Orchestra group led by Nutter donors

As The Inquirer reported last week, Mayor Nutter met privately with the chairman of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association before the city's budget crisis fully emerged and agreed to send the orchestra an unscheduled $250,000 grant. The unusual move appeared to subvert the typical rules governing equitable city funding of the arts.

Now, after a review of campaign-finance records from the 2007 mayoral race, it is also clear that Nutter's grant was directed to an institution packed with many of his supporters.

Harold Sorgenti, the Orchestra Association's chair, contributed $5,000 to Nutter's campaign, the maximum annual donation allowed by law. Vice chair Richard Worley also maxed out, giving Nutter $10,000 over two years. Fellow vice chairs Joseph Frick and Michael Zisman also contributed generously - Frick sending $4,500 and Zisman $4,000.

All told, senior members of the association board contributed about $33,000 to Nutter's campaign in 2007.

It is worth noting that in general the donors are wealthy and powerful people, and many habitually donate to political causes.

Lest it go unnoticed: Former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo may be fighting federal corruption charges, but it seems he made some time to help save the Mummers Parade.

With the Nutter administration cutting funding to the Mummers to combat a $108 million city budget deficit this fiscal year, private donors stepped up last week to ensure the parade went on as usual.

The Delaware Valley Regional Economic Development Fund contributed $100,000 of the $230,000 raised. It so happens that the nonprofit was funded by Peco Energy Co. thanks to a 1998 settlement between the utility and Fumo in which the utility agreed to gradually give $11 million to the nonprofit.

Over the years, the Delaware Valley fund has awarded grants and loans to groups with ties to Fumo. This time, apparently, it was the Mummers' turn.

And who brought the Mummers this good tiding? Larry Farnese, elected to replace Fumo - with his strong backing - in the Senate.

This wasn't the first time that Fumo helped defray parade costs. A witness in the corruption trial, political operative Ken Snyder, testified three weeks ago that one year Fumo directed another nonprofit, Citizens' Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, to contribute $200,000.

During two days of sometimes droning testimony in a City Hall courtroom about Mayor Nutter's legal right to close 11 city libraries, Sophie Bryan, a staff lawyer for Councilman Bill Green, had said nary a word.

When she finally got around Tuesday afternoon to arguing that Nutter had violated a rarely cited law requiring Council's approval for closing facilities, library advocates whispered their admiration of the clarity of her argument.

"The mayor is treading not only on the legislative branch but on the judicial branch," said Bryan, who said Nutter could not refuse to follow a 1988 Council ordinance just because his solicitor had told him it was invalid.

But, then, the Harvard-trained lawyer had been inspired: Her mother, Jane, a career librarian, had died Dec. 15 after a brief illness.

Starting at the Free Library of Philadelphia before stints at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, Jane Bryan in 2005 became director of libraries at Drexel University, which has a nationally regarded master's program in library and information science.

"It's a happy day," said Sophie Bryan, 34, whose father was among the spectators Tuesday. "She was very happy that Bill [Green] was fighting this fight."