Tasco

CITY COUNCIL is scheduled to hold hearings today on the budget and a raft of sweeping tax reform bills. How ready is Council? The Daily News asked all 17 members the following question: 1Have you read the 500-page Tax Reform Commission report, which explains the need for each tax reform bill now before City Council? (The report was released in November.) 2Will you support all or some of the 13 tax reform bills put forth by the Tax Reform Commission? 1No. 2Undecided on all.

An aide to City Councilwoman Marian Tasco is facing two unrelated sets of criminal charges - one for allegedly helping to forge a will and another for allegedly assaulting her 13-year-old daughter. Tasco said the woman, administrative assistant Sharon Vaughn, would remain at work pending the outcome of the cases. "I believe a person is entitled to due process, and I believe that people are innocent until proven guilty," Tasco said. "I have no intention of taking any action against her. " Vaughn was on vacation from work yesterday, and a telephone call to her home was not returned.

City Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco, cell phone in hand, stands on Pickering Avenue in the Cedarbrook neighborhood and surveys a couple dozen cars decorated with "Talmadge for D.A. " posters. Engines are idling as the Sunday-morning campaign motorcade waits for the command to start. A sound system mounted on a van is blaring the Diana Ross song "I'm Coming Out," sending voters the not-so-subliminal message to head to the polls for tomorrow's primary. "Are we ready to move out?"

After City Council voted 16-0 to approve the predatory lending bill, Councilwoman Marian Tasco held a quiet champagne celebration with staffers and supporters in her office. Then she went to get her hair done. Tasco's low-key response to her biggest legislative victory is telling. Throughout her 13 years on City Council, Tasco has been a behind-the-scenes operator, looking for consensus. In her calm but firm manner, Tasco faced down the powerful banking lobby and the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.

All eyes are on Mayor Street this week as backroom politics takes center stage in the debate over the predatory lending bill. With a City Council vote slated for Thursday, interested observers are waiting to see how much political capital Street is willing to expend on the bill, designed to crack down on high-cost lending abuses directed mainly at poor and minority borrowers. Street sent a letter to Council President Anna Verna last week urging a delay on the vote. Street said he supported the effort to stop predatory lenders, but was getting pressure from angry bankers who feel the bill will keep them from making loans to people with less-than-perfect credit.

Have you caught the latest PGW radio ad? You hear the sounds of spring, chirping birds, playing children, the crack of a bat striking a baseball followed by the jarring noise of a wrench struggling to turn a tight nut. A voice of authority then tells listeners the company has provided costly gas during a cold winter. Now, it's time to pay the gas bills, work out a payment agreement or face a shut-off. It is, indeed, that time of the year again when the city-owned gas utility can shut off service to deadbeats who aren't paying their bills.

Despite last-minute efforts by Mayor Street to delay a vote on the predatory lending bill, City Council voted overwhelmingly yesterday for the measure, designed to curb high-cost lending abuses directed mainly at poor and minority borrowers. The 13-3 vote in favor of the bill was a clear rebuff of Street. Street sent a letter to Council President Anna Verna yesterday urging a delay on the scheduled first vote of the bill. Street also placed an early-morning call to the bill's main sponsor, Councilwoman Marian Tasco, asking her to hold off calling for a vote on the bill.

Citigroup lobbyists worked the corridors of City Hall yesterday in a last-ditch attempt to attach an amendment that would gut much of Councilwoman Marian Tasco's predatory lending bill. City Council is scheduled to vote on the amendments today. Nick Maiale, a South Philadelphia ward leader, was in City Hall circulating an additional one-sentence amendment from Citigroup that would exempt subprime lenders owned by big banks. His presence sent bill supporters abuzz. Consumer advocates said the Citigroup amendment would exempt the very companies Tasco's bill aims to stop.

City Councilwoman Marian Tasco has amended her predatory lending bill to exempt banks from penalties, while still cracking down on subprime lenders. The amended bill includes a number of other changes, including the elimination of jail time for violators. Tasco also worked with the city solicitor's office to address concerns that the bill could withstand legal challenges. The amended bill still maintains the basic teeth as first proposed. That rankles some lenders who argue the bill will reduce access to credit for consumers with less-than-perfect credit.

Banks, subprime lenders and lobbyists met privately this week with City Councilwoman Marian Tasco's predatory-lending task force to again voice their opposition to a bill designed to clamp down on high-cost loan abuses. Representatives from big banks, including Mellon, PNC, Sovereign and Summit, were among the lenders meeting with Tasco and the task force on Monday. Subprime lenders, including Household Finance and CitiFinancial, and home-repair companies were in City Hall on Tuesday.