Placards

They gathered in the shadow of the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, Philadelphia's main Catholic church, in an amen chorus of support for nuns. "For Sister Marie Timothy, who assured me I didn't have an attitude problem and that I was a strong woman in the making," said a school nurse. "For Sister Evelyn, who put my feet on the path of demonstrating in Washington in 1972," said a baby boomer. "To Sister Mary Paul, for teaching us the mysteries of sex in middle school!"

In the Mayfair business district, the Flags and the Placards slug it out. No, two gangs haven't converged there for a turf battle. Rather, merchants continue to debate whether bright yellow flags or new placards should decorate the main shopping strips of Mayfair on Frankford Avenue and Cottman Avenue. The issue arose out of discontent among the merchants because they can't put up holiday lights. Some merchants want to get rid of the flags and install lighted signs that also would provide the wiring they need for holiday lights.

I'M WRITING on behalf of all handicapped people who have handicap plates (not placards) on their cars. It is a shame that PennDOT can't screen people with placards, as it seems that anyone and his uncle can get one. Just fill out the form and get someone pretending to be a doctor or police officer to sign it. Send it to PennDOT, get the placard and pass it on to friends or relatives so they can park in handicap areas or get out of the car and...

The Parking Authority began telling contractors yesterday that it had scrapped its unpopular policy, adopted just last month, of charging $960 a year for a placard allowing some trucks to park for free in Center City. On Monday, a day after The Inquirer reported that the formerly free placards would cost $480 every six months as of July 1, the authority concluded that it had erred, said Linda J. Miller, a spokeswoman for the independent city agency. Council members and contractors had objected to the plan.

Sen. Arlen Specter, with his wife, Joan, is surrounded by supporters, including Nancy Ortega (right) of Oxford, at the Republican National Committee meeting in the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel. Some placards hailed his abortion-rights stance.

Residents in the 4500 block of G Street, armed with lawn chairs and placards, today protest an infestation of rats from the old Harrowgate incinerator on the 4700 block. Neighbors demanding a cleanup say people have been leaving waste outside the fence of the facility, which has been used recently only as a refuse transfer station.

SENDING another journalist to New Hampshire is like sending another FBI agent to Philadelphia City Hall. The place is already crawling with them. So, the Daily News sent a cartoonist. The big story is that New Hampshire is cold. Colder than Philadelphia. Minus 3 degrees-in-the-sun cold. It hasn't stopped intrepid bands of political activists and just plain people from standing outside leafleting, planting signs along snowy dirt roads, and waving placards from corners. No matter who wins the Democratic primary tonight, they feel sure they have the winning candidate.

If a well-known local gang had planted a bomb in a Philadelphia disco and had killed and injured a number of persons, people would be upset if there were no arrests. And especially so if it was common knowledge that the same gang had planted a bomb in the subway that killed four, and that these criminals had opened fire when the police came looking for them. Under these circumstances the public would be demanding that the police do something. And when the police finally did act, I doubt that even University of Pennsylvania students would be marching with placards condemning the police for having brought these criminals to justice.

Whatever their ailments may have been, thousands of people who once claimed handicaps so as to park all day for free at meters in Center City apparently have been cured. Or maybe they're just parking somewhere else. This wonder has been accomplished by a simple city ordinance that last year rescinded free all-day parking for vehicles bearing handicapped tags and placards. City Council adopted the law in the belief that disabled-parking privileges were being widely abused.

You don't have to have a handicap to take advantage of the free parking the city provides to disabled motorists. Just ask employees of the Philadelphia Parking Authority. Many of them - including able-bodied enforcement agents who walk the streets writing tickets and husky coin collectors who haul change from meters - use handicapped plates and placards every day to park for free in spots the rest of us pay for. Some appear to have legitimate handicaps. But others, without any apparent health problems, have discovered how easy it is to obtain handicapped plates or placards, originally issued by the state Transportation Department.

PARKING ain't easy down in South Philly. On rough nights, you might have to circle a dozen times and smoke a coupla cigarettes before you find a spot three blocks from your house. Unless you're an off-duty police officer willing to bend the rules. In that case, Help Desk learned this week, there's a loophole in the city's parking enforcement big enough to park your car. For most people, an illegal spot isn't worth it. Philadelphia Parking Authority officers stalk the streets.

