The Next Mayor

So The Next Mayor project is at Congresso's election kickoff right now, where we're collecting more video of what Philadelphians want from the next mayor.

And we have a big announcement: Univision's Channel 65 has joined The Next Mayor project. We're delighted to have them as a partner in our effort!

Now, back to the election news:

I just talked to state Rep. Angel Cruz, who spoke at the event, about his predictions for the mayor's race in this heavily Latino part of Philadelphia. He said his big concern was turnout.

In 2005, only 4.8 percent of his district turned out to vote in the primary. By 2006's general election, that percentage had risen a lot -- to more than 22 percent -- but that was only after the Department of Justice had intervened.

He's concerned about keeping or growing that turnout for 2007.

As to issues, he said the number-one concern for his community is crime -- and that the successful candidate here will be the one who makes more cops visible in the neighborhoods.

"We need a grassroots, in-the-neighborhoods, kind of mayor," he said.

So our reporter says there are only 200 people at City Hall for Milton's rally -- and they are mostly media.

So will T.-for-tough Milton Street do what he said he would, and drop out -- since 5,000 people didn't show?

We'll see. Our reporter says he's still holding forth -- with a casket on stage, because this is about crime, you see.

We'll bring you some no-doubt-priceless quotes later.

Milton' speech lasted roughly 45 minutes and drew a crowd of about 200, mostly media and curious passers-by.

First, the bad news: He's not leaving the race. (Is anyone really suprised by that?) Street told the Daily News' Chris Brennan that he was staying in for the people who called to say they wanted to come to his rally but couldn’t make it.

“I know I said that if I didn’t get 5,000 people out here today I would not run," he said at the noon rally. "But there something within me…I got to keep going. I got to keep on pushing.”

The rest of his speech was, reports the Daily News' Catherine Lucey, "decidedly free-form."

Some highlights:

“Politicians want to win office with soundbites and lies,” he said. “I don’t stand before anybody and lie. I stand accused of doing some wrong things. But I don’t stand convicted.”

He then unveils a casket onstage: “This is what it’s about. This is where our young people are going.”

(A guy from John DeBella's radio show asked about the casket later. “No, there’s not a body in it. I started to put one in it so that when we opened it, it sat up but I figured that might be a little too dramatic. You know, people might want to take me for a psychiatric evaluation.”)

Back to the speech:

“We have these stores run by the Asians…staying up until 2 in the morning. I’m going to shut them down by 9 o’clock.”

“Those white guys are heckling me. They’ll come down here when somebody says it’s time to organize and heckle you.”

He then started praying. “You told me that if I had the faith of the mustard seed – an itty bitty mustard seed – I could move mountains.”

He then sang a hymn called “If I can help somebody.”

“There’s all these movements out here designed to keep Milton Street off the ballot. Let the voters decide.”

Brennan thinks he may know why Milton's putting us through this:

“There are some other things I can do," Street said. "I may do some talk radio. People have expressed an interest, without me giving out a lot of information, about me doing some talk radio. As a job. So I need a voice. So I guess I’ll position myself where I can best have my voice heard.”

After the rally, Street joked round with two radio show reporters who were recording his every word. With a WIP reporter, Street sung a very short, off-key duet of “Fly me to the moon.” A reporter from John DeBella’s 102.9 WMGK-FM show asked Street who he thought was the father of deceased Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith. “Not me,” Street said, breaking into a wide smile.

Several folks have commented with other things they said they heard at the Milton Show:

* "I am pregnant with knowledge"

* "We have so many killings because what we're doing hasn't worked." Um, I guess that says something about the current mayor?

And my favorite:

T-for-tough Milton also accused "hillbillies from Jiblip" from buying up neighborhood properties and running the residents away.

Damn hillbillies!!

Please use the comment section to tell us whether you agree or disagree with the following statement:

The Next Mayor project should no longer include any references to Milton Street on the thenextmayor.com or the site blog aside from links to stories in the Headlines archive.

We promise to make this a legitimately Milton-free zone and leave that circus to those who do it best - commercial radio and television - if the majority of commenters express that we do so. Unlike Milton, we'll stand by that promise.

The floor is yours...

This is a great idea -- meet the candidates over drinks! From our friends at Young Involved Philadelphia:

Meet Philadelphia’s MAYORAL CANDIDATES **Tomorrow** Friday, March 2nd, 8:00-10:00 pm Roosevelt's (2222 Walnut Street)

Following up on the great success of our survey of Philadelphia’s young people, YIP, YAPAC and YPN are co-sponsoring this event as your first opportunity to engage the candidates and show them your voice does matter! There will be food and drink specials.

