| PLAN C AVOIDED, BUDGET THREATENS STATE LANDS | | | VOLUME III,
ISSUE XVIII | | | | 
| | Attend the CPR launch on October 6! | | | | | | | | | | | | | Last week, the Pennsylvania Senate passed House Bill 1828, saving Philadephia from the dreaded "Plan C" budget that would have resulted in thousands of lay offs, library and recreation center closures, reduced trash collection, and other cuts. House Bill 1828 allows the city to temporarily increase the city sales tax from 7 cents on the dollar to 8 cents and to defer some payments into the pension fund. While this is good news for Philadelphia, the proposed state budget also includes several measures that are devastating for Pennsylvania's environment, including forcing state forests be opened for natural gas drilling and slashing the DEP budget by 25 percent. Email your legislators to tell them you want our state lands protected. | | | COALITION FOR PHILADEPHIA'S RIVERFRONTS (CPR) LAUNCH | | | After generations of being physically and psychologically cut off from our riverfronts, Philadelphia is ready to reconnect. The Coalition for Philadelphia's Riverfronts (CPR) will work to improve the quality of Philadelphia's riverfronts by establishing an urban, high quality, continuous, connected and publicly accessible greenway along the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers. Please join us on October 6 at 5:00 p.m. next to the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the Schuylkill River for the campaign's official launch. Learn about how a greenway will help the city's economy, help make Philadelphia the greenest city in America and benefit everyone who lives, works or visits in Philadelphia. And there's more! Thanks to help from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) and the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, Hidden River Outfitters will offer discounted kayaking after the event so you can get out and enjoy the river. For more information please contact Rachel Vassar at 215-545-9691 or vassar@pennfuture.org. | | | IDLEFREEPHILLY- HELPING YOU BREATHE EASIER | | | Philadelphia is a hard place to live if you have asthma. That's why Next Great City recommended that the city install modern pollution-control devices on older city vehicles. We are pleased that the city has made significant strides in implementing this recommendation. But there is more that can be done to help Philadelphians breathe easier, and you can be a part of it. Unnecessary idling vehicles not only waste fuel, but they also pollute the air that we breathe. Idle Free Philly, a project of the Clean Air Council, empowers citizens to combat unnecessary idling by giving residents a tool to report problems in their neighborhoods to city officials. Using a SeeClickFix structure, IdleFreePhilly.org enables you to identify idling hot spots so that city officials can target their enforcement. | | | BEST OF GREENWORKS | | | For those of you who haven't had the time to read over Greenworks, the 94 page sustainability framework for Philadelphia, Max Kaplan of aroundphilly.com offers a nice, very-abridged, best-of version that explains how the implementation of Greenworks will effect your life. Of course, we still encourage you to read the whole framework, or at least the 8-page executive summary. | | | NEWS | | | | | | EVENTS | | | | | 
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