About 100 demonstrators gathered in Center City Wednesday evening to protest the scheduled execution of Troy Davis in Georgia. The protest had been announced on Twitter and other social media outlets earlier, but the crowd took police by surprise. Traffic was briefly shut down on 15th Street near City Hall. The protesters grudgingly complied with police orders to only cross the street during green lights. They waved placards and chanted for the release of Davis, who was to be executed at 7 p.m. Wednesday for the 1989 slaying of an off-duty police officer.

The folks desperate to save the Stiffel senior center were handed a tough numbers problem this spring: Raise $200,000 in two months, or say good-bye to the multicultural mecca at Marshall and Porter. With only $20,000 in hand this week, and the June 30 deadline looming, the South Philly center's supporters decided to pose a question of their own: What do you get when you hand placards to three dozen elderly people and ask them to walk in a circle for an hour in the noonday sun?

LETTER-writer Robert Schloss wrote that "Teachers have an allotted number of personal days, and it's not for the district or the Daily News to scrutinize when teachers use what they're entitled to. " It certainly is the business of the school district and the Daily News . Taxpayers pay teachers' salaries, and they have a right to know what they're paying for. Private industry generally requires personal days to be requested in advance....

When Mayor Nutter took office, he reduced the number of free parking spaces awarded to city employees and to politically connected local VIPs. But a lucky few got to keep their free spots, even though they don't work for the city. Michael Meehan, general counsel for the Republican City Committee, still parks for free in the 1500 block of Market Street. He did not return a call seeking comment. Democratic City Committee Chairman and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady nabbed a space, as did Elmer Brun, Charles Bernard, and Lou Farinella, who also work for the local party as aides to Brady.

RE THE letter "Fighting Abuse of Handicapped-parking Placards": I went to a local movie complex and was approaching a handicapped parking space when another car got there first. Oh, well, sometimes I got there first. What stunned me was when I observed a young man and woman in their early 20s jump out of the car and start running to the theater while holding hands. Ah, their youthful hearts! But not handicapped bodies! I seriously doubt that the placard belonged to that driver, passenger or car. In Center City, I've seen small commercial trucks with a handicapped placard, while the occupant was a young seemingly healthy male.

I'M WRITING on behalf of all handicapped people who have handicap plates (not placards) on their cars. It is a shame that PennDOT can't screen people with placards, as it seems that anyone and his uncle can get one. Just fill out the form and get someone pretending to be a doctor or police officer to sign it. Send it to PennDOT, get the placard and pass it on to friends or relatives so they can park in handicap areas or get out of the car and...

Philadelphia's ordinance prohibiting signs on utility poles and street signs might make for a neater landscape, but it violates the First Amendment when applied to political advertisements, argues a federal suit brought by an unsuccessful City Council candidate. The lawsuit, filed Oct. 30, says that a right-of-way next to a public street is a "classic public forum" for political speech, and the only reasonable advertising alternative for many candidates in local races. Plaintiff Damon K. Roberts was challenging City Council President Anna Verna in the May 15 Democratic primary, and he was assessed $4,750 in fines about one week before the polls opened.

My beloved brother, Jeffrey Branson, was murdered on July 23 in a case that is still unresolved. The pain of Jeffrey's death is still fresh for my family and me and just the thought of Jeffrey, his grave marker or the sight of his name in print induces waves of overwhelming sorrow. Recently, a group of people representing Home Health Care and Hospice Staffers held a rally at City Hall to voice their outrage over the violent crimes in Philadelphia, of which a health-care worker was a recent victim.

Stephen Shirk of Audubon didn't even know Army Staff Sgt. Joseph M. Weiglein, but he and his family knew they wanted to do something to pay tribute to the soldier after he was killed in Iraq last week. Weiglein is, after all, a hometown boy, and in a town the size of Audubon - roughly 10,000 people living in two square miles - that means he's practically family. So when Shirk came up with the idea of putting American flags on every lawn, others quickly jumped on board. The Camden County Office of Veterans Affairs agreed to donate the flags.