Vote on the issues

After weeks of campaigning, the election for mayor, district councilperson and councilpersons-at-large is finally here. This year’s election has been a difficult one with federal probes, accusations, vandalism and embezzlement charges.

But it is the fact that race has been drawn into this year’s campaign in a way that Philadelphia has not seen in decades that could have a polarizing, negative effect on the region. The reports that support for the mayoral candidates is along racial lines are particularly painful and depressing. Didn’t Philadelphians — especially those of us in Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy — get over that decades ago?

There are many issues ranging from education to taxes to public safety and the business climate that affect all of us. Study the issues. Think about the future and who best can serve Philadelphia. Go to the polls on Tuesday.
Katie Worrall

Planning ahead

Watch your U.S. mail pile for a colorful brochure from the Chestnut Hill Community Fund. The brochure, designed by the production department of the Chestnut Hill Local, describes the 2004 campaign to raise money for community projects and local organizations ranging from the Bach Festival, which sponsors classical music concerts, and the Chestnut Hill Senior Services Center, to planting of street trees, Pastorius Park concerts and Teenagers, Inc.

The 2004 fundraising committee, chaired by Brien P. Tilley, is working to raise $120,000 by December 31 for these programs and others that retain Chestnut Hill’s cultural and architectural integrity and its “Greene Countrie” town atmosphere. Tax-deductible contributions to the Chestnut Hill Community Fund may be made by sending a check to the fund, 8434 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19118, or by credit card by calling 215-248-8810 or visiting www.chestnuthill.org.
Katie Worrall

Opinion: A vote for Mayor Street

by CAROL COPE

I’m going to vote for John Street next week because he’s earned my vote. He’s earned it with 25 years of public service and earned it with the substantial accomplishments of his first four years as mayor. Consider the following:

Bright lights and lower taxes

At a time when cities and states all over the country are raising taxes, cutting services and plunging into debt (Pittsburgh is struggling with a $60-$80 million deficit and has seen its bond rating sink to junk), Philadelphia retains a marginal surplus and the city’s credit rating remains the same as it was at the end of Mayor Rendell’s term. Mayor Street’s common sense fiscal policy has led to wage and business privilege tax cuts for four years in a row, a policy he pledges to continue. The mayor also took on the Pennsylvania Insurance Department and won very real auto insurance rate rollbacks for 70 percent of Philadelphia’s drivers.

Center City continues to thrive with the opening of the National Constitution Center, plans under way for two major museums on the Parkway, near-completion of the Schuylkill River Recreation Project and two new high-rise office buildings on the horizon. The Street administration has created or preserved 36,000 jobs through strategic incentive financing and tax credits. A new program to attract biotech businesses is in motion, and Center City has seen growing numbers of young professional residents moving in.

Real progress in education

Early in his administration, Mayor Street thwarted an outright takeover of the school district by the state, and kept Edison and privatization out of school district management. His dogged efforts have forged a real partnership with Harrisburg Republicans, ensuring a strong city vote in the education process. The partnership has brought skilled new educator Paul Vallas to Philadelphia and, astonishingly, invested $75 million more state dollars right here in the school district. For the first time in my memory, we are hearing really good news about our public schools.

For children and families

The mayor has led an unprecedented expansion of after-school, parenting support and youth development services to strengthen families, growing funding for these services from $14 million to $74 million a year, increasing the number of children served from 4,000 to 40,000.

In the works, thanks to Mayor Street, is a $30 million citywide library capital program and a soon-to-be $10 million in funds to improve health and safety in child care programs.

The Street administration’s strategic investment in lead hazard programs has already cut in half the number of children tested positive for lead poisoning.

In fighting crime

Since Mayor Street took office and established his Operation Safe Streets campaign, overall crime is down 20 percent. Last year alone, overall crime was down 11 percent and the number of homicides in the city was at an 18-year-low. Drug seizures are up from $14 million to nearly $65 million, and arrests of drug dealers by the Narcotics Bureau are up from 3,990 to 4,701. The foregoing stats are based on comparisons between May-December 2001 and May-December 2002 and they demonstrate measurable improvement in crime fighting. But the numbers alone are not enough. At least as important is the sense among residents in neighborhoods most adversely affected by crime that they have been able to take back their streets, to walk to the corner store, to sit outside on the stoop with their children. A recent Keystone Survey conducted by Millersville University’s Terry Madonna demonstrated that three out of four of all people surveyed were familiar with Operation Safe Streets and 74 percent of that group said the program was working very or fairly well. Such positive perceptions are indicators at least as important as hard numbers, and a real measure of progress.

