ElectNext CEO and Princeton grad Keya Dannenbaum: smarter voters make smarter communities

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods program, the capstone class for the Temple’s Department of Journalism.

Too many voters feel overwhelmed or unprepared to cast ballots on Election Day, so they either choose candidates randomly or never vote at all.

This was Keya Dannenbaum’s concern that fueled the idea behind ElectNext, a startup that was formally launched at the TEDx Philly event Tuesday at the Performing Arts Center at Temple University. Technically Philly first told you about the DreamIt Ventures startup, but now that the dust has finally settled on Philadelphia’s latest municipal election, we thought it worth hearing more.

Featured by TechCrunch and NewsWorks, ElectNext is a website-based matching platform that helps voters vote well down their ballot.

“People go out to vote, and they know who they want for president, or whoever is at the top of the ticket, but they walk into that ballot booth and they are confronted with a ballot three pages long, filled with people and offices they have never heard of,” said Dannenbaum, the startup’s CEO and founder.

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Tax reform legislation passes City Council committee, would exempt first $100k in city business receipts

City Council chambers. Photo by Albert Yee.

A bill that would make changes to the City of Philadelphia’s tax structure was approved Monday by City Council’s Committee on Finance, as the Daily News reported. If passed by Council, the measure would be phased into practice during a three-year period starting in fiscal year 2015.

The bill, introduced by Council members Bill Green and Maria Quiñones Sanchez, as discussed in our Q&A with her Friday, would exempt the first $100,000 in business receipts from both the gross and net income portions, a move aimed at startups and small businesses based in the city.

“This represents a higher tax reduction than [other] plans for a gross receipts reduction,” Sanchez told Technically Philly.

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John Perzel: former state Speaker of the House pleads guilty to software-driven corruption

Perzel entering Dauphin County courthouse Wednesday afternoon. (Via the Harrisburg Patriot-News)

John Perzel, the embattled, former powerful state Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, plead guilty to eight of 82 counts of corruption, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette first reported. The plea bargain comes ahead of a planned trial this fall.

The corruption charges largely stemmed from accusations that Perzel masterminded the spending of $10 million in taxpayer dollars to deploy a software system to evaluate voter trends meant to keep GOP lawmakers in power. Others in Perzel’s Northeast Philadelphia district office plead guilty last month. The minimum sentence for Perzel is 18 months and the maximum is 24 years, the Tribune Review reported.

From 2007 to 2010, Perzel, a 30-year veteran, lost his speaker role, was indicted and then lost the 172nd legislative district seat to young Democrat Kevin Boyle, who had never won an election before.

Read more in a comprehensive package by Northeast Philadelphia hyperlocal site NEast Philly covering John Perzel.

[Full Disclosure: This reporter also worked on that NEast Philly report.]

Fix Philly Districts: city redistricting awareness campaign from WHYY, Daily News, Azavea [AUDIO]

City Council is required to submit next month updated legislative boundaries based on the new U.S. Census and Chris Satullo says they are “are bound and determined to screw it up.”

The WHYY News and Civic Dialogue Director has partnered with GIS shop Azavea, the Daily News and others on Fix Philly Districts, an awareness campaign featuring a mock redistricting plan competition and civic engagement forums.

This Monday evening, at WHYY, eager Philadelphians can learn more about the otherwise rather hidden process of mapping new legislative boundaries for city council. Find out more about the first event here.

Later this month, Azavea will host webinars on their sleek DistrictBuilder software, which will drive the contest, during which you, John Q. Public, will envision what the city’s legislative boundaries should look like and compete for $1,000, official presentation of your district plan and, you know, civic pride. The DistrictBuilder software has been used nationwide for federal redistricting campaigns, an interest of Azavea founder Robert Cheetham.

Below, hear Satullo talk about the campaign’s importance.

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Councilman Jim Kenney on tax policy amid a recession

Councilman Jim Kenney was a staunch opponent of the city tax reform proposal from Councilman Bill Green and Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez.

Later this month, revised plans from Green and Sanchez are expected, ahead of Mayor Nutter’s budget address. So, in chatting with Councilman Kenney in February, we brought up his issues with the tax proposal. Below, with light editing for length and clarity, are his thoughts:

Where did you stand on the Green-Sanchez tax legislation?

I was not in favor of that legislation, and I thought it was dangerous how they wanted to reorganize and revamp the business privilege tax in the big picture of it.