Please RSVP for this event by contacting YIPCivicEd@gmail.com. We hope that you will be able to join us – and feel free to bring friends!

* * * * *

Meet Philadelphia’s CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES **Monday** March 5th, 5:30-7:00 pm Bump (1234 Locust Street)

Want to engage the candidates running for Council? YIP, YAPAC and YPN are co-sponsoring this next candidate event as your opportunity to do so! There will be food and drink specials.

Please RSVP for this event by contacting YIPCivicEd@gmail.com. We hope that you will be able to join us – and feel free to bring friends!

With tongue firmly planted in cheek (still not sure where that saying comes from), I bring you the next mayor of Philadelphia.

Amid all the hoopla about T-Mil, there was a candidate out there shouting into void about issues.

Michael Nutter released his plan for zoning and planning reform. I did a little experimenting with Macromedia Flash Paper in case you're wondering why it's posted like that.

We can talk about the guts of the paper if you want but it seems to be pretty standard stuff. Most people that use this site have already been told about the antiquated zoning code, the unprofessional ZBA and the ignored Planning Commission. None of that is necessarily new and not too much of Nutter's plan would seem to be a point of contention between him and his opponents. He gets points for bringing it up but that and a buck will get him a cup of coffee.

What I'd like to focus on is why there has to be reform. Why has the zoning code not been upgraded? Why is the planning commission shut out? Why are the folks who are on the ZBA not more qualified to be making those decisions? Clearly, the status quo is benefitting someone. It doesn't seem to be the builders since they complain more than anyone about how hard it is to navigate the process. It's clearly not the community groups or the neighborhoods. So who benefits from the way things are right now? If we can find out the answer to that question, we can figure out why things haven't changed in so long.

If we can find out who benefits and then see which candidate those people are supporting (by checking contributions or endorsements, etc) then we have a better sense of who is for the status quo - on zoning or any other issue - and who really wants change.

So if you have a theory, feel free to share it. If you have personal experience dealing with ZBA or L and I, I really want to hear about it.

Here's a piece of good scoop from Clout, the Daily News' excellent political-gossip column (compiled by city editor Gar Joseph).

Clout is published on Fridays, but to whet your appetite, we'll post a piece of it today.

Rudman: Brady-Doc dealmaker?

Shhhhh. Don’t tell anyone, but septuagenarian philantropist Kal Rudman is having lunch with labor leader John Dougherty at the Palm on Wednesday.

Rudman’s plan is to convince Dougherty to endorse U.S. Rep. Bob Brady for mayor.

“If I get this done, it will shake the s--t out of the other candidates,” Rudman told us.

Doc, who raised a ton of money exploring his own run for mayor and whose electricians’ Local 98 can put Election Day boots on the ground, would be a big catch for Brady. Rudman is on the board of the Variety Club children’s charity, of which Dougherty is president.

“He’s got to settle on a candidate,” said Rudman, and “[Brady] is the logical place for him to go.”

Dougherty, however, sounds like he’ll test Rudman’s salesmanship.

“Local 98 and I are not there yet [on a Brady endorsement],” Dougherty told us.

Deep down, I'm an unrepentant policy wonk. I'd love to sit on this blog all day and talk about best practices, innovative policies, outcome-based budgeting and anything that has to do with how governments - especially municipal governments - would be run in a vacuum in which political considerations can be set aside.

As such, I'm a huge fan of the work being done at Philadelphia's own Brookings, The Economy League of Greater Philadelphia. Note the name change. They used to be the Pennsylvania Economy League, Eastern Division (or something). Way to bring it home!

They've got a new name, a new website and a new attitude. Wait... the attitude thing might be part of the Phillies slogan.

Most importantly, they've got a new initiative to complement the fine work that they've done on the state level with IssuesPA. It's called IssuesPhiladelphia, which I'll call the work I'd be doing on this site if I were a whole lot smarter. Here's their mission:

IssuesPhiladelphia seeks to focus government on efficiently and effectively providing the results that matter to city residents. We help people connect major policy decisions (primarily those articulated in the annual budget) with tangible outcomes, such as the health and wealth of Philadelphians. Over the coming weeks and months, IssuesPhiladelphia will recommend policies that will better equip local government to achieve the results that citizens demand.

Check out the site and the first thing you'll see... Holy regionalism, Batman! Comparisons with the surrounding counties!

The question is, will local government listen to these recommendations? We'll definitely be listening and quizzing the candidates when we get the chance.

Take an hour or so and browse through the site. You just might learn something.

