And here I thought you were referring to Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Neil Ferber was initially prosecuted based on a positive eye witness identifying him in police lineup as well as a statement from an informant(in jail) who said Ferber admitted to it. Any DA would pursue that with a vengence.
Turns out that informant failed the polygraph and that was not revealed to the defense, so the judge granted a new trial. When it became known that there was considerable evidence of a frameing by police and a sketch artist, the charges had to be dropped. You can't pin that whole mess on Rendel, Bob.
Back to the wage tax topic - it was Rendel who started the downward movement of it. When he took office in 1992 (which is also when the city literally had NO money and was running a deficit) he started lowering it from something like 5+% for city residents and 4.8% for non residents. The next 8 years under his administration were the best the city has seen in so many ways since the days of Ben Franklin. And this is coming from me, a rather conservative fellow.
