2 WEEKLYPRESS.COM • UCREVIEW.COM • MARCH 13, 2013 Drones continued from page 1


poses. They never carry weapons and never leave the airspace over the fort, where training exercises take place, he said.


“It’s the same as flying the Apache (a military helicop- ter) around, but we don’t load it with Hellfire missiles and fly it over your house,” Jones said.


The training missions never include recording data from the drones’ cameras, he said, as they are only meant to help soldier learn to use the devices in preparation for overseas deployment. The drone is authorized to operate between 7 a.m. and midnight on weekdays any time of the year, according to FAA certification. Flights are estimated at between five and six hours each. Officially known as an RQ-7B Shadow, the drone is manufactured by Maryland- based AAI Corporation, a defense contractor. It is billed as a tool for “recon- naissance, surveillance, targeting, and assessment,” according to AAI Corpora- tion’s website. The entire system of four


aircraft with trucks, launcher and other vital components costs roughly $15 million, Jones said.


The Pennsylvania National


Guard also owns smaller drones known as “Ravens” which are small enough to be launched by hand, Jones said. But the National Guard may not be the only group in Pennsylvania using drone technology.


Penn State University was included on a list of public institutions that requested Federal Aviation Admin- istration permission to fly a drone, according to a list published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a pro-liberty think tank based


in San Francisco, which obtained detailed records of FAA permits for drones. Last month, the Penn State


request was denied by the FAA, according to multiple media reports. A professor at the school had hoped to use a drone as part of a research project on albatrosses. The issue of drones came to the forefront of national politics this week when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., lead a 12- hour filibuster on the Senate floor Wednesday to criticize the United States’ use of the unmanned vehicles in the War on Terror. Allie Bohm, an advocacy and policy strategist for the American Civil Liber- ties Union, or ACLU, said privacy laws need to be strengthened and updated to allow the positive aspects of drone technology to be used while limiting their potential for violating privacy laws. “We want to make sure


they’re not used for indis- criminate, mass surveil- lance,” she said. FAA regulations keep drones out of conventional airspace, and thus out of densely popu- lated areas, but that could be changing soon. Congress has ordered the FAA to come up with looser drone regulations by 2015. State Rep. Angel Cruz, D-Philadelphia, plans to introduce legislation to ban law enforcement from us- ing drones for surveillance purposes without a warrant from a state judge.


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The same legislation dur- ing the last session attracted only five sponsors and did not move out of committee. Bohm said requiring a warrant is an “excellent stan- dard” for drone surveillance. Arizona, Montana and North Dakota have similar bills to require a warrant for drone surveillance that have passed at least one chamber of their state legislatures, but no states have laws requiring it. In Virginia, a two-year moratorium on the use of drones by law enforcement has passed the legislature and is waiting for Gov. Bob McDonnell’s signature. The Pennsylvania State Po- lice do not use drone technol- ogy, said assistant press sec- retary Diana Bates. She could not comment on whether the state police would pursue the use of drones in the future. Eric Boehm is a reporter for


PA Independent. He can be reached at Eric@PAIndepen- dent.com or at 717-350-0963.


Darrell Clarke continued from page 1


vacant land. The taxes generated from those new properties could then contribute to the city’s real estate tax base. “I’m not trying to be critical of the past ad- ministration, but I want to interact more with [issues] at the neighbor- hood level,” President Clarke said in regard to his willingness to discuss issues with community and neighborhood pa- pers. The Urban Affairs Committee will intro- duce House Bills No. 388 and 389, this Thursday, March 14th


, Clarke ex-


plained. House Bill No. 388, “referred to as the Municipal Claim and Tax Lien Law, further provid [es] for [the] authoriza- tion to municipalities to impose tax liens on any property throughout this Commonwealth and on the funds in certain bank accounts.”


If passed, House Bill No. 388 would give the city the opportunity to place liens on all of the properties of delinquent taxpayers. “Many of them don’t even live in the city,” Clarke said. Bill No. 389, intro- duces a Constitutional amendment that would give cities such as Phila- delphia the authority to set different rates for commercial and residen- tial real estate taxes. As stated in the bill’s sum- mary, introduced by Rep. Brownlee, “many local jurisdictions, including those in the neighboring states of New York and Ohio, have the authority to set tax rates on differ- ent classes of properties. Analysis of the impact of the Actual Value Initiative indicates that there will be a substantial shift in property tax burden from commercial properties to residential properties. Ab- sent, the ability to create separate rates for residen- tial properties and com- mercial properties, the City of Philadelphia has no recourse to mitigate this shift of tax burden.” Clarke also noted that he supports other AVI- related legislation such as installment payment plans for long-standing


homeowners in gentrified neighborhoods. As Clarke’s remarks shifted to a discussion, Jimmy Tayoun, Editor of the Public Record, labeled non-profits “public pollu- tion”. In Tayoun’s opin- ion, “it seems like there’s a growing sentiment that they’re not functioning or operating properly. What’s the city doing to reduce this public pollu- tion?”


