The Next Mayor

The one official candidate for mayor, Michael Nutter, has written to Paul Vallas to urge for more information and more public discussion of proposed school budget cuts.

The letter calls for a stringent review of the district's books, as Mayor Street recently called for. But there are a couple of noteable new ideas in Nutter's letter:

Nutter suggested PICA audit the district books, to serve as an "independent financial oversight entity"

He asked for an accounting of what the proposed budget cuts would do to each school

He asked for "week of public hearings in City Council chambers" so parents and other stakeholders can understand the cuts.

The letter's mentioned in Mensah M. Dean's coverage of the first meeting of Street's Philadelphia Educational Advisory Task force -- aka the Mayor's wedge to get back into the school district.

I used to think these coin operated toilet kiosks would be such a great idea. You're walking around town and you really have to go. Rather than risk all of the dirty looks that you'll get when you try to use the bathroom at the Westin Hotel while clad in your finest jogging or walking attire (I speak from experience), you can pop a quarter in the slot and get 15 minutes of privacy from one of these many, conveniently located public toilets. They're guaranteed to be clean since they completely self-clean after every use. Maybe they could even put a nice LCD screen in there so you can watch the news or get tips on where to go for the latest movies. All for the price of a local, 1-minute long phone call from a soon to be extinct "pay phone."

Yes, that would be great, wouldn't it? I wonder how such things have worked out for other cities. Ok... Google, what can you give me on "automated public toilets?" Bingo. Seattle seems to have tried this already. Seattle's a good clean city that doesn't have as much a problem with crime and cleanliness as Philadelphia at least judging from my weeklong visit back in 2000. They're biggest issue seems to be freeing up their waterfront by building a tunnel for a major highway that cuts the water off from the rest of the city. Gee, I'm glad we don't have that problem. Oh... wait.

Anyway if the toilets work there, maybe they have a chance here. If they don't, I doubt Philadelphia's government would be able to keep them clean, maintained and secure. Let me just read this editorial from the Seattle Times to find out.

Oh. Well, so much for that idea.

And so I just ran.

*gasp* *huff* *puff* *wheeeeze* *grunt* *ow ow ow* *phew*

That about describes the sounds coming from me during yesterday's Dash for Democracy. Yes, I actually ran the Inaugural Committee of Seventy-sponsored 5k (or 4.8k as I learned later, totally shattering the surprised good feelings I had when I crossed the finish line 2 minutes ahead of my expected pace). Some things I learned from yesterday's race include:

1. My colleague here at WHYY, Jeff Bundy, is really fast. I had always known this but when I saw him running the other way on Market Street, meaning he had run all the way past City Hall, Love Park and around Logan Circle before I had even gotten to Broad Street, it was confirmed.

2. Hot wings, beer, macaroni and cheese, french fries and lots of mayonnaise do not make a good pre-race dinner.

3. The new smoke-free atmosphere at the bar in which I ate the above is a Philadelphia policy initiative that all distance runners should be thankful for.

4. Chaka Fattah is faster than I am.

5. People don't listen to their "traffic on the 2's" as often as they should, judging by the huge back-ups on each North-South street that intersected the stretch of the course on Market East.

6. Running on a treadmill in a nice warm gym is not the way to prepare for the seering burn that one's lungs experience in 30 degree running conditions.

7. I have 6 months until the next 5k I plan on running. I better get to training.

As promised, Jeff and I walked around and looked for someone whose costume best exemplified an issue in the 2007 mayor's race. The winner, Tara, came dressed as the money that she feels is corrupting the electoral process. She was advocating the public financing of elections. If you look very carefully, you'll see that in the picture I took of Tara, I coincidentally got millionaire, potentially self-financed candidate, Tom Knox! Talk about irony. A woman talking about getting money out of politics in the same picture as a guy who has already put $5 million bucks into his own campaign.

For her efforts, Tara received an official The Next Mayor t-shirt and she'll get an opportunity to write a blog post on this blog about whatever she wants. I'll be putting up her post, unedited, soon.

Along with Fattah, who was among the runners and Knox, who got 15 seconds of microphone time at the Power 99 table, the as-yet-only-declared-candidate, Michael Nutter was also on hand to celebrate this event. Other photos from the Dash are included here.

...and we are looking for any reports of polling place confusion, machine breakdowns, or political hanky-panky. On the positive side, we also want to hear about long lines and excited voters. What did you experience as you voted?

We're getting good reports of voting with the new machines. One commenter said:

"My husband and I were excited to vote in Overbrook Farms today. We arrived before 8A and there were no lines, the 2 machines were easy to use, and we were each privileged to cast our votes in under 60 seconds from start to finish. Well done Philadelphia!"

Personally, I would like to send props to Haverford Township's 7th ward. I was voter number 161, which is a pretty good turnout for the hour when I voted, and it was a breeze. I parked, walked through the gauntlet of people waving fliers at me, talked to some polite, informed and extremely helpful poll volunteers and cast my vote in no more than 15 minutes. Easy as pie.

Voting shenanigans report...Christopher Sheridan, policy director of the Committee of 70, says thus far it's been "garden variety stuff" at the polls this morning, with mostly reports of friction between campaign volunteers. Here's a nasty one from the Northeast, in the Brendan Boyle/George Kenney State House race in the 170th:

"Some of our teenage volunteers were handing out campaign literature this evening when they were confronted by angry Kenney supporters. The men came out to confront our volunteers yelling, "Get off our turf! Go home white trash! Go back to Olney!"

Ewww.

Presented verbatim, check out this voter's experience:

When I arrived at the Roberto Clemente Recreation Center at 18th and Green streets at 8:30 a.m., there was a line of nearly 20 people waiting silently to vote that extended outside.

Suddenly, there was a lot of loud talking, that made me suspect that there was some sort of disturbance going on. I wondered if the police needed to be called.

Curious, I went to the front of the line and noticed a disheveled man in a gray sweatshirt holding a pack of Newport cigarettes. He appeared to be in some sort of dispute with the poll workers. It was hard to make out what it was about. But there was a lot of back and forth between him and the four other poll workers. From his appearance, I assumed he was homeless and maybe hanging around too much. I guessed that the workers had asked him to leave and he had refused.

But as the line inched forward, I could see that the man appeared to be helping the poll workers. At on point, he entered the voting booth with a voter. When he wasn’t doing that, he stood - at times all bent over - in the rear of the voting machines, touching the back of them from time to time.

As I made my way from the hallway into the room, the man started calling out to me. I ignored him but he wouldn’t stop. When I turned to face him and give him an “are you crazy look” he said, “Oh, you’re not ready for me yet, hah, hah?” as well as some other things that I couldn’t make out.

Meanwhile, there was more joshing and guffawing going on among two of the poll workers - one of whom had her hair tied up in a bandanna. When I got to the front, the poll worker, another one who’d been laughing and talking and making all manner of complaints about a would-be worker who’d arrived carrying a sleeping infant in her arms, jumped up as if she were startled and looked at me in a really crazy way. Instead of reacting, I simply stated my name.

She turned and started explaining the spelling of my last name in an exaggerated fashion and then handed me the book to me to sign. Glancing down, I noticed that the place where she indicated was next to someone else’s name. I informed her of her error and then went into the booth. After I voted, the homeless looking guy yelled out to me, “Hey, slim, do you want my business card.”

I didn’t turn around. I was too disgusted. It seems wrong that civic-minded people should be subjected to this kind of tomfoolery when faced with such an important task as voting.

In one of the odder twists to today's proceedings, it seems that the union support for Senator Santorum, led chiefly by Electricians Local 98 leader and potentital mayoral candidate John Dougherty has caused some odd pieces of campaign literature to spring up around the city. According to bloggers at Young Philly Politics who have been out an about today, Local 98 is handing out "Rendell-Santorum" literature.

For those of you who don't know the background, Dougherty and Philly Building Trades President Pat Gillespie are throwing their personal support behind Santorum for his role in bringing construction jobs associated with the new IRS center and for his support of dredging the Delaware River.

Anyway, I'm heading out to see if I can grab some of this lit. Could make a nice souvenir.

UPDATE from Wendy: We've also heard there are lawn signs. And a tipster writes:

There are Rendell/Santorum signs all over the city. Doorhangers all over the NE tout that split, and say they're paid for by Local 98 (Johnny Doc). There were similar signs, yard-sign style, outside my polling place in Roxborough, with a union bug for Graphics union. We heard that the Dem ward leader got a CP court injunction to have them removed.

LATEST UPDATE: Daily News City Editor Gar Joseph brings this final report from the Famous Deli at lunchtime:

Democratic Party Chairman and Congressman Bob Brady says the Democrats did get an injunction against the Rendell/Santorum signs.

Gar had heard that unionized carpenters had been pulling out the lawn signs after the injunction was handed down. So he asked Brady.

Said Brady: "We don't need no injunction."

