Tasco

Former City Commissioner Marian Tasco doesn't have a very high opinion of the office that oversees the city's election process, in which she served from January 1984 until early this year. Testifying this week before the City Charter Review Advisory Committee, Tasco - now a Democratic candidate for City Council - suggested the office be abolished and replaced with an election board appointed by the mayor. Tasco called the office in its present form "self-serving" and "an environment for political security, as opposed to an operation which is open and responsible to the public.

After Marian B. Tasco announced two weeks ago that she would probably step aside as a city commissioner to run for City Council, candidates for her old job quickly began to line up. Yesterday, West Philadelphia political activist Curtis Jones Jr. became the first of several probable candidates for commissioner to announce formally that he was in the race. Jones, 29, a friend and ally of Democratic state Rep. Chaka Fattah, made his announcement during a news conference at the Hersey Philadelphia Hotel, attended by several dozen supporters.

City Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco is retiring Friday, but only so she can collect a $478,057 pension check and return to work Monday, when she will be sworn in for her seventh term. Tasco was one of six Council members to enroll in the city's controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan, better known as DROP. She did not return a request for comment. Plan participants trade a lower lifetime pension for a large onetime lump-sum payment, but they are supposed to retire when they get that check.

ABOUT NOW, the only people who like DROP are the ones in it - and even they hate elected officials who "retire" for a day, collect a pot o' gold, then slink back to their taxpayer-paid jobs. In that latter category are City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione, Register of Wills Ron Donatucci, at-large Councilman Frank Rizzo and 9th District Councilwoman Marian Tasco, who's ready to grab a $478,057 Instant Cash payout. Donatucci and Rizzo both have expressed remorse and tried to extricate themselves from the program.

In April, the city was ready to begin more than $3 million worth of renovations at the Sturgis recreation facility in East Oak Lane. Instead, work at the six-acre site did not start until February, after more than nine months of delay. Philadelphia City Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco, who represents the area, said she suspected the source of the holdup was her opposition to the way Mayor Nutter was handling the potential sale of the Philadelphia Gas Works. Tasco, chairwoman and longtime member of the Philadelphia Gas Commission, objected last spring to Nutter's request to use $2.7 million in PGW ratepayer money to pay for advisers exploring the sale.

Political rivals of six-term Philadelphia City Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco submitted paperwork Monday to force her off May's primary ballot because of her participation in the city's DROP pension program. The lawsuit is similar to a legal challenge filed Friday against Republican at-large Councilman Frank Rizzo, who besides Tasco is the only other Council member set to receive a DROP payment and also seek reelection this year. Both suits make essentially the same argument: Tasco and Rizzo are ineligible to run again since each promised to retire by the end of their current terms by enrolling in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan.

City Councilman John F. White Jr. said yesterday that he would resign his Council seat in 10 days to become acting secretary of a new state Department of Human Resources, and he endorsed City Commissioner Marian B. Tasco as his successor. White said he would be the acting secretary until the state Senate confirmed his and other cabinet appointments at hearings scheduled to begin the week of Jan. 26. White's appointment was announced Thursday by Gov.-elect Robert P. Casey, who wants to rename the state Department of Public Welfare the Department of Human Resources.

City Commissioner Marian B. Tasco resigned from office yesterday to run for City Council, and Mayor Goode immediately appointed labor-union official Lana Felton-Ghee to succeed Tasco until year's end. The appointment is subject to Council approval. But Felton-Ghee's hope of winning election to a full four-yerm term on the commission was dealt a blow several hours later when the Democratic Party policy committee voted to endorse Maurice Floyd, a ward leader from the city's Strawberry Mansion section.

Philadelphia Gas Works officials are fond of saying they pay attention to the needs of "stakeholders," like City Council members and thousands of customers. Yesterday, two of those key players in the utility's affairs - City Controller Jonathan Saidel and Gas Commission Chairwoman Marian Tasco - gave new meaning to the notion of stakeholder with a sharp jab at PGW for slipshod oversight of executive spending, documented in recent months by the Daily News. And Saidel raised the specter of criminal prosecution when detailed audits of the company are completed.