Speaking of new websites, our friends at the Philadelphia Children's Commission wanted us to know that their site is now up and ready.

Particularly of note:

In 2007, the Philadelphia Children's Commission will engage in a campaign to ensure that all Mayoral candidates support "And How are the Children': A Platform for Philadelphia's Future" — a comprehensive series of policies and reforms designed to make a difference for the city's children and youth.

We look forward to the release of these initiatives and doing what we can to make sure the candidates speak to issues of child health and welfare. Afterall, one could argue that the violence and crime that we're experiencing today are the result of conditions that existed 18-25 years ago. That's not to say that we can't do anything for this current crop of 18-25 year olds but we can sure as hell make sure that we don't make the same mistakes.

Daily News reporter Bob Warner was at the Community College forum today. Here's his report:

About 150 students and staff at Philadelphia Community College heard seven of the candidates for mayor strut their stuff for 90 minutes this afternoon.

From the Fab 5 -- Democrats Evans, Nutter, Fattah, Brady and Knox – the only one missing was Congressman Bob Brady, who was unable to attend because of “obligations in Washington,” according to one of the moderators, Nia Meeks. They were joined by the only woman in the race, Queena Bass, Republican Al Taubenberger, and the Green Party candidate, Terry Foster.

There was little disagreement on major issues, and little the candidates haven’t been saying at most of their appearances. One way or another, they generally support more police to fight violent crime, better public schools to provide more opportunity to Philadelphians and more services across the board, though it remains unclear how they'll pay for them.

Several expressed shock and dismay that Mayor Street suggested a $1 million cut in city aid to Community College in his budget proposal last week.

The students were so well-behaved – or bored – that they failed to respond even to Dwight Evans’s suggestion that Community College should be free.

One interesting moment came when moderator Zack Stalberg, from the Committee of 70, asked the candidates what they would ask incumbent John Street if they took him up on an offer to answer questions about the city budget.

Tom Knox was the most critical, saying he would ask Street why people had to be friends, relatives or campaign contributors to get no-bid contracts, and why the mayor had “surrounded himself with so many people who have been indicted or gone to jail? Why didn’t he hire better people?”

A moment later, Fattah offered several words of comfort to the mayor.

“I would ask all of you not to get swayed here,” Fattah said. “Nobody’s running against John Street, even though they might get a few laughs or points off of it….The truth is that public service is a challenge and John Street’s given about three decades now of his life and he’s done a lot of good things, even though there are and there will always be, for any of us, detractors. But I think it’s fairly much a cheap shot for all of this nonsense about John Street. We’re talking about the next mayor, we should focus on that and I for one offer myself as a candidate for someone to lead the city forward.”

Here's your weekly update of upcoming events in the mayor's race!

As you know, the Next Mayor is keeping an ongoing calendar of events in the race. Visit our site at to see it -- or to submit an event.

The Next Mayor partners: WHYY, the Daily News, and the Committee of 70.
-----------------

Upcoming Events:

Fattah to unveil environmental agenda
(Sunday, March 4, Bartram's Garden, 54th St. and Lindbergh)
Chaka Fattah will release his policy agenda on the environment. The plan focuses on improving air quality in Philadelphia, increasing the number of trees on our streets, boosting access to alternative energy sources, and improving and promoting our parks and green areas across the city.

City Council Candidates Meet and Greet
(Monday, March 5, 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm, 1234 Locust Street)

Want to engage the candidates running for Council? YIP, YAPAC and YPN are co-sponsoring this next candidate event as your opportunity to do so! There will be food and drink specials. Please RSVP for this event by contacting YIP (Young Involved Philadelphia).

Green City Strategy Candidates' Forum
(Monday, March 5 – 6 pm to 7:30 pm Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 114, Auditorium, 13th Street Entrance between Arch and Race)

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society invites you to a Green City Strategy Mayoral Candidates' Forum in collaboration with Pennsylvania Environmental Council and Philadelphia Parks Alliance. Limited Seating - Advance Reservation Required. Call 215-988-8788 or email forum@pennhort.org.

Jewish Committee Mayoral Forum
(Tuesday, March 6 – 7 pm – 9 pm Union League - 140 S Broad St)

The American Jewish Committee is hosting a mayoral forum on Tuesday, March 6, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Union League. The forum will be moderated by Larry Kane.

Community Newspaper Mayoral Forum
(Wednesday, March 7 – 7 pm – 9 pm, Alexander Adair Public School, 1300 E. Palmer Street)

The Spirit Community Newspapers is hosting a mayoral candidate forum on Wednesday, March 7, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

Liberty City Candidate Forum

(Thursday, March 8, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, William Way Community Center, 1315 Spruce Street)

Liberty City, a gay and lesbian Group, is hosting a Candidate Night for mayoral and judicial races.