Another tipster -- who we know, but who has a sensitive job and asked us for anonymity -- writes:

Election day workers showed up at a Philly Rendell campaign office and were told that Philadelphia residents would not be called at all and instead to call Berks County to help out Lois Murphy. Many of us didn’t really know a whole lot about Lois Murphy but we made the calls anyway. The point was that the Rendell organization was so confident about Philly that they weren’t putting the effort there and instead trying to get Lois Murphy elected. Funny to think of all these Philadelphians (sounding like Philadelphians) calling Berks County people…

The other funny thing I noticed. There weren’t nearly as many “visibility” people on the streets (that’s what they call the sign waivers) as in 2002. Again, I think it was a matter of priorities…And the people who do it tend to be a lot of yuppie types (and 40—somethings). But what’s funny is that it really is embarrassing detail and if you look you’ll see most of them waving signs in a manner which conceals their identity. You just see legs and hands (not even a nose like Ziggy).

Whoa. Check out this report from Wendy's former employer, the Allentown Morning Call:

A man entered an Allentown polling site, signed in and proceeded to smash one of the electronic voting machines with a metal cat paperweight, poll volunteers said.

Apparently, the voter -- "a registered independent" -- thought electronic ballots were a Republican plot to steal the election.

But the VERY BEST PART OF THIS STORY IS:

"He smashed it with the cat's ears," said volunteer Jim Govostis, who watched the incident unfold at Raker Center, a nursing home owned by Good Shepherd, a little before 1 p.m.

Voters wish that going into the polling place was less of a pamphlet-strewn minefield, and one person found the new machines tough to use.

TPM Cafe has a report of "countywide" problems in Allegheny County...also mentions Philly problems.

Back from my expedition to find some of that Local 98 literature touting the team of Rendell and Santorum. It's true. I found some guys at 4th and Washington, in front of a high rise apartment building that I suppose was serving as a polling place, and walked up and asked them for a piece of their lit. They happily obliged. Someone else that I ran into remarked that she asked them why Santorum and Rendell were campaigning together and the guys just shrugged and indicated that they're just handing out what they were told to hand out.

Anyway, here's what the piece looks like:

If you look really close, in the lower left corner you see this:

Like I said before, politics makes strange bedfellows.

From there Jeff and I walked to the Famous 4th Street Delicatessen where I tried to explain the tradition of it being the site where all of the city Democratic politicos go for lunch on Election Day. As I was explaining how it all began, lo and behold, one of the founders of the tradition, Neil Oxman, walked up and explained how he, David Glancy (Democratic City Committee chair), Pete Camiel (former chair) and Doc Sweitzer (Neil's business partner at the Campaign Group) just started having lunch their back in the late 70s. From that point on the tradition grew until it became a "must-do" on any politician's list.

I snapped a few pictures and quickly discovered that photography is not in my skill set (along with grammar and punctuation). Here's a shot of Congressman Brady after he was handed a Bob Casey button:

And the back of Vince Fumo as he ran by the gathered media so that he could get to his corned beef on rye:

Maybe that was the jacket he was wearing when he met billionaire Campbell's Soup heiress Dodo Hamilton.

I was waiting for the Governor himself to show up and thought I was on the right track when his longtime advisor and the man who many consider to be the "man behind the curtain" of Rendell's Wizard of Philadelphia arrived:

That's Comcast VP David L. Cohen in the middle, with political media consultant Neil Oxman on the left and another longtime member of Rendell's inner circle, Arthur Makadon on the right.

Oh yeah, the governor didn't show. Very disappointing.

As always, your input is welcome. If you have any interesting pics, feel free to email them to me and I get them up.

ABC, perhaps figuring anchor Charles Gibson will have something to talk about earlier in the evening, has decided to move its wall-to-wall coverage up a half-hour, so it's now to begin at 9:30 tonight.

Which means Gibson's going to get the big "Dancing with the Stars" lead-in tonight, and Ted Danson's "Help Me Help You" is going bye-bye until Nov. 28.

So far, CBS and NBC are still scheduled to get their meet-our-new-anchor parties started at 10 p.m.

Fox News' Shepard Smith just explained why we're hearing so much about "voter fraud alerts."

Shep's take on this: The two parties go into places where they expect to have problems winning, file some complaints about voting irregularities and then, if and when the votes come in against them, claim voter fraud.

He did say both parties do this. That's what fair and balanced is all about. Although his tone of voice when he says "fair" suggests that Shep thinks someone's whining.

CNN's William Schneider does a very bad impression of "Hogan Heroes" know-nothing Sgt. Schultz, as he explains why we're not hearing anything from exit polls.

At least not till 5 p.m., when the cone of silence is lifted and the pundits get another chance to get it wrong before the polls even close.

The only interesting thing around here is a collection of mock election posters asking us to vote for Richard Snowden as “King of the Hill." lThe signs sported a cartoon representation of Mr. Snowden’s face w/ a big crown on his head with an image of one of the signs inside it. They asked us to “Vote YES for King of the Hill because I am…
__ A Genius
__ A Coward (Bully)
__ Just Rich
__ Other”

Unfortunately, "King of the Hill" was not a ballot question.

Fox News' Shepard Smith keeps talking about a "six-year itch" -- no, nothing you need to see your doctor for -- and I was curious about his suggestion that what may or may not be happening with the Democrats today is just something that happens six years into every administration (except, apparently the Clinton administration, where voters may have just gotten itchy early).

A Nexis search turned up a Roll Call piece from Sept. 12, 2005, by Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Report, in which he attributed the "itch" to Kevin Phillips, who wrote for the Christian Science Monitor in 1984 that "U.S. voters have invariably found themselves beginning to sour on administrations after six years."

Not so invariably, argued Rothenberg, who seemed to think other factors were at work in some of those elections and that Phillips' stats don't constitute a trend. (In newspaper parlance, though, three is the magic number, trend-wise, two being either a coincidence or a trend waiting to be identified.)

The point that's getting hammered pretty hard on Fox, by Smith, at least, is that history dictates that the Democrats should win big tonight -- big being more than just winning the House by a seat or two -- and that anything less than big will be a "moral victory" for Republicans (though so far, Smith's efforts to put the words "moral victory" into a Republican's mouth appear to have been unsuccessful).

Carlos Matos, Democratic leader of the 19th Ward and the son-in-law of Marge Tartaglione, chairwoman of the City Commission, the agency that oversees city elections is featured in a couple YouTube videos shot by someone named "pennjeff." I'm not sure what the point of the video clips is but it sounds like the interviewer is trying to learn how the Democratic machine in Philly gets people to vote for Democrats. Judge for yourself:

The Washington Post is reporting that some of the busloads of "volunteers" who were paid to hand out fake sample ballots in Maryland were recruited from "a homeless shelter in Philadelphia."

Why are we still shipping jobs out of state?

Here's a report from the field from Flavia Colgan over at her Citizen Hunter weblog.

Still seems largely a well-attended, successful election out there. Chris Sheridan at The Committee of Seventy called the day "pretty mellow." Here's what voters had to say...

Bonnie Grant, voting at 6th Street and Chelten Avenue in East Oak Lane:

I voted at 8:10 a.m. this morning and although there was a Dem giving out the ballot, there was not a Republican in sight. Maybe they were concentrating where they knew they had a chance? I also volunteered at Rendell-Casey-Murphy HQ doing phones over lunchtime, and everyone seemed upbeat and confident. In fact, there were probably too many volunteers for the jobs available. Also, my friend worked the poll at 5th and Nedro in Olney (she said Rendell stopped by) and it was the same: only a Democrat ballot being distributed, no Republican ballot.

Keep visiting for returns...

CNN has projected (and please note that word) that Bob Menendez has won in NJ.

Unrelated, money quote from their coverage: "They used to say that all politics was local. Not this time," said CNN political analyst Bill Schneider.

When props are due: The Inquirer has created a cool, automatically refreshing election-returns Web widget. And it has called the Rendell race.

"Casey scores upset over Santorum in Pa."

It's not uncommon for Stockholm Syndrome to set in on election night, particularly when reporters are dispatched to faraway campaign gatherings for doomed candidates.

So we'll give the reporter covering the Lynn Swann campaign for Channel 29 -- a report aired on "content partner" WHYY (Channel 12) -- a pass for her apparent willingness to believe that Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett's report to Swann supporters about voting irregularities in some rural counties meant that Swann's song might not be over, after all.

Just figured I'd chime in with a live blog from the "WHYY Net Center." I'm here in the studio treating our viewers to your comments and input as well as a round up of national blogs.

Ok, I'm going back on in a few minutes.

I don't know what this does to Shepard Smith's six-year itch, but George Will just told ABC's Charles Gibson that the House changes hands every 14 years. "It's time," he said.

Somehow, though, "14-year itch" doesn't sound as if it would catch on.

The Daily News' Chris Brennan says the Dems have picked up two seats in the State House...but they may be losing two seats, the minority leader and the whip, as well.

With more than 80 percent of the precincts in -- though nothing from Chester -- CNN has Sestak with 56% of the vote, while Weldon has 44%

With 84% in, and 57% of the vote

Jon Stewart, in his Comedy Central "Midterm Midtacular," reports that "Rick Santorum has been 'raptured' to a better place." And shows it happening.

Finally, someone in TV fake news who knows how to use graphics.

It's 11:19 and Dan Rather's finally made it to your TV screen (assuming you're tuned to Comedy Central).

