? Why bring back the same guys? Bring in new guys. If somebody's opposed to it, that's probably the reason why. Me, I lean on the first point, is that he's too important to the clubhouse. His numbers spoke for themselves last year. You know, is he going to put up 50 plus home runs every year? That'd be rather difficult to do. I don't expect that. But at this point, to move on from him, I think it would have been too much of a shift from what the Phillies are used to right now. And I don't think this is my take. I don't think their window has closed. Back to Swarber. This deal. Does this basically have him retiring as a Philly, you think? So this is going to be his age 33 season coming up. He's turning 33 and I believe early March. So 33, 34, 35, 36, 37. That takes him through 37. I mean... Common sense says yes, he's going to retire as a Philly. You know, I guess as long as the team doesn't go on a downward slide and they move him for prospects, which is what happens when a team's struggling. They move their best players for prospects. Back to my point, in this day and age, you know, guys are playing deep into their 30s, right? Bryce Harper has talked about wanting to play into his 40s. So I don't know what Kyle Schwerber is thinking as you and I are recording this.

Do I see him retiring as a Philly? I think that's very possible. Do I see him wanting to stop at 37? I don't know that, but if he didn't want to stop at 37 and he wanted to play beyond that, that wouldn't surprise me either. Mention that the Phillies have extended manager Rob Thompson. Now, he was signed for the upcoming 2026 season. This extension is a one year. It takes you through 2027. I'm a big Rob Thompson guy. I think more than the general public. don't know how much of their postseason failings you can lay at his feet when you're paying a lineup, half a billion dollars to hit, and they don't hit in the clutch in the postseason. But what are your thoughts on bringing Rob Thompson back? I think that this was expected. Dave Dombrowski, after the season, said that they were going to look to extend him, but at the time, you know, it wasn't of an urgent matter. It's not surprising. Basically, what this means is, I don't even know if this is a common term anymore, and if it's not, I'm sorry. But basically, it doesn't make Rob a lame duck manager this season. In other words, if for some reason the Phillies are struggling, there's going to be all this noise that, oh, are they going to move on from the manager? Has the team... tuned out the manager because he only has one year left on his deal. This is essentially, while it is Rob managing technically on his contract through 2027, it's still kind of Rob Thompson and the Phillies have to prove themselves in 2026. 2027 essentially means that he's not a lame duck manager. What else are you keeping an eye on for the fills this offseason? Well, of course, Catcher J.T. Real Muto is a free agent. as well. He's been important to the team. Are they going to bring him back? Ranger Suarez, who's been a very reliable left-handed pitcher for the Phillies as a free agent. But he's probably going to warn big bucks on the free agent market. This is his first year going into free agency. Are the Phillies going to have enough money to bring him back? I think that's less likely. We'll see what happens. I'm curious, back to what we're talking about before, if Nick Castiano's is going to be in right field. And that leads to probably the thing that I'm most interested about going into this next season. How does their outfield shape up in 2026? They have a very promising young prospect in the minor league's Justin Crawford. And they're talking like Justin Crawford's ready to come up and maybe make an impact at the big league level. Clearly they're moving on from Max Kepler, who was on a one-year contract. Do they bring back Harrison Bader, who is a free agent, who they obviously liked? And he's going to, after a good season, going to want to get paid a decent amount of money. So that's the thing that I'm looking for most in this offseason is how they shape up. their outfield moving forward. And we may not have the answers this offseason. All right. Thank you very much, Dave. KW's Dave, Uram, joining us. One more break on this edition of the week in Philly. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

Final segment on this edition of the week in Philly, and we wanted to talk about a special accomplishment by the University of Delaware football team. Now, this was their first season competing at the FBS level, the top level of college football, this day after decades of being an FCS school. And in this first year at this level, the Blue Hens had enough success with a 6-and-6 record to get invited to a bowl game. On Wednesday, Delaware will be in Mobile, Alabama, taking on the Louisiana Raging Cajuns in the 68 Ventures Bowl. For more on this now, let's talk with the head coach of the Blue Hens. Ryan Carty joining us. First of all, Coach, congratulations. I mean, first year at this level and you guys get the play in the postseason. That's quite an accomplishment. Yes, I mean, exciting. Exciting times for the University of Delaware as we had a chance to kind of transition into FBS football. And there was a lot of unknowns, a scary thought on the front end of the season of, you know, what is this going to feel like when we're out there? What are our opponents going to feel like? What are these travel arrangements and games on the road going to feel like just, you know, all unknowns in different situations than we've had in the past in the CAA? And so really proud of our program, our athletic department, our university, our community, that we got a chance to continue to build some wins. in year one and continue to grow the foundation of this program so that hopefully year two in Conference USA is even better. Where did this fall as far as what you thought was possible? Prior to the season, if you told me we were going to go to a bowl game, I would have told you that's awesome and it's going to be really challenging. And not that we couldn't do it, just that it's going to be really challenging. And a lot of things are going to have to go our way. And then, you know, being in it. We certainly feel like we can play with anybody in this conference. And that's something that I wasn't sure that I was going to feel preseason. I would say we exceeded expectations there. I would say our student athletes had such a great job preparing. You know, they went into each game confidently. They went into each game understanding that this wasn't going to be something easy, but it also wasn't going to be something that was impossible. Just really proud that they got a chance to kind of put it on tape and represent the community and represent the state in a bowl game. These bowl games have a little bit more of a festive atmosphere kind of surrounding them than the playoff games do. What challenge, if any, does that present? Does it change how you prepare or anything like that? For me, in particular, I said the other day somebody is, I'm going to try my best to enjoy a little bit and have fun and understand that this is something special for our university. It's something special that our team did and accomplished. It is a little bit of a reward for us. But we also have to go down there and win a football game because we don't go into... competitions with any other objectives than to win it. Thank you very much, Ryan. University of Delaware head football coach Ryan Mark Carney and his blue hens and Louisiana will kick off at 8.30 on Wednesday night. That will do it for this edition of the week in Philly from KYW News Radio, sponsored by your Delaware Valley Honda dealers. Get a deal you'll like on a Honda you'll love. This week's episode was produced by Brian Seltser and Venita Mwangi. My name is Matt Leon. Thank you so much for listening and enjoy the rest of your weekend.