Voters don’t seem to love Philly’s soda tax. Will it matter?

• Ed Mahon
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  Ed Mahon comes to Spotlight PA from PA Post, where he covered state politics and policy, produced radio stories that were broadcast on public media stations throughout the state and on NPR’s national newscasts, and co-wrote a weekday newsletter. Prior to joining PA Post, Ed worked for six years as an investigative and political reporter for the York Daily Record, part of the USA Today Network. His reporting on failures in Pennsylvania’s system for protecting domestic abuse victims was a finalist in the national 2018 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists in the local reporting category. He was also part of a team whose coverage of the criminal justice system, including the aggressive use of civil asset forfeiture by York County prosecutors, received the 2018 G. Richard Dew Award for Journalistic Service from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. Before joining the York Daily Record, Ed covered K-12 education at the Centre Daily Times in State College and worked as a stringer for suburban sections of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He grew up in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

 Kimberly Paynter / WHYY

Jim Kenney walks down Broad Street toward the Broad Street Ministry.

From The Context, PA Post’s weekday email newsletter:

Tax takes public-opinion hit

Kimberly Paynter / WHYY

Jim Kenney walks down Broad Street toward the Broad Street Ministry.

• Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney is up for re-election this year, and WHYY sent reporters to several neighborhoods to see what people think of the job he’s done. In Kenney’s childhood neighborhood in South Philly, there were some people not happy with him — or the soda tax he pushed for. But Kenney has his fans, and most voters that WHYY’s Dave Davies spoke to didn’t have strong opinions about the other candidates.

• And in a poll of Philadelphia voters, 55 percent of respondents said the city’s soda tax should be repealed. The Philadelphia Inquirer has more on the survey results.

• At the state level, state Rep. Seth Grove, R-York County, told his fellow lawmakers last month that he wants to prevent municipalities from passing soda taxes like the one in Philadelphia.

Best of the rest

Emily Cohen / WHYY

Students walk on the campus of Cheyney University.

• State-owned universities in Pennsylvania saw eight consecutive years of enrollment losses, Sara Hoover reports for WHYY. Hoover explains how a projected nationwide drop in college enrollment could impact Pennsylvania.

• One day after a California synagogue shooting left one dead and three injured, people gathered in Pittsburgh to mark six months since the Tree of Life massacre. WESA’s Sarah Boden has the details.

• Marie Cusick of StateImpact Pennsylvania breaks down why nuclear subsidies face such an uphill battle in Pennsylvania. One undecided Democratic lawmaker from Philadelphia said the expected costs for consumers is “a little hard for me to swallow.”