Stewart and he have worked out a routine where Dan avoids his famous Rather-isms and Stewart expresses disappointment.

Finally, he offers up a few clearly scripted ones, including, "If you ain't got the yolk, you can't emulsify the Hollandaise."

OK, maybe Dan shouldn't quit his day job, which Comedy Central obligingly identifies as "global correspondent, HDNet."

Rather, for those of you who actually have HDNet, premieres there Nov. 14 with "Dan Rather Reports."

Nothing like being dissed by your own anchor -- Channel 6's Jim Gardner, coming off a remote chat between Gov. Rendell and WPVI's own Vernon Odom, who, like the guv, is a man of size, quipped to Gary Papa: "I hope they weren't standing on a weak floor."

Did I really hear him say that?

Here's what we know.

Santorum lost.
Rendell won.
Weldon lost.
Democrats Lois Murphy and Patrick Murphy, in two suburban Congressional races, are clinging to narrow leads. Mike Fitzpatrick just made an appearance, but he did not concede, and says he's going home. Rumors are swirling that his opponent, Patrick Murphy, is about to make a statement, but he hasn't appeared yet.

As for state races...

In western PA, Republican Melissa Hart lost.
In northeastern PA, the mistress-choking adulterer (well, he is) lost.

In the State House, Democratic whip Mike Veon lost after 21 years as a legislator. The Dems need to gain eight seats to take control of the house; they appeared to be closing that gap early this morning, but the rest of the races seem to be too close to call.

We'll bring you another update tonight if there is one. If not, CHECK BACK TOMORROW (OK, today) for the start of the next one...the 2007 race for Mayor begins TODAY!

No, not that race. That was last weekend. (It was the Dash for Democracy, and yes, that's Chaka Fattah listening to the national anthem before the start.)

The race for Philadelphia mayor begins today. You'll see candidates-in-everything-but-name out stumping. You'll hear announcements from pols that sound a lot like campaign statements.

We've been waiting a whole year for this moment, so we are very excited.

But now's a good chance for us to say: We want to hear from you.

We want to hear your questions for the candidates. We want to hear about the issues that you want addressed.

We want to know when one of our Would-Be Mayors is headed to your neighborhood to campaign. (And we love photos.)

Please send us everything you know -- and the things you need to know -- about this race. We pledge to work as hard as we can to cover it for you.

Comment here on our blog or send an e-mail to Wendy or Dan, or to the entire project.

All except Brady are expected to attend a 1 p.m. event at the African-American Chamber of Commerce. The event is designed to discuss minority business development (expect the men on the stage to be referred to as "community leaders," not "candidates"); it will be the first time they will be together before the public in this election.

In addition:

Jonathan Saidel will hand out fliers this morning with dozens of supporters at the Bridge and Pratt Terminal in Northeast Philadelphia.

Michael Nutter will greet voters at the Broad and Olney SEPTA stop at 7 a.m.

Dwight Evans will attend 10 a.m. news conference at City Hall about Philadelphia Gas Works.

Tom Knox will meet with voters at Barrister's Bar in Center City at 7 tonight.

And Nutter, the only declared candidate and a busy guy, will attend a screening of a documentary about the 2003 mayor's race at Friends Select School at 7:30 p.m.

The one candidate for mayor, Michael Nutter, and four of the men who seem to be flirting with the idea -- State Rep. Dwight Evans, former City Controller Jonathan Saidel, former UnitedHealthcare boss Tom Knox, and U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah -- participated in a forum at an African-American Chamber of Commerce event today. (Brady called out with laryngitis; Dougherty pleaded schedule conflict.)

Under discussion was minority business development, crime and education. The Daily News' Catherine Lucey was there and did actual reporting (and the Daily News' Jori Klein took these photos) -- so instead we'll offer what seemed like the most surprising or interesting points the Would-Bes made. We also collected the unasked questions at the end of the day and will ask the participants to answer a selection.

1) Dwight Evans made a good point that the city should have a entrepreneurial charter school. If we have one for future architects (which is pretty awesome, actually), why not for future business owners? Hey, doesn't he run a bunch of schools?

2) Jonathan Saidel offered a tale of a African-American business owner who waited a full year to have his MBEC certification turned down. The agency said he wasn't black. (Being able to claim that, as city controller, you investigated MBEC, the city's minority-owned business development agency, plays well in a crowd of African-American business owners. And it takes particular guts to tell that story with the new MBEC leader present.)

"The problem he faced wasn't that he wasn't African-American," Saidel said. "It was that he wasn't a friend of somebody."

3) Michael Nutter pointed out that the city and the school district too often feel like wholly separate, disconnected bureaucracies instead of the interdependent system that they truly are. He said he wants to "remove the disconnect" between the city and the district. (Now might be a good time to try that idea.)

4) The best part of Tom Knox's speech -- which he read, and we have the feeling we're going to have to hear more than one more time -- was when he pointed out that an underfunded school system is the biggest barrier to equal economic participation that the city has.

5) Fattah wouldn't talk about plans for the future, instead touting programs he's promoted as a Congressman. But he did say His Big Decision about whether or not to run would come in about a week. We'll keep you posted.

Since I spent the day with 5 of the likely mayoral candidates 4 of the likely mayoral candidates and 1 announced candidate ok, ok... 3 likely mayoral candidates, 1 announced candidate and 1 guy who said he's running for mayor but hasn't announced his candidacy, I didn't get a chance to do much of an Election Day post-mortem.

It appears now, according to Blinq (by way of Philly Will Do) that the identity of the rabble rouser responsible for these videos and the video below is a Penn student and wannabe documentary maker named Stephen Morse. Apparently, Mr. Morse is working on some kind of school project about Philadelphia politics. Suggested titles: Nightmare on Market Street; National Lampoon's Election Day; Awesome, I F'ing Videotaped That Guy While He Was Voting, and Invincible II: Philadelphia's Democratic Machine.

Blinq also pointed out that Mr. Morse's video became fodder for the conservative blogosphere and was included in a story by the New York Times. I can't end this post without pointing out my favorite quote from that Times story:

...many of the biggest names in political blogging ... had been corralled by a member of the mainstream news media, CNN, at Tryst, a trendy Washington coffeehouse, last night.

“Bloggers look a lot better than I thought they would,” Mr. Stavropoulos said.

Click "Continue Reading" to see the video.

One of the more complicated and not-so-glamorous issues of the 2007 mayor's race is going to be what should be done with the Philadelphia Gas Works. Saddled as it is with over a billion dollars in debt, apparently from being mortgaged so many times to pay off the city's bill when it landed on Boardwalk with a hotel (500,000 times), no other mayoral administration since Rizzo has known what to do with this utility. (And apparently, Rizzo's idea was to use it as a patronage haven.)

Now, to the debt, add (1)the fact that the infrastructure is aging (hmmm, "aging infrastructure" + explosive gas, this ought to be interesting), (2)many of the customers are low income, and (3)PGW is restricted by law from selling its product outside of city limits and you get the following equation:

$1 billion debt + explosive gas in old pipes + poor people in the cold + no wealthy suburban customers = Can I run for Food Court Judge?

PICA, not an agency that's staffed with crazy, hyberbolic fortune tellers, actually said:

As PICA has said in its last several staff reports, PGW is one of the most difficult issues facing the City. Not only is it one of the few issues that could quickly create a fiscal crisis for the City, but it is also unlikely the City will be able to craft a solution to PGW’s financial problems without outside help.

It's no wonder no mayor has wanted to deal with this. Perhaps we need a Paul Vallas-type to fix this hopeless situation.

So part of my evaluation of our potential mayoral candidates will be based on whether or not they raise these issues and at least try to offer some solutions, no matter how difficult those solutions may be or how hard it will be for people to hear them. As Catherine Lucey, Wendy, and Michael Currie Schaffer & Marcia Gelbart said in their accounts of yesterday's African American Chamber of Commerce forum, none of the candidates really stepped out on the major issues of crime, jobs and education.

I suppose Nutter came close when he proposed dismantling MBEC and replacing it with a small business department with a clear mission that could provide better aid to minority businesses. Afterall, he does risk having an opponent run his comments out of context in an ad that says "Michael Nutter wants to dismantle the city agency that helps minority businesses. Michael Nutter doesn't care about black people." But I do give him credit for making perhaps the boldest statement of the event.

However, today's winner for taking on the difficult issue referenced in the title of this post is Dwight Evans. From today's DN:

State Rep. Dwight Evans plans to introduce legislation giving the state Public Utility Commission the power to force the sale of the city-owned Philadelphia Gas Works.
...
According to Evans' proposal, before ordering the sale of PGW, the PUC would have to look at: reorganizing PGW under new management, contracting PGW's management to another company, appointing a receiver to run PGW, expanding PGW's service territory beyond city limits, or securing state, federal or local government funds to place the company on sound financial footing.

Now, when I was a young lad working on a doomed mayoral campaign in 2003, I had to write a briefing for the candidate as he prepared to meet with the union representing the gas workers. I spoke to the President of the union to get some information and was essentially told that any proposal to sell the gas works was a deal breaker for getting the support of the union. I passed that info along to the candidate and he went into that meeting and told them that he absolutely wouldn't sell the gas works. He pretty much said that with a billion dollars in debt, who would want to buy it anyway? Regardless, he got their endorsement.