[ETA, again: I can't believe I neglected to mention Evans' environmental plan. It is here.]

[ETA: The full plan is now on Fattah's Web site; you can read it here. The Inquirer's story on the plan is here.]

You have to give the group that has aligned behind the Next Great City effort a lot of credit. They have succeeded in ensuring -- for all of us -- that the environment is an issue in this race. That is a real accomplishment, since crime remains such a dominant topic.

But, thanks to them, we know that each candidate -- except Brady -- has signed on to Next Great City's 10-point environmental agenda. And the profile of environmental issues is quite high in this race. For example, let's look at today and tomorrow.

Today, Fattah released his environmental plan. I've only seen the press release so far, but in it he sets a goal of planting 100,000 trees "over his two terms in office." (Hey, that's what it said.)

"Any block in Philadelphia will be able to apply for tree-planting in the same way they apply for block parties. If 75 percent of the block’s residents sign a petition, the city – in consultation with community groups and the District Councilperson – will line the street with trees."

I like the sound of that. I wonder what it would cost?

Other goals he's set:

"Targeting" a 20 percent reduction in energy use across all city departments by the end of his first term.

Investing city dollars to implement the city's GreenPlan, a neighbhorhood open-space preservation program.

Improving the City’s recycling system. Fattah's press release points out that Philadelphia’s five percent recycling rate is the second lowest of any large city in the country – far below the national average of 24 percent, and, we say, a disgrace.

Fattah points out that such improvements do save money: "For every 1 percent increase in the recycling rate, the City can save $500,000," he said.

The other candidate to release a specific environmental plan is Michael Nutter; you can read it on his candidate page. Also, each candidate responded to the Next Great City report with their thoughts on the environment; read what they said at the bottom of this page.

Finally, let's look at tomorrow. That's when a sold-out, overflow crowd will gather at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's Flower Show for a candidates' forum on the environment.

This issue is clearly getting the attention it deserves.

I love our commenters.

They may have their favorite candidates, but they always raise very interesting points.

Like this one:

"I attended [the] CCP forum yesterday [and I] am concerned that candidates (with notable exception of Michael Nutter) frequently don’t answer the questions. I have attended (or watched video of) most of debates so far and find it really frustrating that moderators never call the candidates on this. I realize this may be the agreed upon format of the debate but something needs to done to change this."

"Brady frequently responds to questions with a personal anecdote, Fattah tends to say: 'I have a comprehensive program to address that question, read it on my website.' Evans frequently ignores the question and shifts discussion to one of his campaign themes. Knox is more likely to answer the question than Brady, Fattah or Evans. Nutter consistently provides a direct answer."

So, someone thinks that most of the candidates aren't answering questions thoroughly. Which is a part of politicking, but it's not OK, either. So if you are headed to a forum, keep an eye out for this -- we will too -- and let us know.

Two stories to call to your attention today:

Dave Davies of the Daily News has an excellent column on Tom Knox, which raises the question of what the loan of $5 million of his own money to his campaign really means.

Knox loaned his campaign the money. That means it can be repaid to him after a Knox victory. That raises the alarming specter of City Hall fund-raisers for Knox -- to be blunt, of special interests giving a sitting mayor money after his election that would go straight into his own pockets.

I am surprised that the campaign didn't immediately say, "Well, it was a loan because that was a long time before the race. Of course, once Tom wins, he will forgive the loan. We were serious about that take-the-For-Sale-sign-down-off-City-Hall thing."

But, as you will see if you read the story, they so didn't say that.

As Dave writes, "If somebody says they want to buy City Hall back for me, I'd like to know they aren't doing it with a $5 million mortgage."

Yikes.

Also, Thomas Fitzgerald of the Inky has a look at the candidates on the stump as we close in on the last 10 weeks of the campaign.

And the Inquirer editorial page on Sunday has a well-deserved pat on the back for the five (serious, ie non-Milton) Democratic candidates for making this a campaign about issues. It's true and a real credit to the five people in the race.

Now, let's keep it that way for the next 10 weeks.

...As we speak, at City Hall.

This is a good moment to remind everyone that petitions for city-wide office -- for our purposes, we're talking the mayor's race and city council -- are due tomorrow.

The mayoral candidates need 1,000 signatures on their petitions to be put on the ballot May 15. Citywide council candidates also need 1,000; district council candidates need 750. The signatures must be of real voters who are registered in the party and live in the area represented.

