Fixing Politics and Government... sort of (The Next Mayor)

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.]

Comments (2)

Philly Phantom:

I think that most if not all of Saidel's ideas are good, as many of them have been for 16 years when he served as Controller. My concern about Saidel is not whether he's smart or has good ideas, but about his ability to implement. I've been very unimpressed with what he was able to accomplish as Controller. He had 16 years to advance a lot of these ideas, but played it safe and sat by while one of the worst corruption scandals in our history unfolded.

Posted by Philly Phantom | November 23, 2006 8:19 AM

Roy M. Philip

Regarding turnout, I guess we need more people to vote. Hmm funny, so few people decide who should be leading the city.

bye ROY

Posted by Roy M. Philip | December 7, 2006 10:28 PM

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