Now, it's almost always better to have the endorsement of a union instead of not having it. So unless the union's position on the sale of PGW has changed, on the metric of "is this a risky announcement?" the answer is yes. The general public probably can't grasp the fine points of his proposed legislation and the likelihood that passing such a law would lead to a miraculous healing of PGW in time for Evans to run on it in the spring is low. He may never have counted on the support of the Gas Workers union but still, he could have at least avoided being actively targeted by them.

Clearly, PGW is in trouble and every time my gas rates go up or they forget to mail me a bill, I see just how much that trouble affects the residents of Philadelphia. I'll keep my opinion about the soundness of Evans's policy to myself but as I said before, he gets credit for putting something out there.

I was tooling around on Youtube and found this piece of video (actually film) from 1941:

Yep. That's former Mayor Barney Samuel. It's good to know that the distinct Philly patois was going strong in 1941.

For more history, here's a link to our timeline of mayors since 1947.

(ETA: An update...mayoral candidate Michael Nutter was also stumping at Septa stops last week. The former councilman was out at the Broad and Olney subway station on Wednesday morning, handing out literature -- and Nutter Butters.)

Daily News reporter Damon Williams and Daily News photographer Alex Alvarez were at Jonathan Saidel's meet/greet at the Broad and Olney subway station Thursday morning and brought back this report:

Saidel was sincerely humorous and seemed to really engage the people. He seemed at ease, shaking the hands of passers-by and cracking jokes with them. This is his second stop. Tomorrow, he will be at the Clothespin on Market street, beginning at 6:30 a.m.

On the response he has received from citizens so far: "I am getting a great response. When people see you, they know you are engaged with them."

He said: "Running for mayor is the ultimate way of telling people what I think."

Saidel, a life-long Philadelphian who raised his kids here, also said it was a way of saying thank you. He acknowleged he could make more money doing something else besides running for mayor, but said he can't foresee himself doing anything else. "I've run city-wide for 20 years, and it's made me a better person. This is what I do."

When asked what are the general issues he would tackle should he win election, he said: "Housing, job opportunities for youth and education. All that feeds into crime. I want to make life more livable."

Saidel also said that "the next few years will determine the next 50," and said that he loves campaigning. "The city is my family, and I'm going to keep going."

Remember to tell us when you have a candidate sighting, or one is coming to your neighborhood..

From Ohio, a lesson in priorities:

Ohio law allows provisional ballots to be counted starting Nov. 18. But the director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, Matthew Damschroder, said that his employees would not start counting until Nov. 19 so they could watch the Ohio State-Michigan football game on the 18th. Tallies of both provisional and absentee ballots should be completed by Nov. 21, Mr. Damschroder said.

Seems the luster may be fading from "Top 5 Mayor," Denver's John Hickenlooper:

Great mayors don't get "rebuffed."

And those not willing to give that respect get something a whole lot more uncomfortable than an ex post facto visit from a blue-ribbon panel.

Who will be Philadelphia's "larger than life" mayor?

The casino hearings have started up in H'burg. As of now, they are just getting underway; SugarHouse, the first applicant to testify, just wrapped up their presentation (SugarHouse is the applicant that would locate at Penn Treaty Park, the site of the former Jack Frost Sugar refinery. Plans call for the 16 acre site to first have a temporary, 1,500-machine slot parlor, which would eventually be replaced by a 5,000-machine casino and a hotel tower.)

Next, the Gaming Board will question the SugarHouse team. Daily News editorial page editor Sandra Shea is there (as is Daily News reporter Chris Brennan) and has promised to call in updates over the next several days.

Right here...

So, is a Web site that begins, "I am running for Mayor..." a declaration?

Now, Saidel has said that he's following the campaign limits, so that's not the issue, but still, it bears pointing out that we haven't had the official announcement yet.

Other sites:
Fattah
Knox
and the only declared candidate...Nutter

A new convert to the church of Nutter:

Every single politician I have ever met seems to suffer from some advanced and peculiar form of ADD. They are not happy unless they are shaking some new hand or on the way to the next event where hands are waiting to be shaken. And when they do get trapped with no hands left to shake, they'll fidget constantly like a smoker struggling to adapt to a smoke free bar.

And after spending the last couple of days thinking about the pay-to-play culture that created the environment that gave life to the characters that have shamed our city, I realized what a powerful statement Mr. Nutter made when he resigned from City Council and immediately declared his candidacy.

Feel free to give Mr. Ruby Legs a response.

An update on the casino hearings from Sandy Shea, editor of the Daily News editorial pages:

So, how was the questioning of first applicant SugarHouse? "I guess the word would be: softball," Sandy said.

One investor recused himself from the SugarHouse deal, though it wasn't made clear why. Other than that, the questions were pretty general. Sandy said they were similar to -- though this isn't a direct quote -- "what would you do if the community objected to the slots parlor?"

The second hearing, of Riverwalk, was more charged. This is the Planet Hollywood-associated group, and they brought star power: Videos from Sly Stallone and Bruce Willis, who promise to visit the casino a lot if it gets built (!). Sly said he'd build a house in Philly and visit a lot. (!!).

The questions for Riverwalk dealt mostly with the structure of the deal. The local group -- which includes PR exec Bill Miller and other investors -- only put up $1.5 million of the financing but have a 51 percent, controlling interest in the casino.

Also, Riverwalk has said they have another site for the temporary casino -- which would be up in about 15 months, as the board has said it prefers -- or, they propose, they would skip the temporary step altogether and build the whole thing in 24 months.

We'll keep you posted.

Chris Brennan's coverage is here. We'll update the blog when we have news from Sandy.

Sandy Shea, editor of the Daily News editorial pages and our source in H'burg yesterday and today, reports:

Today was celeb day at the Gaming Board. Quincy Jones was there in the morning on behalf of Foxwoods. Pat Croce and Donald Trump were there in the afternoon on behalf of TrumpStreet.

As to the far more important issue of the applications and the licencing...it's been relatively quiet today, but we'll see how TrumpStreet fares.

I haven't exactly been paying a lot of attention to the uproar over the sale of The Gross Clinic, Thomas Eakins' masterpiece that hangs in the Alumni Hall at Thomas Jefferson University. As I skimmed the news, the sale of a painting by a private institution to another private institution just didn't strike me as something that had a lot to do with the race for mayor in 2007. Afterall, now that the crime issue has reared its ugly head about 60 vertical feet from the actual office of the mayor, it would seem that crime has vaulted back into the lead for biggest issue. Add to that the major developments in funding for mass transit and the hearings for the new casinos and you have enough of a news storm to sweep away any considerations of some picture that 90% of Philadelphians haven't even heard of.

Don't get me wrong. I believe what it says in the title of this blog post. A great city does need great art. A great society needs great art. I'm all about the mayor's idea to float a bond to provide funding for neighborhood arts and cultural institutions and I fully buy into the evidence provided by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance's 2006 Portfolio that the arts generate something like a gazillion dollars in economic activity for the region. I also don't think it sets a good precedent for us to be letting any priceless (ok, not exactly priceless, apparently $68 million is the price) work of art leave Philadelphia and take up residence in the cultural hotbed of Bentonville, Arkansas. No, I've never been to Bentonville. I'm just using the opportunity to take a cheapshot at midwestern town in order to make my point, which is, to quote Indiana Jones, it belongs in a museum, preferably the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

What we have here is the chance for this mayor to exercise the kind of leadership that could bring together people from the philanthropic, corporate, non-profit and academic sectors of this city to strive for an achieveable and very measurable goal of raising the funding necessary to keep this acclaimed piece of art in this city.

A little while ago I wrote a blog post about situation almost exactly like this one. To sum up, the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, upon the death of Coretta Scott King, sought to auction off his letters, for which they would have received millions. Not only would it have been a travesty for the collection to have been broken up but it would have also denied the people of Atlanta, and everyone else, from getting a chance to see and study those letters in a museum or academic setting. No single academic or philanthropic institution could come up with the $32 million asking price that would have kept the collection, which includes handwritten versions of King's ''Letter from a Birmingham Jail,'' his famous ''I Have a Dream'' speech, delivered at the 1963 March on Washington, and his acceptance speech for the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, in tact.

In stepped Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin. Already known as one of the 5 best mayors in the country, Mayor Franklin was able to cobble together a group of over 50 corporate, government and private donors to purchase the collection, keep it in tact and donate it to Dr. King's alma mater, Morehouse College. As a result, the people of Atlanta will be able to view pieces of the collection at the Atlanta History Center as part of the Martin Luther King Day celebration.

Now, the question is, can someone in this city step up and provide the leadership necessary to keep one of the city's art treasures - albeit a pretty low profile one - from being crated up and carted off to the Walmart museum. Will The Gross Clinic be hanging in the Art Museum - one of the greatest museums in the country - or next to that smiley face guy that rolls back prices? Who will step up?

Do we care?

