Anyone who's interested, check out the following:

http://www.petitiononline.com/Palumbo/petition.html

Uh oh! A lot of bitterness in some of the petition comments.

So what is the back story on the previous plan to name West River Drive after Palumbo? I can only vaguely recall rumblings about it in the 80s. Was there actually a City Council resolution which was then approved by the Fairmount Park Commission as the petition alleges?

And why not name a street after Neil Stein? George Perrier already has a small street named for him near Le Bec Fin.

And lastly, a more important question. Why does a petition on a trivial matter like this have so many times more signatures (1126) than the ethics reform petition at http://stoppaytoplay.info/ (298 as I write this)?

http://www.petitiononline.com/s3p/petition.html

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Cheers,
Jayfar
--
“I am indeed well aware of the history of Conventional (sic) Hall, both globally and locally, and can assure you that we are carefully exploring avenues for its future.” -- Penn President Amy Gutmann 5 days before demolition began.

All excellent points, Jayfar, especially the question as to why there are so fewer signatures on the stop-the-pay-to-play ballot. I wish there were as many folks as passionate about the latter issue.

I'm sure there's someone out there who has a better memory about the Palumbo issue than I, but I do recall back in the '80s this issue being raised quite frequently by Irv Homer, a talk-show personality who had an afternoon show at the time on FM's 96.5 WWDB -- anybody out there remember that station? Anyway, Homer may have even been one of the driving forces behind the idea to rename West River Drive after Palumbo. From what I understood, the necessary legislation was passed by City Council but then Fairmount Park Commissioner Bill Mifflin completely ignored it, some say, due to Italian-American prejudice. I don't know if that last part is true, but that was the rumor. And I'm hoping that there's someone with real knowledge about this issue who will respond.

Anyway, a lot of those of us with a last name ending in a vowel (as that "wise and virtuous sage" Rick Mariano likes to say ;-] ) felt cheated when the "honorable" Mayor Street and council members recently acted so quickly to change the name of West River Drive to honor Martin Luther King instead. While no one disputes that MLK deserves to be recognized, the point is, the folks behind honoring Palumbo were there first, so to speak. And if our city representatives were so quick to ignore past legislation, they could have at least thrown us a bone and come up with an ordinance to rename a street, say, in Bella Vista or somewhere else in South Philly after Palumbo.

Now, where does this "problem" rank in the city's to-do list of priorities? Absolutely at the bottom -- but one notch, I believe, above renaming West River Drive after MLK.

And "dat's da name of dat tune!"

Im half italian and grew up around 19th and Shunk, the problem I see is that many of the name son the petition were from people that live outside of the city, if you want to change things in the city either dont move out or buy back in. If not, petition Williamstown or Washington Twshp to name a street after Palumbo.

Are you trying to make us sick? And I can't believe a street is named after that obnoxious french man.

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"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people".