Dr. Kerry Foster, the Green Party candidate, and other candidates of minor political parties, however, just have to get 1,000 signatures from any registered city voter. (In Foster's case, for example, those signatures don't have to be from registered Green Party voters.) For more on this, read the Committee of 70's How to Run for Political Office guide.)

Obviously, we'll keep you posted on petition filings, petition challenges and all other ballot news.

ETA: Awww. Nutter took his daughter, Olivia, with him as he delivered his 13,000, count 'em 13,000, signatures. From his press release:

Mayoral Candidate Michael Nutter, along with his 12 year old daughter Olivia, turned in 13,000 Democratic Petitions at the Board of Elections today at 12:30p.m.

“I am honored to have my daughter with me as I turn in 13,000 signatures collected from every ward in the city, and for her to be able to see the election process first hand,” said Nutter. “This is something we can experience as a family, not something she has to read about in a book.”

“I am also humbled by the hundreds of grassroots activists that took the time during the winter storms to talk to their neighbors and collect signatures. The grassroots support the campaign is receiving amazes me everyday” exclaimed Nutter.

Michael Nutter was the first candidate to declare his candidacy and was the first to turn in his petitions.

You may have caught this article from the Inquirer a few days ago that questions just how important endorsements are for a campaign.

There seems to be two schools of thought, one that says endorsements are important both for their ability to convince undecided voters that a candidate is worth their vote and because they often come with money and footsoldiers.

The other thinks, endorsements, schmendorsements... or in other words... who cares? Labor unions have back Republican candidates with abysmal voting records on labor issues. The rank-and-file members of the union either put in a half-hearted effort on behalf of that candidate or just flat-out work for the other guy. Really, aside from getting to say in a commercial or fundraising letter, "endorsed by..." these endorsements do little.

I tend to believe the second. Often times the endorsements are done because of considerations made by the leadership of groups or personal deals between those leaders and the candidates. If the candidate or the campaign fails to bring their message effectively to the voters, then no amount of third party cajoling will do it.

That's basically why I haven't paid much attention on this blog to who got the backing of this or that group. I'll be a little interested to see which newspapers endorse which candidates but I could care less who Local 98 (for example) decides to back. Besides, groups like that seem to be most effective at harassing the opponent rather than backing their guy. With 4 opponents to harass, I have a feeling they'll be spread a little thin.

Anyway, that's just my take on it. If you are interested to know where the endorsements are falling, Josh Cornfield at Fight For Room 215, the blog of Metro Philadelphia, has some breaking news about Dwight Evans picking up some pretty big support.

All five serious Democratic candidates were present at the Flower Show forum tonight. And, reports the Daily News' Dave Davies, you will be relieved to hear that all five have morphed into radical greens.

They made all kinds of promises for the rapt crowd of as many as 1,000 listeners in two rooms -- tree planting, park funding, you name it. Which, again, shows how far environmental issues have come in this race.

Actually, Dave pointed out to us, it shows how savvy the candidates are. They treated the large crowd like "supervoters," those who both vote and influence other voters, he said -- which Flower Show attendees certainly are, at least those who live in the city. There were tables of information for the candidates and people working the crowd to pass out literature.

Anyway, the big applause-getter through the night was money for Fairmount Park. All seemed to agree that the park system should be able to keep revenue it gets from concessions and fees, which it doesn't now. (Again, this would be a big change, and it's great to have this promise on the record -- if they can afford to keep it.)

Dwight Evans pushed his plan for a percentage of real estate transfer taxes to go to the park system as a dedicated source of funding.

In other issues...Tom Knox pushed his adopt-a-tree program, saying if citizens plant the trees the city will water and prune them (does this happen already?).

And there was some back-and-forth over the success of the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative and councilmanic privilege, development issues that closely relate to environmental issues.

Finally, there was some of the usual squabbling that goes on at these things. At one point, Michael Nutter asked Knox -- who has admitted to getting senior citizens discounts -- "Tom, do you pay for anything?"

Knox responded to Nutter, "I paid more in taxes last year than you ever paid." That drew some groans.

Bob Brady and Evans got into it a bit, too. Brady said he'd absolutely support asking developers to include support for green space in each development plan, and referenced his friend, developer John Westrum. Which is the kind of relationship-based comment you'd expect from Brady.

But policy-focused Evans didn't like the name-dropping and the kind of decision-making he felt it represented. Evans responded, "This is exactly what we have to change."

"Public policy has to be transparent. You can't do it on a retail basis."