While the Daily News laments about how Philadelphia never gets to be number one in sports, Otis White from Civic Strategies, a strategic planning firm that structures public policy solutions for cities, points out that Philadelphia is number one in at least one category: most gerrymandered city in the nation! woo... hoo.

When all that was taken into account, Avencia awarded Philadelphia's council district 7, which twists and turns, dips and darts its way across northeastern Philly, the prize as the most gerrymandered council district in America. (District 5, which is mostly in central Philly but features a large claw reaching into the northeastern parts of the city, was the third-most gerrymandered).

Facing a cash crunch, Mariano began accepting bribes during this period, the Inquirer said. In the end, Mariano got the district he wanted but something he didn't: a federal corruption trial, a conviction and a six-and-a-half-year stretch in prison.

Take that, Chicago... and New York... and Boston...

The discussion going on in the comments section of the post that Wendy put up about Fattah's "major announcement" is so lively that I've decided to highlight it in its own post.

One of the great things about the blogosphere is the ability of consumers of news to offer criticism of that news. As both a consumer and purveyor (to some degree) of news, I'm especially sensitive to those criticisms. One that came up in the comments to the aforementioned post is the amount of attention paid to Congressman Fattah even though he hasn't officially declared his candidacy. My own criticism of both myself and other members of the media has been to fall into the trap of declaring Fattah the "front runner" based both on his position as a long-term Congressman and the numbers from the Keystone Poll released in August. When we do that, we betray the ideals of this project by tacitly throwing support and momentum behind a candidate based on nothing but a "horse race" number that even the pollster himself acknowledged was due almost solely to name recognition and factors unrelated to qualifications.

Afterall, The Next Mayor is supposed to be about issues and in the end it's supposed to be about making sure that each of the people who are vying for the region's top job talk about those issues and offer their own real solutions to the city's problems. Sure, they can talk about their records and what they've accomplished but for the most part we can assume that even just to consider running for the job, they've all accomplished something that proves that if elected they could do the bare minimum required to run the city. We want to find out which of them can rise above that bare minimum and we can only learn that when each of them stop talking about what he (if a she jumps in, I'll go back to the "he or she") has done and start talking about what he will do.

Anyway, at this point forward, no matter what the polls say, I pledge not to use the term "front runner" to describe any candidate for mayor. We can talk about those polls, analyze them, criticize them and have fun with them but in a race in which 18% of the vote could determine the winner, I will not rely on those polls to tell me who win. Afterall, as one quote in today's paper said, "In 1991, no one thought Ed [Rendell] had a chance."

I realize that most people visit this blog to talk about the candidates. Talking and reading about the candidates is the "candy" that lures people in. If this is going to work, however, we also need to eat the "vegetables" by talking and writing about the issues. To the degree that I can spark some of that discussion (ie. the recent post and comments about PGW), I will continue to do that.

Soon (I promise) we'll start releasing video from the focus groups that we convened here at 'HYY so that other users can see what their fellow Philadelphians had to say about the issues. For now, check out the first in series of short videos that we've collected by talking to folks at various events throughout the city. They're called "I AM PHILADELPHIA" so that we (and the candidates) don't forget that the mayor, City Council, and the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties are not Philadelphia. They work for Philadelphia.

Check out Saidel's manifesto, "The Saidel plan to reform Philadelphia's government and political system."

Thoughts?

ETA: I spent more time with this document tonight. It's very interesting. There are several sections in which the ideas are common-sense or somewhat familiar (which is not a slight; everyone knows we should reopen the issue of who's a candidate and when they can raise money, for example, but it's still something worth listing in a manifesto).

The best stuff is on government accountability and efficiency. He's got some good points about contracts, from political influence that weighs upon them to the lack of decent documentation. There's a good point about the speed of city government action. And he says he believes Philadelphia should have a 311 line, as do New York and other cities, so city residents could request or report problems with city services.

Some of the other points of interest:

*A suggestion to move City Council races to a year that's not a mayoral race, so council gets the attention it deserves. (Personally, I found this idea interesting. As committed as I am to covering the mayor's race, I am concerned that council will get lost in the frenzy.)

*A common-sense recommendation that campaigns, not just donors, be responsible for adhering to donation limits.

*Instituting performance-based budgeting, which means that city departments would have to set clear goals and be measured on how well they meet them.

*Copying the Baltimore program called CitiStat, which monitors government performance regularly -- instead of just once a year, at an audit.

*Random audits of entities that get government funding.

*Detailed invoices for contractors. (I know, I have a detailed invoice for the guy who is doing the renovation in my basement, but according to former City Controller Saidel, in city government things are different. "[O]utside contractors are not necessarily required to submit detailed explanation of the work performed and how it meets the requirements of their contract along with their invoices," he writes. Good grief.)

*Coordinating purchasing across government.

*And this, which I will simply quote: "Because government frequently requires approval of major projects, the process can drag on, drastically increasing the costs of doing business in Philadelphia. To remedy that, there should be a 45 day limit on government action once an application is complete."

45 days? That would be quite a change.

Philadelphia Weekly jumps into the fray as bloggers and Democratic operatives fight over who should get credit for the success enjoyed by the Democratic party in the 2006 election. Fortunately for us (since we are a website about the mayor's race), there's also a comment about 2007:

While the debate continues over just how much of an influence blogs had on the midterm elections, liberal bloggers are already looking toward the future. As a long-term goal Madrak says she wants to get more diverse and working-class voices into the grassroots and netroots movements. In the short term it’s less than a year until the 2007 mayoral election, which is now wide open as a field of a half-dozen or so Democrats jockey for position.

Those candidates would be wise to pay attention to last Tuesday, lest they fail to fully capitalize on the burgeoning netroots movement.

Can the internet in general and the blogosphere in particular have a major (ie power-shifting) effect on a municipal election, even one in the 5th 6th largest municipality in the country? Or are too many Philadelphians still disconnected from internet? Will the internet only matter to those who are already in tune to the mayoral election and the campaigns or can it lead to a more engaged citizenry that actually votes on issues?

(bumped up by Dan to keep the conversation going)

Putting to rest any rumors that he would stay in Washington now that the Democrats have a majority, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah appears poised to announce a run for mayor on Saturday, Catherine Lucey reports.

Coyly worded invitiations to join Fattah for an “announcement regarding the city’s future” have been circulating. The event will be held at noon at the High School of the Future near Girard and Parkisde Avenues.

Fattah would not confirm that he was definitely running yesterday, but check this quote out:

“I'm going to announce what my decision is,” he said. “I want to put an end to the debate about my carerer and my future and start a debate about the city's future.”

So who will be on the other side of the ballot come fall?

Catherine Lucey reports that four names have surfaced as possible Republican candidates for mayor: Lawyer (and former Boxing Commissioner) George Bochetto; Councilman Frank Rizzo; Al Taubenberger, president of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce; and State Rep. John Taylor.

Bochetto, Rizzo (who isn't sure he wants to quit Council, and says he's thinking maybe R or D) and Taubenberger are planning to woo the crowds at the Pennsylvania Society next month. (Taylor couldn't be reached for the story.) Meanwhile, the Republican City Committee plans to meet the four potentials -- and maybe others -- in the next few weeks. They want to pick a candidate by the end of the year.

When was the last Republican mayor of Philadelphia, you ask? Why, Barney Samuel, who became acting mayor in 1941 and then was re-elected in 1943 and 1947, of course! (Check out our Philly Mayors Timeline.)

And the closest any GOP candidate has come since? That would be Sam Katz, who lost by about 9,000 votes in 1999.

Finally, check out the money quote from Frank Rizzo at the end of the story: “I’m sure [Republican City Committee legal counsel] Michael Meehan would love to have the name “Rizzo” on the ballot.”

PS: For the Johnny-Doc-as-an-R question, click here.

If having the offices and homes of some of your closest allies and fundraisers raided and having a FBI bug found in your office 28 days before an election can get you elected mayor in this town, just imagine what having your own home searched by the feds can do.

From today's Inquirer:

Federal agents executed a search warrant at the home of labor union leader John J. Dougherty last week as part of their tax-fraud investigation into a local electrical contractor, sources said.

Friday's search represents the most recent turn in the sprawling investigation of the contractor, Donald "Gus" Dougherty, who is a close friend of but no relation to John Dougherty.

The Philadelphia Tribune is releasing a poll in the mayor's race. It specifically measured the opinion of the city’s black registered voters.

ETA: The Daily News' Bob Warner reports that the poll shows Fattah with a clear lead over all his democratic rivals, but fully one-third of the voters remain undecided. In fact, both Fattah and "undecided" are at 33 percent.

Other results from the Tribune poll:

16 percent said they planned to vote for Dwight Evans
9 percent said they planned to vote for Michael Nutter
6 percent said they planned to vote for Bob Brady
1 percent said they planned to vote for Tom Knox, John Dougherty, or Jonathan Saidel

Other interesting things...there were more undecideds among those polled in North, West and South Philadelphia than in the Northwest or Northeast, where they are lumping for Fattah at this early, early point...women were more undecided than men..

The Tribune says this is the first statistically projectable poll ever sponsored by an African-American newspaper. Black voters are the largest single ethnic voting bloc in the city, representing 61 percent of registered Democrats in Philadelphia.

