Nasty weather like today’s brings along high heating bills. There is help for folks who need it. A number of assistance programs exist to help pay gas and electric bills. The Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), for example, can provide grants  for energy bills for a family of three with a gross income below $29,296.

A complete list of assistance programs is here.

Last year’s record snowfall left sidewalks like this one on 44th Street near Spruce buried.

The City Council passed legislation recently that will now require property owners to shovel at least a 36-inch path – up from 30 inches – down snowy sidewalks. The change is designed to make a wider path for  people in wheelchairs, many of who were stranded during last year’s record snowfall. City Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, who proposed the changes, also said the bill will help people pushing strollers.

The catch to all of this, of course, is enforcement. We’ll see if the city backs it up, especially considering that, as the Inquirer reported, City buildings are often the worst offenders of leaving treacherous winter sidewalks.

There’s not much more to it than that, but here’s the actual changes if you’re interested:

City and private planning officials last night unveiled an “action plan” to turn 500 acres of vacant lots, desolate schoolyards and derelict parks into revitalized green space.

Green2015: An Action Plan for the First 500 Acres is the result of cooperation between the city and PennPraxis, the hands-on branch of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design. It’s ambitious and expensive, although the city maintains that the costs will be kept low thanks to private and community partnerships and the fact that many of the sites under consideration will be relatively easy to green-up.

The idea is to create green space where there isn’t much, particularly for the 200,000 or so Philadelphians who live further than a 10-minute walk from a public park. A caveat: These spaces won’t necessarily be turned into “parks.” Some will be spruced up school playgrounds, for example. Many are an acre or less.

The city is inviting citizen feedback here.

Here are some “opportunity sites” in West Philly that the plan mentions:

• Walnut Hill Community Park and Farm (pictured left). This project on a quarter-acre lot near 46th and Market is actually already underway and will include a pocket park and an urban garden (p. 79).

Green 2015

Diners and pedestrians at the McDonald’s at 40th and Walnut Streets felt the wrath of PETA first-hand at lunchtime today when a pink stretch Hummer limo unloaded a small chanting, dancing troupe of little people dressed as chickens (and one had a mustache) at the restaurant to protest suppliers’ treatment of chickens.

Each of the four performers chanted, “Cluck you McDonald’s, I’m not a nugget” while other protesters held up signs. One even did a robot dance to the loud music coming from a boom box sitting on the sidewalk. Similar protests have been done in New York, including one at a McDonald’s on Times Square.

The Spruce Hill Community Association recently hung the receipts for voting in their precinct in organization’s front window at 257 South 45th St. Voters in West Philadelphia went overwhelmingly for Democrats Joe Sestak and Dan Onorato for U.S. Senate and Pennsylvania governor respectively. Both men lost, of course, in the November 2 election.

West Philadelphia business owner Debbi Ramsey and her Natural Wellness Spa were featured on FOX29 last night in a story about the red tape small businesses must go through to become a business.