In erasing blight

Without turning his back on Center City, Mayor Street has expanded the Rendell Renaissance to the neighborhoods. His comprehensive Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI) has already cleaned 32,000 lots, demolished hundreds of dilapidated buildings, cleared graffiti from 210,000 properties, removed 190,000 abandoned cars and 12,000 dead and dangerous trees. The Mayor has formed partnerships with local banks to make more than $100 million in mortgage and repair money available to formerly red-lined neighborhoods. Of course these efforts are only the beginning. Anyone familiar with the sea of derelict factories and decaying houses that spread over Philadelphia knows that 50 years of damage and decay will take more than four years to heal. But Mayor Street has made a start, and if continued, NTI will pave the way for housing and commercial development and with it a revitalized city economic base.

Meanwhile, Mr. Katz introduces gambling to Philadelphia

Sam Katz brings the enthusiasms of an eager risk-taking entrepreneur to this debate, or perhaps less kindly stated, the nerve of a roulette player. Dismissing the incremental tax cuts of the Rendell/Street plans, past and future, and, for that matter, the incremental programs of Philadelphia’s non-partisan Tax Reform Commission, Katz proposes to slash taxes across the board and borrow $75 million to cover operating expenses for five years. A cynic might point out that a five-year plan will get him safely past re-election before the roof falls in.

Mr. Katz maintains that the tax cuts and an extensive marketing effort will bring 63,000 jobs to Philadelphia. An Innovation Philadelphia report, cited by the mayor during his visit to Chestnut Hill on October 19, casts considerable doubt on the rosy projection. It notes that during the booming ’90s the entire Philadelphia region — including parts of Delaware and New Jersey untrammeled by Philadelphia’s taxes — saw a net growth of just 30,000 jobs. On October 17, the Tax Reform Commission rejected the Katz deficit-financing plan as too risky. Even estimates that project the theoretical growth of 63,000 jobs also project an annual deficit for the city of at least $185 million. Such a deficit will force cuts closer to 20 percent than the Katz plan’s promoted one percent, and will inevitably cripple the city’s core services.

(In the October 14 KYW debate, Mr. Katz announced that he would raise taxes if the revenues included in his original proposal were off. This confronts city dwellers with the prospect of higher taxes and an enormous debt load to pay off as well.)

Of hopes and dreams

On September 21, the Inquirer called Mr. Katz’s deficit financing plan “one of the biggest no-nos in Finance 101” and pronounced his refusal to detail the spending cuts necessary to balance his budget “unacceptable” and “an insult to voters.” This past Sunday, the Inquirer endorsed Katz anyway, because “his hopes for the city seem grander than any the incumbent can muster.” Go figure.

I, too, have grand hopes every time I buy a lottery ticket, with a considerably lower price tag. But Mr. Katz’s tax cut and marketing plans fail to stir me very much, although they have an uncomfortably familiar ring. There is a “trickle down” feel to the Katz plan, a core conviction that tax cuts fix everything like magic. It’s a conviction that is certainly the driving force in the White House these days, to our great cost as a nation.

Some say that Mayor Street is too cynical or “prickly” or lacking in vision to lead Philadelphia effectively into the future. The reality is that Mr. Katz’s vision, rosy and well intended though it may be, would very likely lead us off a cliff. The reality is that without careful husbanding of the city’s resources we will have no future. Mayor Street’s victorious battle to keep Edison out of the city’s schools and his historically unprecedented efforts for children and neighborhoods all point in the direction he intends to lead us. It is clear that he hopes for a city that’s rich and vibrant, neighborhoods full of life and free of fear and decay, children healthy and safe, families stronger, schools that truly teach. Real progress in these things will tempt people back to our city as surely as tax reform. They are not small, cynical goals, at all, but the grandest of visions, and it is clear Mr. Street knows how to fight for them. I believe we must give him the chance.

Carol Cope is a 9th Ward Democratic Committeeperson