(update by Dan)
The press release for the poll can be found in our press release archives or by clicking here.

I'm a little late with this but Bloggin' Bob is blogging away over at YPP:

Hello out there, this is my first time so be kind to a rookie. I just wanted to say thank you all for efforts on election day. WE and I want to emphasize WE were very successful. I know that we will not always agree on everything, but look what can happen when for the most part we do. I enjoyed my first meeting with some of you and believe it or not am looking foward to doing it again. I am sorry it took so long for me to enter the blog world but I do not have the time I would like to have.

Via Blinq and Attytood. I'll leave the addition commentary about Larry King's blogging ability to them.

Jon Stein at Community Legal Services has just filed a complaint with the federal Office of the Controller of the Currency to stop closing of five Wachovia branches in Eastern North Philadelphia.

These branches serve predominently African-American and Hispanic customers. Jon says the other banks in the area are smaller and don't provide comparable services.

Why is this matter on this blog? Because Jon, ever savvy, points out that Wachovia has a no-bid contract right now for the deposits of the entire City employee payroll.

But the law has changed, and now that contract will be bid.

Which means that where a bank -- which does city business -- has its branches could become an issue for the next administration. If they chose to award contracts with an eye to such matters.

Very, very interesting.

Or so that's what the folks who answered the Daily News' question of "What would a parade mean for Philadelphia?" would have us believe. They're referring to the ultimate civic healer, the sports championship parade. Zack Stalberg, from our partner The Committee of Seventy, commented on what such a championship would mean for the next mayor (the guy, not the project):

Zack Stalberg, CEO/president, The Committee of Seventy: The championship will temporarily override Philadelphia's self-esteem problem and make the city deliriously happy. The new mayor will find a way to claim credit for the victory. Then the Flyers, 76ers and Eagles will quickly restore us to suffering.

I'll admit, I'm a HUGE sports fan. I've tried time and again to give up on watching the Flyers but I keep coming back to the sports pages to see how they're doing. I've never been a huge Sixers fan but I'll sit in front of any tv that happens to be showing a game and get sucked in until the final buzzer. I sometimes laugh when the Eagles lose just because I know how psychically and emotionally destroyed so many people, who put way too much emotional energy into that team, will be. And I love baseball and the Phillies no matter what. If they lose 25 games in a row, I'll watch number 26. I feel good when they win. I feel bad (for a little bit) when they lose. But I don't let it carry over into the rest of my life. As far as I'm concerned, the best way to deal with the wins and losses of my favorite teams is what we used to do in little league. When we won we went out for ice cream and when we lost we went out for ice cream. Except now ice cream = beer.

But what I'll never understand is why we put so much stock into the idea that winning a championship will somehow spark an outpouring of civic pride that allows Philadelphia so shed this so-called inferiority complex. First of all, who are we supposedly feeling inferior to? New York? DC? King of Prussia? I don't feel inferior to anyone from any of those cities. In fact, after attending a Mets-Yankees game at Shea this past season, I feel pretty superior. Second, if it's true that we have this long standing inferiority thing going on, then why didn't it go away after 1980?

To quote Thomas Carlyle, "Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment." Why would the city's collective self-esteem be boosted by the accomplishment of 25 guys on a baseball field? As fans, either diehard or bandwagon, what would actually be doing that would give us this boost of self-esteem?

I guess it's questions like this that are the reasons I wasn't asked to give my two cents to the Daily News. That and, who the heck am I?

As far as our collective psyche is concerned, I am a firm believer that a great leader can raise us up and pull us to that higher level even if he has to drag us kicking and screaming to get there. Such a leader could tell us what we individually and collectively could accomplish to build up that self-esteem. On the psychic level, this city's problem is less about low-esteem and more about a deep, pervading, collective, not-entirely-unfounded cynicism that may keep us from letting such a leader raise us up and keep us from doing what he tells us we need to do.

Great leadership. That's what will do all of those things that everyone claims a parade will do for us.

Let's do a cover story about that.

Well folks. Here's your chance to ask the Congressman your own questions about what he plans on doing as mayor. I guess now he'll finally be able to answer them instead of giving us the "I'll have more to say about that later" answer.

Unfortunately, I have to go out of town this weekend so I'm going to miss all of the festivities. Here's the media advisory that tells you where Congressman Fattah will be tonight and tomorrow.

The Daily News will be covering this up and down and will have more on the blog and the site as things happen. Hopefully, unlike the headline to this story, we'll be more careful about avoiding that f-word that rhymes with runt-funner. I think the Business Journal headline made the best point about this being a poll based solely on name recognition:

Fattah, undecided tied in mayoral poll

Go Undecided! I would hope that at this point, with the little that we've heard from each of the candidates, that the undecided number would be more like 90%. Friends and relatives of the candidates are allowed to decide.

Do the robo-calls made by the Fattah Exploratory Committee (scroll to last item) fall under the category of a unregulated expenditure since he hadn't actually declared his candidacy when those calls were paid for?

How does that work?

Head spinning...

In which the candidate explains that we "deserve a government that makes sure every neighborhood is as safe as Rittenhouse Square."

Quantifying the accompanying e-mail:

Mentions of Abbotsford Homes: 1
Calls to "take the ‘For Sale’ sign down from City Hall": 1

Seriously, folks, Knox will be hosting a big fund-raiser Nov. 30.

[ETA: This post was written by the Daily News' Catherine Lucey, who attended the Fattah announcement.]

Yes, he's in.

As expected, Congressman Chaka Fattah declared his candidacy in the 2007 Democratic mayoral primary today outside the High School of the Future in West Philadelphia.

“The answer to the question that has been debated for many months is yes, I’m going to offer myself as a candidate for the Democratic nomination,” said Fattah just before 1 p.m. to the crowd of more than 500 supporters before the school at Girard and Parkside avenues.

The 12-year congressman focused on the word “opportunity” throughout his speech. He noted that education programs he developed in congress had provided students with the opportunity to go to college. Then he declared that as mayor he would provide opportunities for all Philadelphians by improving schools and making neighborhoods safer.

“This city has given me, as a native son, a lot of love,” he said. “I want to give it back.”

Fattah’s four children got up on stage with him, but his wife -- NBC 10 anchor Renee Chenault-Fattah -- was not spotted.

And no elected officials appeared on stage with Fattah. Few local political heavyweights were visible in the big crowd wearing Fattah stickers and waving blue signs. State Sen. Vincent Hughes was perhaps the biggest name in attendence.

Speaking to reporters after his announcement, Fattah said he thought he would have all the support he needs, but that the most important endorsement was from the voters.

Fattah would not say when he planned to open a campaign office and hire staff.

“We will make the appropriate announcements about office, website and staff,” he said.

Fattah said a Fattah for Mayor campaign fund would be started Monday and that he would follow the city contribution limits in his fundraising. He wouldn’t say whether he planned to transfer funds from his congressional account or his exploratory committee account.

“I will not be commenting with the details,” he said.

Fattah is the second mayoral candidate to officially declare in what will likely be a crowded primary race. Former Councilman Michael Nutter threw his hat in the ring over the summer. Expected candidates State Rep. Dwight Evans, businessman Tom Knox and former Controller Jonathan Saidel have not formally announced. Neither have possible contenders U.S. Rep. Bob Brady and union boss John Dougherty.

Evidence that the race will get contentious fast popped up in the parking lot after the announcement. Red anti-violence signs printed by Knox for Philly were stuck in the windshields of all the cars.

We've got a sitting Congressman running for mayor, and another who has admitted to considering a run.

What does that mean for our city?

The way I see it, there are at least two angles to consider. Probably more, but these are the immediate ones.

Angle No. 1: Check out this story from Nov. 16: Crime Cameras Debut In Wynnefield. It's a CBS 3 report about five surveillance cameras that have been installed between Arlington Street and Montgomery Avenue in the still-nice, but starting-to-struggle Wynnefield section of West Philly.

And how did they pay for the cameras? "A $1.7 million federal grant secured by Representative Chaka Fattah helped set up the system," Todd Quinones reports.

Congressmen can bring in the dough, which is a good thing for the city, as these cameras show. Of course, it's also great for their campaign, since crime has already emerged as such a major issue in this race.

Angle No. 2: Meanwhile, we're paying them plenty -- $165,200 in salary, not counting expenses or perks -- to be in Congress while conducting a mayoral campaign. (For some of the controversy about how members of Congress are paid, see here or here.)

Seems to be we better get some governing for that money, too. Not just benes that are hard to dislike, such as federally funded cameras for high crime areas. But decisions that matter and decisions that require backbone, even while you are working to woo voters back home.

So we're going to make a special effort to watch for ways in which being a Congressman puts Fattah (and Brady, if he declares) in a special place in this election. We'll keep track of votes and attendance of anyone with a governmental day job who's stumping to be the next mayor, as well as what they're bringing back to their district.

And yes -- when it becomes an issue -- that means state Reps, too.

First of all, the Daily News' Bob Warner and Catherine Lucey welcome Congressman Fattah to the campaign with a look at his checkered academic record.