Also drawing some eye-rolling was Brady's response during the wrap-up questioning. When asked what he'd do to make Philadelphia greener, he responded with something many in the crowd had heard before: That somewhere in Philadelphia there was a father who was wondering where he'd find the money to buy a can of soup for his hungry family, and that once Bob Brady had been that father.

An affecting story, but it's been rolled out more than a couple of times, and it wasn't really what the question had asked (Karen, we were listening!). The story wandered back to green space, but it was odd.

From the Radio Times page at whyy.org:

Hour 1
Philadelphia mayoral race update. Today is the deadline for major party candidates to turn in their petitions. They will each need one thousand valid signatures to appear on the May 15th primary election. We'll get an update on what's been happening in the race with MARCIA GELBART, the City Hall Bureau Chief for The Philadelphia Inquirer who is covering the mayor's race, and contributing to the paper's Mayorpalooza blog, and from GAR JOSEPH, the city editor and political editor for The Philadelphia Daily News.

Like I always do when I'm plugging Radio Times, I remind you that you can listen live to the program by clicking here at 10am and choosing the method that works best for you.

(edited to add) If you missed it, you can use this link to get a downloadable .mp3 file of the show for your personal .mp3-playing device. IMPORTANT: It won't be available until 12:15pm today but when it is, just right click on it and hit "save as" and you're on your way to one heck of pod-castic experience.

By the way, Hour 2 is pretty darn interesting too, but for an entirely different reason.

Our friends at PICA - that's the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority to you - alerted us to the release of their initial evaluation of the mayor's current 5-year plan. To sum it up, they're saying that after careful examination of budget trends, the 5-year plan is being held together by spit and bubble gum.

A mere three pages into the report, you already see the phrase "speculative revenue" and the assessment that:

PICA Staff does not believe a Plan that includes these two revenue sources [reimbursements to the Department of Human Services and the $45 million loan repayment from PGW] is balanced using reasonable assumptions.

And it just gets worse from there. Let me throw some more interesting facts out at you so that you can consider this whenever one of the candidates talks about planting 100,000 trees or putting in 1500 surveillance cameras or buying elephants:

By the end of the Plan, pensions and health benefits will account for about $1 out of every $4 the City spends up from $1 out of every $8 in FY01. (page 5)

The graph on page 6.

Beginning in FY09, the Administration projects that the wage tax base will grow at either 4.25% or 4.5% each year.

No other Five-Year Plan has projected that the wage tax would grow by more than 4% in any year. (page 10)

Economists call that "an assumption." Good economists call that a "bad assumption."

From page 12:
Labor Costs Are Another Substantial Risk in the Plan

The Plan assumes single digit employee health care cost increases in each of its years and $30 million in savings from a series of cost containment initiatives. While the cost containment initiatives are well thought out, it would be up to the next mayor’s administration to implement them.

Add to that the fact that "all of the City’s collective bargaining agreements expire at the beginning of FY09," and it makes you wonder which of the current crop will be able to resist the tempation to give away the store during these negotiations and who might possibly be able to pull back on some of the health and pension benefits.

The point is, the city is in trouble. Not today... not tomorrow... but soon. And it'll be up to the next mayor to dig us out of it. Read it and good luck sleeping tonight.

And yes, that's my second A-Team reference on this blog. What can I say, I watched a lot of television as a kid.

[Edited to add detail throughout -- Wendy]

BREAKING NEWS: Milton Street has turned in the required petitions, and he is running....

FOR CITY COUNCIL AT LARGE.

You read that right: He turned in nominating petitions, and they aren't to run for mayor, they are to run for city council, representing the whole city.

His Web site is unchanged -- he still has a few references on it to running for mayor -- but now that we look at it anew, gee, he's not real specific. With one good edit it would easily apply to a City Council race.

Which is not to say that Milton will climb every hurdle. For example, there are 1,500 signatures on the petitions, and our reporters say that some of the pages seem to have handwriting that is surprisingly familiar from page to page.

So we'll see.

And then there's the fact that his nephew is also running for City Council.

Coming soon: The Street Family Feud. Will Uncle Milton crush Sharif Street's dream of victory? Will Sharif file a challenge to Milton's petitions and residency? What happens when the Mayor gets everyone together for Easter Dinner? Will Milton and Sharif have to sit at opposite ends of the table?

Stay tuned!

PS: I know we promised our regular readers a Milton-free zone, but c'mon, this is big.

As the race grinds into an exhausting high gear, with yet another forum every night, we're going to give each of the candidates one chance to lose it slightly.

I think Dwight Evans might have exercised his last night.

