This photo, titled West Philadelphia 7 am, was taken by West Philly based photographer Stephanie Ricci.

Send us your photo of the neighborhood at editor@westphillylocal.com

Mariposa Food Co-op is seeking a new Membership Coordinator to join their staff collective. They have recently expanded their operations and their membership is quickly increasing in size. They are interested in applicants who have previous experience managing large numbers of individuals, especially coordinating people in a volunteer organization and/or working within a cooperative model. A major part of this job is interacting with people, so Mariposa is asking that only candidates with exceptional communication and interpersonal skills apply for this position.

Compensation is $12.25/hour with a yearly raise. Benefits include health savings account, paid vacation and sick/personal days and monthly $25 in-store shopping credit.

Deadline for applications is April 14, 2012. Ideal start date is June 1, 2012. For the full job description and to apply, visit this page.

Reader Chelsea believes she was pressured into switching energy providers by door-to-door salesmen and wants other residents to be aware of this possible scam. Here’s what she wrote us in an email:

“I thought other West Philadelphians should be made aware of door-to-door salesmen who try to scam you into switching energy companies. Some people seem to know about this company already, but for people who are new to the area, like me, it seemed believable.

There were two well-dressed young men going door to door in my neighborhood (Spruce Hill area) from Direct Energy. They represented themselves as belonging to the parent agency of my electric provider and asked to look at my PECO bill to make sure that I was getting the newly-lowered rate customers in this area are supposed to be getting, since there was an “error” and “some customers were accidentally getting overcharged and hadn’t properly fixed it on their bills.” They claimed this “fixing” would be greatly expedited if they did it for me. They then called their managers to, in their words, make sure the new discount was applied to my bill, and then had me sign something and write down my account number. They quickly left before I could read the fine print of what I signed, but I looked it up afterwards and realized they completely misrepresented their affiliation: they are in no way affiliated with PECO, but are a competitor company.

What they do is take your information from PECO and use it to change over your energy provider to them. I don’t know if their company is any better or any worse, but people should be able to make their own decisions and not get pressured by this misinformation. If anyone else signed the form (as I did) they can call the company within three business days to cancel.”

This beautiful photo was taken by Jeremiah Thomason (“Jay Tee”) between Clark Park and 48th Street.

Send us your photo of the neighborhood at: editor@westphillylocal.com

This Saturday, March 31, St. Mary’s Church at 3916 Locust Walk is hosting 2012 Band Extravaganza(!), a fundraising concert to support instrumental music instruction at Lea Elementary. The concert begins at 7 p.m. Penn Jazz, the 2012 High School Honor Band and Play On, Philly! are among featured performers. See the flyer below for more details.
 

 
A car traveling eastbound entered the trolley tunnel at 40th and Baltimore on Thursday morning at 11:30 a.m. and caused a temporary disruption of service when routes 10, 11, 13, 34 and 36 were put on diversion, according to SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch. SEPTA riders using those routes could take the trolleys as far as 40th Street, then transfer to the Market-Frankford Line to continue their trip, which is customary when there is a disruption to service in the tunnel.

The fire department, police and SEPTA personnel were called to the scene. The vehicle was removed, and the tracks and other infrastructure were inspected for any potential damage. No problems were found, and service was restored at approximately 12:15 p.m.

The police didn’t identify the driver since there was no collision involving the vehicle and SEPTA trolleys and there were no injuries reported.

The crazy thing is that this happens kind of frequently.

“It’s not that uncommon,” said police spokesperson Tanya Little.