This will be relevant, since Fattah is likely to make education his issue in this race (and since sworn foe J. Whyatt Mondesire will make it one). It will be interesting to see if he is defensive about his background or if he puts it to use for him. There are lots of people in this city who are thinking about "alternative paths to education" right now, following the sobering dropout report issued in September.

Also: The Inquirer asked Rendell who he would support for mayor, and the newly re-elected guv said...none of the above.

He's just too close to all of them to make a decision. Though, as the item by Marcia Gelbart and Angela Couloumbis reports, "Either the governor isn't good at math, or knows something the rest of us don't, because he never mentioned the possible candidacies of U.S. Rep. Bob Brady or labor leader John Dougherty."

Hmm. Let us call this Sign Number Two that those two aren't running. (Sign Number One was their absence at the African-American Chamber event.)

Rendell's coyness is a pretty safe play, since each of the remaining candidates has provided the guv with help, either in an administration or in a campaign or in a legislative body, or has given him campaign money (that would be Knox).

However, my favorite item in the Inky is a few graphs down: Saidel is going to tend bar at Denim on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, with DJ Reach performing.

Spokesman Dan Fee said this was Saidel's way to show his commitment to a vibrant nightlife.

I'm not going to pretend that I hang out at Denim, or that I get to go out much at all these days. However, and I mean this totally seriously, nightlife is something that our city does have and should develop further. It's not as important as, say, keeping the streets safe. But if we want to keep young people in this city, it better be fun.

...you have a prison riot, a possibility anytime prisoners are packed like sardines into facilities designed for the safe and effective housing of a fraction of their current number.

Had an interesting chat with my colleague from the WHYY News Department, Susan Phillips, on Friday. She was working on a story about the prison overcrowding situation in Philadelphia prisons and she brought up an incident that had occurred during Friday's City Council hearings.

First some background. Apparently, the city is considering reopening part of the Old Holmesburg Prison, which was shut down in 1995 and replaced with new facilities. You know it as the castle-like structure (pictured) that rises up along I-95 as you head north to Bucks County. Councilwoman (and erstwhile lounge singer) Joan Krajewski, who represents the district in which the prisons are located and who is featured in Susan's story, refuses to allow the plan to move forward. She rose up in opposition to the $4 million plan to renovate the old place and said they could put the overcrowded prisoners, "wherever they want to go but it won't be in the sixth district... it will not be in the sixth district, I assure you. I will never put up with more prisons in the Northeast."

However, when Susan had a chance to ask the Councilwoman what her solution to the problem of overcrowding might be, the Krajewski basically repeated that exact quote above. Over and over. Each time she was asked if she had any ideas (funny things, those ideas) she continued to repeat the mantra of "not in the sixth district." At least she was on message.

Now, the issue of prison overcrowding is a complex one that ties together several other issues of drug abuse, drug offenses, quality of life offenses, repeat offenders, unemployment, poverty and so on. I don't expect for anyone, including Krajewski to have the whole answer and be able to deliver it in a pithy soundbite. But, to fail to acknowledge the complexity of the problem and to stick with that opposition line is just another example of the failure of leadership and the dearth of ideas coming out of City Council.

Prison overcrowding is the issue of the day for a few reasons. One, because the 'HYY news department provided a good news peg for it. Two, even though the issue directly affects only a small percentage of people (prisoners, their families and friends, guards and their families and friends), it represents a failure on so many different fronts that addressing it in the manner it deserves would go a long way to setting our elected officials towards solving those other problems. Third, without a large, vote-swinging constituency to draw attention to it, the candidates for mayor may try to ignore it. Afterall, it takes some real skill to deliver and consider ideas such as alternative detention or treatment for non-violent offenders without becoming a victim of such ready-made tv ad slogans as "soft on crime" or having a plan to "free the criminals."

State Senator Anthony Williams officially bowed out of the mayor's race, thinning out the field so that we're back to just the Magnificent Seven. Frankly, I would have preferred Ocean's 11 or The Dirty Dozen but I'm sure the field will dwindle to the Fab 5, thereby enabling me to use all of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy references I can muster.

Anyway, my Christmas gift to State Senator Williams will be a dictionary of common quotations and proverbs so that he doesn't become the next George W. Bush/Yogi Berra of malapropisms:

Asked why he bowed out of the race himself, Anthony Williams said: "Too many Indians and not enough chiefs."

Somebody please read this Knox missive in today's Daily News and tell me if you see any actual, concrete ideas in it. This sentence comes close:

These needs cry out for a modern, forward-looking zoning code, a restructured, better-qualified Zoning Board of Adjustment, and a stronger Planning Commission.

But nothing else in this letter convinces me that candidate Knox has a plan to do any of these things. And, as far as I can tell, the criticism of the Planning Commission hasn't been that they're too weak, just that whoever has occupied the Mayor's office since Mayor Dilworth has failed to listen to them.

Another player has pulled up to the table and joined in the big game. For some players the prize is a 4 or 8 year stint as the most powerful person in city government, complete with all of the glory and headaches that go with it.

For other players, including Next Great City, having a positive effect on the debate over who will be the next mayor and ultimately on the future of the city is the ultimate goal. Of course, once that decision is made in November, groups like this will continue to push for policies that they feel will improve the overall quality of life for residents of the region.

Take a minute to look over their new website and revisit the poll that they released back in May. According to that poll, "Philadelphia’s residents and businesses see a strong link between environmental health and economic prosperity."

It looks like anyone who wants to be mayor better pay attention to what this group has to say. We certainly will be.

Note the Edited to Add section below -- Wendy

Today's Daily News ran the executive summary of Jonathan Saidel's first - and hopefully not only - policy paper of his as-yet-undeclared candidacy for mayor. It's clear from this 682 words that Saidel is seeking to grab hold of the wave of reform-mindedness that's been sweeping through the city since 2003 and body surf that wave all the way into shore. In fact, the word reform appears in this piece 6 times in an almost subliminal attempt to make people associate "reform" with "Saidel." This is a pretty ballsy move for someone who includes in the tag at the end that he was a product and 16-year beneficiary of the very system that he's looking to clean up.

But at least he has some ideas.

Yes, we need to "improve our campaign-finance system." This is a work in progress and to the extent that we're moving in the general direction of prohibiting developers and lawyers who do work for the city from writing quarter-million dollar check to candidates, we're on the right track. However, to say that this alone will "ensure that the people - and not just political insiders - are the ones who select our leaders" is a bit of stretch. It's a stretch especially given the power and influence that the Democratic party structure has in influencing the outcome of close elections.

We're facing a situation in which as many as 6 candidates are likely to be on the ballot in the Democratic primary in May. That means that the winner may only need 17% of the votes cast by 80% of all registered voters who happen to show up, just to win the election. With an overwhelming registration edge and a lack (so far) of any credible candidates from other parties, the winner in May's Democratic primary is almost assured a victory in November. If you do the math and assume a somewhat generous voter turnout of 50% for Primary Day and a fairly even split among the candidates (both pretty big assumptions), the next mayor of Philadelphia may be chosen by 64,700 voters in a city of almost 1.5 million. It's more likely that the winner will have about 35% of the vote or 133,200 voters - 9% of the city's total population. My point is, please don't use such lofty rhetoric of ensuring that "the people" select the leaders (rather than "the party people") until you make a suggestion that we have non-partisan elections in which all of the candidates - regardless of party - run together until a mid-September primary, after which the top two vote getters face off in November. Until then, you're just doing what I did when I was spent a summer as a painter and had a job painting the inside of a barn that served primarily as a residence for large flocks of birds. You're painting over the bird crap.

Anyway, barring such a sweeping change, I like the idea of clearly defining a candidate (hint: when you raise money TO RUN FOR OFFICE, you're a candidate *cough* Chaka *cough*). I'm absolutely in favor of the idea of taking away redistricting from City Council. Have you seen a map of the 7th District - the nation's most gerrymandered council district (yay!)? I'm not sure, but I think three of the offices down the hall from me might actually be in the 7th District. Saidel seems to have backed down from an all out war with City Council, whom he assures won't have to deal with those pesky term limits, by giving them a final up or down vote over the non-partisan redistricting plan. What happens if they vote it down? Does it just stay the same?

I love the idea of making City Council step out from under the shadow of the mayor's race, if for no other reason than I'd get to see commercials starring Joan Krajewski, Carol Campbell and Brian O'Neill. It'll be great for the rest of the city to get an idea of who's running things.

Saidel's ideas on government reform are also sound but he avoids the hard questions. How do you manage the skyrocketing costs of health care (see note below) and pension benefits without pissing off the city workers and ending up with a trash collecting strike that goes on for so long that the people are carving the mayor's face into the side of wonderful Mt. Hefty Bag? Are you willing to fire managers or department heads who don't meet the goals of performance-based budgeting?

Saidel succeeds where he suggests very small, easily understood ideas like rewarding city workers with cash bonuses if they suggest an idea that effectively saves a large quantity of money. The civil service workers are the folks who know exactly what resources are needed to get certain tasks done and they should be on the front lines of making the government more efficient and getting the most out of each dollar. Giving them a piece of the action, like private companies do when they share a piece of the profits, is a sensible idea. And please, before you start telling me that they should be doing it anyway without cash incentive, ask yourself, would you?