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Jim Kenney, City Councilman, on Philly 311 today, tomorrow and what is holding it back

Councilman Jim Kenney wants another memo sent out.

Just about from the start, for almost two and a half years, Kenney says he’s been requesting a monitor that would let him listen into randomized Philly 311 calls.

“I don’t want to get someone in trouble,” he says. “It’s an issue of identifying a problem., finding something that doesn’t sound right.”

With that, he calls off to a legislative aide about again requesting off 311 administration that he gets the device, which he says is common place in large companies with customer service representatives, like at Independence Blue Cross, where he first heard of it.

And that’s just it, though the councilman at large is largely credited for introducing the concept of 311 to Mayor Nutter who Kenney credits with actually enacting, Kenney has no real direct oversight or responsibility for the city services hotline. He just wants to listen in.

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‘Give us the data that is ours:’ Digital Philadelphia Code for America open gov event [VIDEO]

Code for America fellow Matt Lewis leads a brainstorming session on what data residents would want to see. Photo by Sean Blanda.

City government collects the people”s data, and the people need to take it back.

That proved something of a theme of Wednesday night’s Digital Philadelphia Open Data event sponsored by Young Involved Philadelphia and Technically Philly.

Held in the beautiful third-floor theater of the Gershman Hall thanks to the Corzo Center of the University of the Arts, more than 50 interested residents and technologists came for a half-hour panel discussion followed by brainstorming sessions on what types of government information Philadelphians might most want.

Find photos of the event by John Mertens here.

“We need to tell the City that we can be better participants in our government if we can access our data,” said Aaron Ogle, a former Azavea developer and current Code for America Philadelphia team lead.

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DistrictBuilder: Azavea, Harvard and George Mason professors let you redistrict online

Let the people redistrict the land.

Azavea, your friendly Callowhill neighborhood geospatial analysis software development company, announced last week with professors at Harvard and George Mason universities, DistrictBuilder, an open source, web-based redistricting application designed to give the public access to online redistricting tools.

The web-based software can be configured to redistrict any state or locality within the United States, and is based on open source technology in order to make it transparent and accessible by a broad audience.

“While the 2010 Census apportionment data results were released in December, in a few weeks’ time the 2010 Census population demographic profile data will be made available,” reads the release [PDF]. “At that point, legislators along with political consultants will start shifting district boundaries according to their own political interests, often at the expense of the interests of the citizens they represent.”

More below.

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Philly business privilege tax reform legislation working group: discussing ‘contours of a proposal’ in March

Councilman Bill Green, with Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez to the left. Photo courtesy WHYY.

A joint Philadelphia City Council and Nutter administration working group is examining details on business privilege tax reform, says City Councilman Bill Green.

“[We are working] to achieve the underlying policy goals of the BPT reform legislation, which includ[es] helping small businesses, encouraging job creation, closing tax loopholes and making Philadelphia an attractive location for businesses to locate, expand, and stay,” Green tells Technically Philly.

The working group is charged with taking elements of City Council Bill 100635, primarily sponsored by Green and City Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez, and creating a new version more palatable to a big business community that labeled the legislation ‘ill-timed’ in recent council testimony.

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FCC won’t vote on Comcast-NBC merger in January: Comcast Roundup

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

• Comcast to Start Streaming on Tablets [Gadgetwise: New York Times] — “Comcast on Wednesday took a step toward television viewing on tablets with two announcements about live and on-demand viewing.” The Comcast blog gave more corporate perspective on those announcements.
• No Comcast vote at January FCC meeting [The Hill] — “The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will not vote on the Comcast merger at its January meeting, according to an agenda summary released Tuesday.”
• Taking Media Mergers to the Next Level [FAIR] — Perspective on media coverage of NBC merger
• Why I Love Comcast [The Motley Fool] — Counter to the maxim of ‘don’t buy what you hate,’ an investor suggests that “we just need to ensure that we don’t extrapolate our own personal experiences too greatly onto the general population, and assume that everyone thinks like us.”
• Analysts: Comcast-NBCU conditions could change if GOP wins White House [The Hill] — “Telecom analysts say the conditions that may be placed on the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal could be rolled back if Republicans take the White House in 2012. “
• Inquirer Editorial: Cable giant grows bigger [Inquirer] — Local voice on the merger, without much hard perspective we can find.