During a “lightning round," the candidates were asked how they'd communicate with the public if elected mayor. And, according to Daily News reporter Catherine Lucey, Evans responded:

“Jennifer Hudson,” said State Rep. Dwight Evans. “I was watching her on the Oscars last week. Unfortunately, she didn’t win “American Idol,’ but she won something greater than that.”

Catherine reports that the audience politely gazed at Evans, who continued:

“I announced my economic development plan today and I said I wanted to make Philadelphia ‘the Hollywood of the East’ for people who dream.” He had more.

“Faheem Thomas Childs will never get to be Jennifer Hudson,” Evans said, referring to the 10-year-old shot in his North Philadelphia schoolyard in 2004. “He was going to school. He was shot in the head. He will never get to be a Jennifer Hudson.”

Eventually, Evans wrapped up by saying: “You should Google our records. You should Google our records, look at our records, not what we say.”

(Actually, you don't need Google, just check out his candidate page on The Next Mayor for a run-down of all proposals he's issued.)

Other than that, it was pretty much as usual, with the candidates repeating their established positions...

FYI, earlier tonight Evans picked up the backing of the Black Clergy. Reports the Daily News' Dave Davies:

“The Black clergy will be a part of the Evans administration,” a grateful Evans told a crowd of about 50 ministers who gathered with him for the organization’s official announcement last night in West Philadelphia.

Black Clergy President Rev. James C. Moore Sr., the group’s president, said the organization represents over 450 pastors and ministers whose congregations include more than 300,000 members.

The organization is not a tax-exempt organization, Moore said, so it is legally able to endorse Evans and lend him political support.

Remember that in 1999 this same group backed John Street and actually urged Evans to withdraw from the race.

Asked about that history last night, Moore told Dave, “I’ve learned that in politics there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies.”

[Amusing edit: That would be JESUS White, not Jesse White. Josh apologizes for failing to get a reletively memorable name correct. -- Wendy]

Just to get it on the record:

Michael Nutter turned in 13,000 nominating petitions and was the first to file
Dwight Evans turned in 17,000 and has a picture on his Web site
Tom Knox turned in 10,000 and said, “With the help of the 10,000 Philadelphians who are supporting my candidacy, we will take the ‘for sale” sign off City Hall and put an end to the pay-to-play politics that are all too common in our city.”

I don't have numbers for Chaka Fattah and Bob Brady yet.

Also filing were Queena Bass and Minister Jesse White (those last two are according to the excellent work of Josh Cornfield at Metro and his blog, Fight for Room 215.)

Al Taubenberger, as expected, filed as a Republican.

Candidates for the major party primaries had to file petitions with at least 1,000 signatures from qualified electors to be considered for the ballot. Now comes the time when signatures get challenged. We'll keep you posted.

I picked a bad week to be out of commission when it comes to being able to attend candidate forums. Seems like I'm missing all the good stuff, including what sounds like some crazy talk from Dwight "Google Me" Evans.

First of all, when I Google "Dwight Evans" I end up with just as many references to 3-time American League All-Star and 8-time Gold Glove outfielder, Dwight "Dewey" Evans of the Boston Red Sox than I do to a state representative from Pennsylvania - and Dewey's been retired since 1991. Heck, several days ago some poor guy named "Dwight Evans" from Baltimore, MD was dominating the Google News searches since the guy was murdered.

Leaving aside the difficulties with using Google as an easy source of information about our Dwight Evans's record, here's another account, almost in its entirety, from a friend of mine who attended the AJC forum:

I saw that Wendy posted on the AJC forum. The Evans show got even better, actually. First of all, that whole bit about Jennifer Hudson was in response to a question about the importance of communication for a mayor. We were a little confused about how that had anything to do with the question.

He [moderator Larry Kane] let Queena speak for about a minute in the beginning, but made her do it from the audience, and not from the podium, and shut her down pretty effectively. She stayed for about 10 minutes then left with her entourage.

I really wish I had video of that one. Does anyone know if someone has video of the whole thing and would be willing to let me go through the process (long and arduous as it is) of getting it up on Google Video?

By the way, another cool fact that I got from Googling Dwight Evans's record:

Evans hit a home run four times on Opening Day. On April 7, 1986, he set a MLB record by hitting the 1st pitch of the season for a home run, eclipsing the mark held by the Chicago Cubs' Bump Wills who hit the 2nd pitch for a HR on April 4, 1982.

Oh baby! That guy definitely gets my vote!

I saw this in the Philadelphia Weekly today and figured that other people who share this groups goals and tactics should know about it:

Pirates for Nutter

A group of ruthless one-eyed dirty plague-carrying swordfighting buccaneers who believe that Michael Nutter is the best candidate to represent the needs of the Philadelphia pirating community. Yarr.