Mr. Saidel's paper gets a B for its overall grade. It brings up a lot of issues, offers decent remedies for some problems but still leaves me feeling like we're only interested in managing decline and not in making fundamental changes to the system. Anyone else want to grade it?

Here are reader comments about the Saidel policy paper from which this op-ed was taken (word for word, including the "would not be tolerate" typo).

[Wendy ETA: Saidel spokesman Dan Fee contacted us with some clarifications. First, Saidel's paper actually calls for City Council races to be in their own year. It reads: "Citywide races should be held one year, City Council races two years later." That point isn't clear in the summary, but it is in the original report.

Second, he points out that competitive bidding might have a role in lowering health care benefit costs, since they are not competitively bid now -- and they'd definitely qualify under Saidel's proposal. In fact, the city's contract is so big that it would probably draw a number of bidders.]

We now resume next year's race for mayor...

First, an announcement: The Next Mayor will have its spies at the Pennsylvania Society events in New York next weekend (ETA: Oops. that would be the weekend of Dec. 8 and 9) -- you know, the annual place where pols see and are seen -- with a special mission to bring back news of the mayoral candidates. And we will update the blog with the best gossip throughout the weekend!

There's always something interesting to chat about from the meeting/series of cocktail parties, so stay tuned.

I have a friend, a very smart person who follows Philly politics closely, with whom I often find myself chatting about the men who would be mayor. And as we discuss them, she always says the same thing about Dwight Evans:

"He's walked the walk."

She's not talking about his record in Harrisburg. She means that he's taken the policies he believes in -- that families should be able to choose to leave failing schools, that commercial development is important even in poor neighborhoods -- and put them to work in his West Oak Lane area. His efforts are the subject of a thoughtful Inquirer profile Sunday by Michael Currie Schaffer.

Now, there are plenty of other things to say about Evans (true of any other candidate), too. Embedded in that profile is this assessment by former Joseph P. McLaughlin, formerly the city's lobbyist in Harrisburg: "There are some observers that say he has not been an effective media candidate."

McLaughlin doesn't explain exactly what he means, but Evans certainly can use a lot of words to fail to answer a question.

And then there is the big unknown: As difficult as it may have been to turn West Oak Lane around, is it possible to do the same to the entire city? Or is mayor's scope of work so much broader that hands-on improvement simply isn't possible? To borrow an (icky, but accurate) bit of business jargon, can these techniques be "scaled up"?

In the story, Marian Tasco blithely says it is possible to take the West Oak Lane success story citywide. I'm not so sure. I do think Evans' record will add an interesting element of truth-testing to others' campaign promises.

Jonathan Saidel will open his campaign headquarters today, meaning he's done pretty much everything but declare. The party starts at 5:30; Saidel will speak at 6:30. The HQ is in the Northeast, at the corner of Cottman and Revere.

The Daily News will be there, but if anyone else wants to e-mail in their take on the event, please do...

To quote Ronald Reagan at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal, "mistakes were made." Unlike Reagan, however, I actually know what they were and will explain them.

After a good exchange of emails today with Saidel spokesman Dan Fee, who made clear a good number of things relating to Saidel's first policy paper, "The Saidel Plan to Reform Philadelphia's Government and Political System," I can admit that I overreached in my criticism of the paper and the column based on it in the Daily News.

Fee made an excellent point that the paper set out to be about government reform, not about budget reform and therefore my criticism of the paper for not addressing the issues of employee health and pension benefits was off the mark. I will therefore reserve such analysis (including feedback from budget experts and my own close reading of the 5-year plan) for when Saidel does release such a paper.

As I said during this exchange, I suppose that I got a little overanxious in expecting any candidate to talk about ALL of the issues in his first policy paper. After 18 months of stories about "will he or won't he run," I got excited to talk about actual issues.

As someone whose GPA was probably based a lot on my ability to argue my grades up by half a grade letter, I can appreciate Fee's advocacy on behalf of his candidacy. Saidel's ideas about government reform are sound and a good starting point as we move towards talking about tax reform, budget reform, planning, housing, transit, etc. However, I'm still not completely satisfied with the parts of the paper that deal with reforming the political system for the reasons I laid out in the original post. The new grade is a B+ for content and an A for putting himself out there and flouting the strategy that says, "don't say anything and they can't attack you." Now, let's hope the other candidates follow suit.

So it seems clear that as we move forward we can expect candidates to tell us "what" they want to do. The bigger question may ultimately be, given the dynamics of working with City Council, unions, the Party, the state and federal governments, community groups, the business community, developers and advocacy groups, "how" are they going to do it?

Tom Knox will officially announce his candidacy at noon Thursday, the former UnitedHealthcare CEO said tonight:

"I will be announcing in front of the Tastykake factory on Roberts Avenue, located between Henry Ave. and Fox Road. The factory is just down the hill from the Abbotsford public housing complex, where I was born and lived for 14 years.

Please join my family and friends for food and music as we celebrate taking the first steps toward reforming our great city. The days of government for the governing must end. We deserve a city government that is as great as our people. Together we can change Philadelphia and move in a new direction. Together, we can make Philadelphia our next great city."

Hey! I was wrong about who announces next! I said Saidel -- though doesn't opening a campaign headquarters really count?

It looked like payback time in West Philadelphia’s 52nd Ward last night.

At a meeting of ward committee people, Michael Nutter, former City Councilman who resigned to run for mayor, was voted out as ward leader and replaced by his second-in-command, ward chairman Steve Jones.

Or was he?

Nutter claims the meeting was unauthorized and the vote illegal. He’s still the ward leader and will soon call a legitimate meeting to validate his position, he declared.

Although no reason for the ouster was given at the meeting, it is most likely yet more painful fallout from a feud between Nutter and Democratic party power Carol Campbell, who won Nutter's vacated Council seat in a Nov. 7 special election.

Nutter tried to have the election to fill his seat put off until next spring, outraging Campbell, who has long been a Nutter supporter.

He made no such request for the other Council candidates running in the special election.
In a letter to Democratic Party boss Bob Brady and Council President Anna Verna in September, Nutter said time was needed to allow residents to meet the candidates and air the issues.

“I’ve been very supportive of Michael,” Campbell said at the time. “This shows him void of integrity, void of charater and honor.”

Last night, Nutter said, “There was an unauthorized meeting that a person who was upset with me held.”

He said there is a detailed process for holding such a gathering and it was not followed. He said only ward leaders can call such a meeting and that there was not proper notification in advance as to what the meeting was about.

He added that Jones has a “personal beef with me.”

“There will be a properly called meeting by me to address any of the issues or concerns caused by this activity,” he said.

Jones told party committee members at the meeting last night that it had been properly called and advertised.

Expect this hot potato to land squarely in Brady's lap.

Oh yes, we'll be out there Thursday, covering the advent of the third official candidate in the 2007 race for Mayor! Former UnitedHealthcare CEO Tom Knox will announce his candidacy at noon at the across from the Abbotsford Homes housing project in East Falls where he grew up.

From the press release:

Knox will be joined by his family, Reverend Reginald Johnson of Zion Hill Baptist Church, Michael Keeley, a retired fire fighter and childhood friend, and Nancy Stringer-Hart, another childhood friend.

Immediately following the announcement, Knox will join Keeley in a visit to his old fire station in East Falls. Later in the evening, Knox will greet voters at the Frankford Terminal station and ride the train to the Loews Hotel in Center City for a fundraising reception with supporters.

Knox will make this formal announcement following a prayer breakfast at Sharon Baptist Church.

Report by Catherine Lucey of the Daily News:

Businessman Tom Knox officially announced his candidacy for mayor this afternoon across the street from the Abbotsford housing project where he grew up.

"Today I announce my candidacy for every citizen in Philadelphia who loves this city as much as I do, who is sick of pay to play influence and corruption in City Hall and massive debt that is once again growing out of control," said Knox.

Knox -- a former banking and insurance executive who served as a deputy mayor under Ed Rendell -- has put up $5 million of his own dollars for the campaign and hired powerhouse Democratic consultant Joe Trippi.

Trippi was in the small crowd gathered around Knox this afternoon as he pledged to use his business background to turn the city around.

"Together we can take the 'For Sale' sign off City Hall," Knox said.

Knox is the third candidate to announce plans to run in the Democratic Mayoral primary next May. Several more are still expected to enter.

Former City Councilman Michael Nutter and U.S. Rep Chaka Fattah have formerly entered the race. State Rep. Dwight Evans and former Controller Jonathan Saidel are expected to get in soon. And U.S. Rep. Bob Brady and union boss John Dougherty are reportedly still considering.

*Please note the change below - DP

Hey everybody. On behalf of all of the folks who contribute to this blog, I'd like to explain and let you know how much we regret having to make everyone register before commenting. When we changed over to a new version of MovableType, we thought we had the problem of spam comments licked, and for a while we did. But those insidious spam bots, like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park 2, found a way to reproduce and get themselves published. Our only recourse was to require registration.

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Thanks everyone. Now back to figuring out what we want from the next mayor.