Clarke explained that he did not agree with Tayoun’s characterization of non-profits. “Many non-profits are small with limited resources,” Clarke said.


Jim Foster, the editor


of the Germantown News- papers and Northwest In- dependent asked how the city planned to collect the half a billion dollars it is owed in real estate taxes. He also, referred to the revenue the city lost from “unnecessarily comfort- able tax abatements.” Fos- ter asked if the city plans to rescind its 10-year tax abatements. According to Clarke, only about $250,000- $300,000 is actually owed the city from uncollected taxes. The other remaining sum results from penal- ties. Clarke then explained that although he support- ed the 10-year tax abate- ments at a certain time, he doesn’t think they’re still needed in highly desirable neighborhoods such as Northern Liberties. The City Paper’s Saman- tha Melamed asked Clarke to elaborate on his posi- tion regarding tax abate- ments. “If not ten-year tax abatements, what kind? Five years?”


Clarke did not give a specific number of years that the city should con- tinue to implement tax abatements. But he did say they could be benefi- cial in neighborhoods with “little economic growth.” Towards the meeting’s close, this reporter asked whether or not City Coun- cil had any direct plans to help renters whose rents will increase as a result of AVI.


It doesn’t, Clarke said. Stay-tuned for updates


on AVI related news and legislation.


Historical Commission continued from page 1


Historical Commission’s Rules and Regulations. If enacted, such changes could prevent future appeals to the L & I Review Board. The term “good faith”


argument translates to whether or not the owner of a historically designated property has placed the particular building for sale on the open market versus whether or not the owner has tried to find other adaptive re-uses for the project before filing for financial hardship with the Philadelphia Historical Commission.


countered Boni’s statement by casting the term, “good faith effort” in another light. Based on Ross’ line of argu- ment, the term “good faith effort” does not mean that the owner of a historically designated property must literally place the build- ing for sale on the open market before claiming financial hardship. Instead, Ross argued that trying to find adaptive re-uses for the subject property also qualifies as a “good faith attempt” because finding other uses for this build- ing were “impracticable.”


400 S. 40th Street, designed by Samuel Sloan It’s a distinction that fac-


tored into the recent argu- ments made over the fate of 400 S. 40th


Street in Univer-


sity City. In May 2012, the Historical Commission gave the University of Pennsylva- nia permission to demolish the historically designated building based on financial hardship. During that hear- ing, Penn representatives argued that the university had tried to find adaptive re-uses for the historically designated building. One project entailed attaching an eleven-story hotel to the mansion. The other in- cluded attaching a six-story graduate housing facility to the mansion. The university abandoned both proposals after facing intense commu- nity opposition due to the project’s mass and scale in the surrounding, residential neighborhood.


Appellants to the Histori- cal Commission’s decision of financial hardship want- ed to see the original man- sion preserved. In doing so, the appellants’ attorney Paul Boni, based part of his argument on the fact that Penn had never actually placed the property for sale on the open market. When both sides pre- sented their closing argu- ments on February 22nd


,


Andrew Ross, an attorney for the City of Philadelphia,


Ross then argued that the Historical Commission has granted demolition based on financial hardship when a property owner tried to find adaptive re-uses for the project. This occurred with Ten Rittenhouse, Ross argued. The L & I Review Board


rendered a split decision of 2-2.


In response to the pro- posed amendment, the Preservation Alliance of Philadelphia circulated a petition calling for the Historical Commission to table the proposed re- visions to the rules and regulations. It’s email ‘Advocacy Alert’ issued the following statement: “While the Alliance rec- ognizes that, under certain limited circum- stances, a literal attempt of sale is not absolutely necessary to demonstrate impracticability, we are concerned that the term “impracticable” lacks clear definition in either the Ordinance or the Rules and Regulations. This could have the dual effect of weakening the standards for demonstrat- ing financial hardship while simultaneously exposing the Commission to more challenges of its decisions, not fewer.” Stay-tuned for updates.


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