Dave Kralle at the November 2011 Parkwood Civic Association meeting. Photo/Shannon McDonald

If you go to your neighborhood civic association meeting, chances are you know Dave Kralle. Holme Circle, Bustleton, Parkwood – the residents there know the aide to Councilman Denny O’Brien by name. Before O’Brien’s election to Council, Kralle worked for him at the state level when O’Brien served the 169th Legislative District.

The rest of the city got to meet Kralle earlier this year during O’Brien’s campaign for Council-at-large. Average height, on the thin side and always in a suit and tie, Kralle is as recognizable to district constituents as O’Brien is. That’s likely to work to his advantage if Kralle enters a bid for the now-vacant 169th District seat.

“Denny wants me to run for his old seat in the House of Representatives,” Kralle announced at last night’s Holme Circle Civic Association. continue reading »

Pennsylvania legislative district 172, as it stands today. Click to visit Redistricting the Nation.

This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoods funded by J-Lab.

Shaping legislative districts is by no means illegal. It’s a part of the democratic process.

After each U.S. Census informs leaders about population and demographic shifts throughout the country, each state, county and municipality is meant to see subtle movement in its boundaries to better reflect the realities there, from balancing population totals and community divides. For example, in the post-1990-census redistricting, Philadelphia lost two House seats to its western suburbs due to population growth there.

Where redistricting has earned the more negatively connoted term of ‘gerrymandering’ — coined in 1812 after a partisan Massachusetts governor — has been when political, not population, shifts seem to motivate legislative rewiring.

Now again, Pennsylvania is revisiting its boundaries, like the rest of the country, following the 2010 census. In April, a former Superior Court president was named the independent chair of the state’s Legislative Reapportionment Commission, which by October is due to send to the state Supreme Court its reapportionment draft of state legislative districts.

One district that will be watched by some insiders is the Pennsylvania 172nd State House Legislative district, formerly the precinct of John Perzel.

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This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoods funded by J-Lab.

After John Perzel, the former speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, was charged with misusing public funds, he lost the seat he had held for more than 30 years in the 172nd District to Democrat Kevin Boyle.

Despite the scandal surrounding Perzel, people are divided about whether a powerful politician was better than a new representative in the Northeast district.

John McClogan, a Walton Park Civic  Association member, said he thinks a tainted Perzel is better than a newly elected representative.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “It’s the people who are suffering.”

McClogan said he thinks there is a big difference between Perzel and Boyle.

“Perzel was the speaker of the house. Boyle is just the representative. He doesn’t have the clout that Perzel had,” McClogan said. continue reading »

UPDATE: A source tells us a man was stabbed on the block and an arrest has been made. We’ll bring you details as we get them.

A resident of the 4300-block of Enfield Avenue in Upper Holmesburg tells us something major is happening on the block. Police, ambulance and paramedics arrived about an hour ago, and now about six police cars are on the street. We’re following up with the authorities.

This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoods funded by J-Lab.

You can find an update to this post at the bottom of the article, from the April 12 Holmesburg Civic Association meeting.

About $10.6 million was funneled directly to the Mayfair Community Development Corp. since 2000, granted from the state Department of Community and Economic Development, according to its website. Much of it went into street cleaning and senior citizen programs.

The document states $800,000 was used toward the Devon theater.

The same state department gave the Holmesburg Civic Association and the Friends of the Holmesburg Library $5,000 each, according to state records.

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This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoods funded by J-Lab.

Kevin Boyle has made a conference room out of John Perzel’s closet.

The young freshman state representative from the 172nd district in the Northeast beat out the indicted former state Speaker of the House last fall and is settling in his first year of elected office. It’s just a matter of form that his constituent services are taking place in the same Frankford Avenue storefront that Perzel held dominion for a portion of his 32-year career. (Boyle is a Democrat; Perzel a Republican).

“We just needed another place to get work done,” Boyle told NEast Philly during an interview last month, standing in the small, undecorated, white room with a table and four chairs. Boyle’s chief of staff Seth Kaplan says the conference room was formerly a closet when Perzel had offices there.

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This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoods funded by J-Lab.

Change is relative. That seemed to be the message from long-time locals living and working near Frankford Avenue in Mayfair.

The heart of Mayfair, Frankford Avenue has certainly gained a few nail salons and lost a few retail outlets over the years, but not all locals believe these changes to be monumental — or even for the worse.

“People have all these memories of Mayfair as a golden age. It hasn’t really changed that much,” said Mike “Scoats” Scotese, president of the Mayfair Business Association and owner of Frankford Avenue’s Grey Lodge (as well as Fox Chase’s Hop Angel Brauhaus).

Joe Veneziale disagreed. “There’s no retail on the street anymore,” said the owner of Giggles Gifts. “Thirty, 35, 40 years ago, there was nothing but retail stores on the avenue. You could get anything you wanted.”
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This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoods funded by J-Lab.

While former House Speaker John M. Perzel waits to fight corruption charges against him, there has yet to be rulings on some of the pretrial motions, a spokesman for the attorney general wrote in an e-mail.

Attorney general spokesman Nils Frederiksen did not say when these motions are expected to be decided on. Most of them from Perzel’s attorney, Brian McMonagle, seek to have the charges dropped.

Dauphin County Judge Richard A. Lewis ordered last month to delay jury selection until August so defense lawyers can look through evidence, including 1.8 million paper documents and thousands of computer files.

McMonagle argued during a pretrial hearing the Blue Card program was legitimate because it was used for legislative actions, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. continue reading »

This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoodsfunded by J-Lab.

In partnership with Philadelphia Neighborhoods as part of an Enterprise Reporting Fund grant from J-Lab: The Institute of Interactive Journalism, our reporters will take an in-depth look at the development and revitalization efforts in the district, specifically along the Frankford Avenue corridor in Mayfair, where Perzel concentrated his resources. continue reading »