Philadelphia City Council gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a bill that would cap the 10-year tax abatement on new residential construction at $500,000 of value. The cap would go into effect in July 2015. The committee took a rare roll-call vote on the divisive issue, and the bill passed by 9-7, with Marian B. Tasco absent. The bill, sponsored by W. Wilson Goode Jr., could receive final approval on June 20. During testimony on the bill, Goode and Symphony House developer Carl Dranoff had several testy exchanges on the merits of the current tax abatement, which does not have a cap. The abatement has been credited with sparking a building boom - mostly in Center City and surrounding neighborhoods - but has been derided as an unnecessary tax credit to rich homeowners.

COUNCILWOMAN Marian Tasco on Tuesday literally called "bulls---" on the Nutter administration's explanation for why a project in her district was delayed last year. Tasco last week accused Mayor Nutter's administration of holding up a $3.5 million renovation at Oak Lane's Sturgis Recreation Center because she opposed an issue related to Nutter's plan to privatize Philadelphia Gas Works. She continued her attack at a budget hearing Tuesday. "What was the priority over Sturgis?

In April, the city was ready to begin more than $3 million worth of renovations at the Sturgis recreation facility in East Oak Lane. Instead, work at the six-acre site did not start until February, after more than nine months of delay. Philadelphia City Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco, who represents the area, said she suspected the source of the holdup was her opposition to the way Mayor Nutter was handling the potential sale of the Philadelphia Gas Works. Tasco, chairwoman and longtime member of the Philadelphia Gas Commission, objected last spring to Nutter's request to use $2.7 million in PGW ratepayer money to pay for advisers exploring the sale.

COUNCILWOMAN Marian Tasco accused the Nutter administration Wednesday of delaying a $3.5 million rec-center project in her district because she opposed an issue related to the possible privatization of Philadelphia Gas Works - a priority for the mayor. Tasco, who also chairs the PGW commission, pressed Budget Director Rebecca Rhynhart at a hearing Wednesday on the city's capital budget on why an overhaul of Oak Lane's Sturgis Recreation Center was delayed last year. In an interview, Tasco said the project was tampered with because she wanted the administration to pick up a $2.3 million tab for consultants to explore the PGW sale.

Quoting from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Bible, Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco made a forceful defense Thursday of State Rep. Dwight Evans, a political ally and founder of a nonprofit that has been under scrutiny since a state investigation said it misspent or mismanaged portions of $12 million worth of state grants since 2006. Tasco particularly attacked the motives of The Inquirer, which has published a series of articles, including one Sunday, on Evans and the investigation into the Ogontz Avenue Revitalization Corp.

City Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco is retiring Friday, but only so she can collect a $478,057 pension check and return to work Monday, when she will be sworn in for her seventh term. Tasco was one of six Council members to enroll in the city's controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan, better known as DROP. She did not return a request for comment. Plan participants trade a lower lifetime pension for a large onetime lump-sum payment, but they are supposed to retire when they get that check.

TUESDAY'S ELECTION answered some questions and asked others. Answered: Who "leads" us for the next four years. Asked: Who leads City Council? The selection process is under way (under the covers) and those still steamed about DROP - the Deferred Retirement Option Plan - have a stake in this. Contenders for the president's chair, vacated by the long-serving Anna Verna, are all Democrats - 5th District Councilman Darrell Clarke, 9th District Councilwoman Marian Tasco and at-large Councilman Jim Kenney (who would win if everyone he's ever feuded with voted for him)

IN RESPONSE to "Are Absentee Landlords Killing Once-Good NE Philadelphia Neighborhoods?" : Over the years, I have received numerous complaints from constituents regarding unresolved tenant and maintenance issues at properties with absentee landlords. I recognized this as a problem all across the city. That is why I introduced bill No. 090834, which amended the city's property-maintenance code by requiring property owners who do not live in the city or a surrounding county, under specific terms and conditions, to designate a local property manager and provide the full contact information to the proper city department.

The considerable hullabaloo about Philadelphia's imposing a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks has drowned out another proposal that Mayor Nutter is pushing. Higher parking rates. The mayor wants to increase the hourly cost of street parking in Center City and University City to generate an extra $6 million as part of a strategy to come up with at least $75 million for the Philadelphia School District. Higher meter rates are hardly music to the ears of those working day and night to keep breathing life into two of the city's most popular neighborhoods.