A LETTER FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE
THU · NOV 12 · 2026
Decisions are being made about your block. You should know.
City Council votes to put the sheriff's office under oath, the Eagles' sell-off report card is in, and the marathon takes the parkway this weekend.
AROUND
City Council authorized hearings into the troubled sheriff's office, which means sworn testimony from an office with a decades-long blooper reel of missing money and missing paperwork. Hearings with oaths attached are how you find out whether the bloopers were incompetence or something with a longer tail. The people have been waiting for someone to ask questions with a transcript running.
Council is moving a bill to extend the full 10-year tax abatement for a Jewelers Row tower, because the reformed abatement apparently came with a Sansom Street-shaped loophole and Pearl Properties found it first. Meanwhile the acting city solicitor says Philly faces a potential $300 million wrongful-conviction bill. Decades of bad convictions are coming due at once, and the number has nine digits. The city can find a tax break for a tower faster than it can find the money for the people it locked up wrong.
The accountability fight has a second front: Council is pressing the police union contract as misconduct concerns pile up, and the FOP contract is the pressure point everybody in the room understands. And after Malayshia Allford's death, Council and Mayor Parker now have actual proposals on paper, which means the foster-care failure has a legislative paper trail to track instead of just a press conference to forget.
While the PFT organizes to save 17 schools, Drexel is pausing admissions into its undergraduate education program. The district needs teachers, the union is fighting for the buildings, and the university down the street is quietly shrinking the pipeline. Somebody's math is off, and it is not the union's.
The rare anti-displacement story with receipts: community property ownership is actually working against gentrification in Kensington, with real addresses and real numbers instead of slogans. And for everyone who has been squinting at the platforms: here is who the purple-vested workers patrolling SEPTA stations actually are. The people have been asking about the vests for weeks; now there is an answer.
One to mark on the calendar before it is gone: Shady Brook Farm is ending its drive-through holiday light show after 30 years, so this season is the last lap through the lights. Bucks County institutions do not get farewell tours; they just get one more December.
UP
The Eagles' trade deadline winners and losers are official, and the report card on the sell-off reads exactly like a team that chose the future over this season. Howie dealt, the grades are in, and Moro Ojomo's name keeps coming up in the wrong column for comfort. The biggest questions of the second half start with Nick Sirianni's job security and the Joe Milton starting-QB noise, and the bye week answered none of them. Streaks like this get measured against 2012, and 2012 ended with a new coach. Pittsburgh, Sunday, 4:25. The measuring stick comes back out.
The Flyers let the Michkov situation fester, and now the whole franchise is at stake. Danny Briere called the report 'not correct,' and the people read the denial and got less reassured, because the franchise's most important relationship is now being managed through statements. Tocchet, Briere, the kid: somebody in that triangle has to fix this before the fix is a trade nobody wants.
Hot stove update: what we know, or think we know, about the Phillies' offseason plans involves Teruaki Sato, Aidan Miller, Seiya Suzuki and Randy Arozarena, with third base still the open wound. Wheeler already delivered the one clean answer of the winter; the rest is names on a whiteboard.
And the good news, because there is some: Cavan Sullivan is a finalist for MLS MVP, on a ballot with Lionel Messi. A Union teenager sharing a shortlist with the best player alive. Whatever else this city's teams put you through this fall, remember the kid.
ON
THU 19 Rain showers and a high of 63 with an east wind, then a hard turn colder tonight, low 42 (National Weather Service).
FRI 20 Light rain and a high of 47 as the nor'easter churns through, northwest wind 10 to 15. A good day to let the rain make your decisions for you.
SAT 21 Chance of light rain then partly sunny, high 48; marathon road closures and parking bans begin, so move the car tonight or meet the tow lot by breakfast.
SUN 22 The marathon takes the parkway at dawn, then the Eagles visit Pittsburgh at 4:25 with the season on the 2012 measuring stick. Run in the morning, suffer in the afternoon.
MON 23 Thanksgiving week begins; remember that Philly's Gimbels parade wrote the blueprint the whole country copied. New York gets the balloons; we get the bragging rights.
TUE 24 Zitner's Butter Krak is back for the winter, which is the only holiday countdown that matters.
WED 25 Last-chance season opens for Shady Brook Farm's drive-through light show after 30 years. Take the kids, take the thermos, take the pictures.
WENT ON
The Schuylkill Crossing swing bridge opened to the public Friday, and 1,000 feet of pivoting steel finally made Grays Ferry and Bartram's Garden one trail. The speeches are over; now it is just you and the bridge that moves for boats.
The Made in Philadelphia Holiday Market opened at Dilworth Park on Saturday and the tweed ride rolled Sunday, costumes and all. This city will put on a costume for any excuse involving two wheels, and it did.
See you Monday.
PHILA.FYI
Everything here links to where we found it: local reporting, city records and what neighbors are posting. Corrections welcome.