I feel like I saw this somewhere before. Hope to see everyone at the New Wave Cafe on Friday!

My apologies for the post title. Feel free to improve on it in the comments with pirate jokes of your own.

Like Josh says, this one's not a big surprise, but it looks like Brady will pick up the endorsement of the Philadelphia Building Trades Council. He talked to Frank Keel who was not ready to confirm that Local 98 is getting behind Brady as well.

Looks like my two buddies in the sprinkler fitters union are still free agents. (Before you tell me that electricians aren't the same as sprinkler fiiters, it seems that their union goes the way Local 98 goes).

And he'll do it at 1 p.m. today.

(edited to add: And here it is. Take a look! Video of Nutter's press conference is here.)

From the press release: "The Nutter plan proposes increasing school funding, reducing class sizes and improving school safety."

For those of you comparing the candidates on the issues: Evans' education plan is here; Fattah's opportunity agenda is here and Knox's short statement on his priorities for city schools is here.

Now, I've said before that education has an unusual role in this race. We can see that the schools are in need of sustained, cross-governmental attention: They are facing a massive deficit, caused in large part by the same stresses that are overwhelming the city budget -- pension costs and health care costs. However, the city really doesn't run the schools. The state took them over five years ago, and they are now run by the School Reform Commission. The city has a lot of sway (the district presents its budget to city council, for example) but the SRC runs the district.

I certainly am not arguing that the schools aren't an issue in this race -- far from it. But voters do need to understand how the district works now as they listen to campaign promises.

For more background, check out these earlier reports:

On the role of education in the race (timed for the release of Evans' education plan)

On the Philadelphia Cross City Campaign for School Reform (including their plans for an April 12 candidates' forum)

On the Daily News special report on the connection between job creation and violence reduction, especially for young students

Discussion of Fattah's technology plan, which includes a call for a laptop for every student

Discussion and analysis of Evans' education plan

And if you don't believe that, click here

Occasionally we get emails from readers describing situations or issues that have had a deep, personal effect on them. Here's one from blog reader Margaret Motheral (via email) who has apparently tried to reach a number of different elected officials with her story.

To the Mayoral Candidates:

I was at the GREEN CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE FORUM last night listening to the candidate's talk up the virtues of a Green City.

Facts of Cover ups and environmental crimes have been collected.

(but wait, there's more... Click on "Continue Reading")

I think I'm on just about every politically-related e-mail list in this city but never before has an email from a campaign offered me money. Usually it's the other way around.

This was at the bottom of the latest Fattah for mayor mailing:

In addition to building a volunteer army to help us here at the Fattah for Mayor campaign, we're also looking to hire reliable and energetic Field Representatives.

Successful candidates will be required to go door-to-door, in various areas of Philadelphia to talk with registered voters. Starting pay, with no related experience, is $8.00 per hour.

Talk about your retail politics. I notice that "support the idea of Chaka Fattah being mayor" is not prerequisite. And please, before a hyper-energetic Fattah supporter tries to makes some kind of connection between the title of the post and that previous sentence, don't. The only thing I'm publicly supporting during this election is the process and the only things I'm against are attempts to subvert the process.

The Daily News' Dave Davies reports today that Bob Brady failed to list his city pension on his required financial disclosure papers. Similar ommissions kicked other candidates, including city council candidate Vern Anastasio, off the ballot in past years.

This is a big deal, folks. It's routine for candidates to challenge each other's papers, but there's also a body of ruling that says failing to include a source of income like that is reason to be bounced from the ballot. Besides Anastasio, it happened to former Common Pleas Judge John Braxton. That case went to the state Supreme Court, which ruled that Braxton was off the ballot.

What makes the ommission particularly odd is that Brady lists the money on his Congressional financial disclosures. The pension is for his service as City Council sergeant-at-arms (a tenure that, by the way, Lynne Abraham reminded us of when she endorsed Brady a few weeks ago.)

Brady spokeswoman Kate Philips said campaign officials would file an amended disclosure form this morning, rather than wait until another candidate challenges his candidacy.

"We would hope that the spirit of democracy and the will of 24,000 Philadelphians who signed our petitions will rise above petty politics," Philips told Dave.

Ok, sure.

Now, all that said...

Brady does run the city Democratic Party, and he is directly responsible for vetting judicial candidates.

And there is one, faint "out" for him in this controversy: the state ethics board notes there is an "exception for governmentally mandated payments."

But, Dave notes in his story, one of the omissions that tripped Braxton up was his state pension.

So we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, what I wonder is which of the other four candidates will be the first to file the challenge?