The 13th Floor, Governing Magazine's blog took a moment to play "guess that mayor" and gave the following list of accomplishments:
-A budget surplus
-Rising test scores for K-12 students
-A new NFL stadium and a new Major League Baseball stadium
-An anti-blight campaign that has removed 200,000 abandoned cars
-A booming downtown, including a new skyscraper that will be the tallest in the city
-A pioneering effort to bring wireless Internet citywide
Of course we all know that they're talking about our very own John Street. They then make the comment:
What's more, almost everyone hates him.
They succinctly explain that Street's defenders tend to blame his portrayal in the media for his low approval ratings while his opponents point out that many of his accomplishments can't make up for much deeper problems - problems like a looming budget crisis that threaten to wipe out all of the gains that Philadelphia has made since the early 90s.
How does this set things up for the next mayor? On the one hand, it would seem that Street has set the bar so low that whichever candidate succeeds him needs only be reasonably personable and drop the annual murder total to a previously-unacceptable-but-now-good-by-comparison 390. On the other hand, like the championship-starved Philadelphia fans who now expect the Phillies to lead them to the promised land, the expectations for the next mayor are going to be so high, that one little stumble can send him down to Street's approval ratings.
What can I say? We're Philadelphia. We live with the dizzying highs and the sickening lows. No creamy middles for us.
Comments (5)
Sure, I might offend a few of the bluenoses with
my cocky stride and musky odors -- oh, I'll never be the darling
of the so-called "City Fathers" who cluck their tongues, stroke
their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this...
Posted by Anonymous | October 3, 2007 1:35 PM
Street only had a budget surplus from policies put in place under Rendell
Specifically, it was the selling of the debt to a private collection agency that put property tax owing properties in the hands of fresh new owners.
Street responded to pressure from "housing" groups who oppposed the foreclosures by getting rid of one sale per month of debt owing properties. But this is where the surplus came from -- all that old lien debt was paid at the closing.
Far from creating a surplus, he stalled it during a real estate boom where contractors (of all races) were hungry to buy and build, and painted revenue collection as harmful to blacks. Meanwhile, they are dodging bullets at the slaygrounds.
But knowing this requires that people look at what Rendell and David Cohen did on taxes and revenue. Reading a spreadsheet is somehow foreign.
Rendell also sold city held or city controlled properties to the highest bidder, which caused Naval Square to be built, and turned a ghetto into a tony Fitler Square extension.
But the paper has to first find redeeming value in renovation to the city as a whole before it can realize what Cohen's true genius was prudent administration that paid off years later. With nothing due to Street -- that moron didn't even realize it was coming or he would have put in the budget.
Street is a financial idiot. Most of the things that he is credited with have other explanations:
Budget surplus -- Rendell's revenue collection that couldn't be halted by a politician fueled real estate boom and increase in new taxpayers.
School scores -- Vallas. Street drove Vallas off.
Booming downtown -- private market from Rendell era. If Street could stop a project he would. There's still empty buildings the city owns, or owes big property taxes on that Street just did nothing about.
Stadiums, abandoned car removal, wi-fi and city technological updates -- OK, but isn't this the kind of thing a city this large is suppposed to be doing already?
Is it really big news that we did what other cities do routinely? Street wanted to put the stadium on top of Chinatown.
Street didn't create a self-sustaining governent that operates with and rewards initiative. He didn't remove critical obstacles. They're still all there.
If you want something done, the understanding is that you need to go to a politician outside of a functioning city process.
You still have to battle for change. The five year plan is a fantasy, the budget is a work of fiction. There's zero zoning reform or updating. City government numbers in Philly are still squidgy. There's no real Street ethics reform. There's no lasting result of Safe Streets. Trash is back on those NTI lots because the city still holds them and does nothing with all this property. Street's in a holding pattern on housing, PHA, RDA, (denial, really) that somehow all this federal money will come back and he can just hand it out.
Schools are totally underfunded, the health dept. is a wreck. The city government is still breaking down even though we had an economic boom.
Is it really productive to claim that Street has a legacy apart from getting kicked out of the way?
It's far from what Street promised.
Posted by Anonymous | October 3, 2007 5:42 PM
You didn't even mention the FBI. Does any member of the press corps remember that Street's executive secretary took money from Shamsud-din Ali, whose whole family was involved in graft, corruption, and extortion of drug dealers?
Ron White was a Street kingmaker, and Street took the money and didn't ask questions. White would be doing time with Ali and his family in the fed pen right now if he lived to face justice. Street must have known that this money was from the streets. Everyone else did.
Street refused to look upon the contribution landscape for graft, quid pro quo, in fact, lauded that he rewards his friends and cuts out his enemies. Everyone didn't give him money was his enemy.
Street's distinct distaste for normal campaign finance requirements essentially created a narcopoly of felons turned politicos. I watch "The Shield," and realize that Anthony Anderson's devastatingly effective drug dealer/community activist perfectly describes a core base in Street's long time supporters. Remember Corey Kemp's "get down or lay down?" Antwoine in "The Shield" is going to morph into Ron White or Fareed Ahmed in upcoming episodes.
Is our claim to fame that our mayors are not in jail like they are in AC? Is this what a minority mayor is?
Posted by Anonymous | October 3, 2007 5:56 PM
Yeah, is any white or black liberal going to say, gee, we sure have a lot of former documented Black Mafia members in the local Democratic party who get real breaks on property taxes, are first in line for RDA properties but never build and never lose the properties, get to owe property tax liens and other liens forever and never face payment? How come only Fox29 ever covers this issue?
Is any liberal going to say, gee, there sure are a lot of open air drug markets where people never have to pay property taxes, and some of this property is held by the city, owned by the city, gotten from the RDA....
...K&A, the "Box" in Point Breeze, all of West and North Philly where 50% of all property owners never pay taxes but if they did, the city could afford to crack down on drugs and murder?
No, it's a "lack of civility" not DRUG DEALING, says Street and his odd police commissioner.
Friends, folks, fellow city dwellers, it's usually drugs. Street's legacy is that he presided over a city in it's shift from crack to H.
Nutter has to deal with this very empowered political remnant with close ties to the street that Street found so useful.
There is still a politically involved black organzied crime faction that probably already hates Nutter. This is certainly going to be Street's satisfaction.
Nutter has to cope with the Puff Daddy political action committee that wants crack sentences reduced, felons to vote, and hates stop and frisk and other crime measures that work. These are the folks who have relatives and friends working for Philly's #2 or #3 largest employer -- the drug trade. They come to community meetings to cry about why the city doesn't pay for drug neighborhoods to stay in place.
They were Street's core. What will they do next when forfeiture and foreclosure reduce the critical supply of available drug houses? Follow demand to the suburbs?
Posted by Anonymous | October 3, 2007 6:23 PM
The druggiest neighborhoods have half of all property owners owing years in taxes (yet costing the city the most).
www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/delinqbyzip/index_html?skey=pcent&rkey=pcent
This is the real Street legacy.
Posted by Anonymous | October 3, 2007 6:39 PM