As grumbling peaked last month over Philly’s bumper crop of seasonal potholes, Mayor Cherelle Parker proposed creating six new “pothole squads” to proactively patch damaged roads — along with a new tax to pay for them.
“Somebody’s going to say, ‘Did you just get all excited about potholes?’” Parker exclaimed during her annual budget speech, to cheers and applause. “And what I’m going to say is that, until you’ve had to go and get your shocks or your car serviced because you hit a pothole, you don’t know how serious an issue this is in the city of Philadelphia.”
To bump up the Street Department’s road-maintenance budget by $15 million, including $7 million to hire 24 people and buy equipment and supplies, the mayor proposed a new 25-cent tax on retail deliveries…