May 13–20, 1999

primary '99

White Sale

As voters become disenchanted with the two mayoral front-runners, White hopes to win their votes.

by Gwen Shaffer

When John White Jr. breezes into the Four Seasons Hotel for breakfast, every member of the waitstaff greets him like an old friend. He's a regular at this chichi joint.

By contrast, when White became secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW) in 1987, he spent months traveling throughout the state. Then, he wasn't hanging around fancy hotels, but at some of Pennsylvania's most dilapidated public housing developments.

White was raised in a world permeated by politics (his father, John White Sr., was a prominent civil rights leader in Philadelphia). And this is evident by the ease with which White personally connects to everyone he meets, from Wall Street mavens to Section 8 residents.

One thing you can't take away from John White—he knows how to work a room. White has capitalized on this skill since first throwing his hat in the ring for mayor.

"I've been going door-to-door since last February, talking and listening to people," White says. "When we talked about coffee klatsches, people laughed. But you know what you get in coffee klatsches that you don't get from TV advertising? A taste of the real world."

It is true that while Marty Weinberg and John Street were spending millions of dollars on television air time, White was out shaking hands. Without the benefit of television advertising, he moved up two points in the polls.

As Weinberg and Street "go negative," voters increasingly are looking for an alternative. As a result, White's poll numbers appear to be creeping up.

White entered the race with almost no name recognition. The most recent poll results from the candidate's office rank the former-unknown at about 25 points. By contrast, Street's initial lead of 33 points has shrunk to 26. And Weinberg, who was once neck-and-neck with Street in popularity, now registers at about 19 points in most polls.

He has received endorsements from some of the most influential and diverse groups in town. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, as well as the city's blue- and white-collar unions are throwing their weight behind him. The city's two major gay and lesbian political groups, Victory '99 and the Liberty City Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club, are also backing White. Most recently, the Living Wage Coalition came out in support of him.

White's range of political experience is impressive. He was elected to the Pennsylvania State House in 1976. From there, he went on to become a member of Philadelphia City Council from 1981 to 1987. White then served as secretary of the state DPW for the next four years. When the Philadelphia Public Housing Authority (PHA) was sinking in 1993, White likes to remind you, it was Mayor Ed Rendell and John Street who tapped him to make it float again.

With such strong credentials, why is White still running behind Street and Weinberg in the polls?

If White were a front-runner in this race, it is fair to say the records he accrued while heading both PHA and DPW would be more closely scrutinized. As it is, White and his staff seem to be the only people talking about them.

As secretary of DPW, White expanded childcare funding for families; created the first training program for daycare providers; led an initiative to place 200,000 welfare recipients in meaningful jobs; and made Pennsylvania one of the first states to authorize the use of AZT for AIDS patients when it was still considered an experimental drug.

When White was brought in to rescue PHA in 1993, he took on a colossal task. The fourth-largest housing authority in the country—with 23,000 units and 43,000 residents—was on the verge of being taken over by the federal office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). On a scale of 100 points, HUD ranked PHA a pathetic 20.

By the time White resigned from his position in 1997, however, things had improved dramatically.

Apartment vacancies had fallen from 12 percent to 4 percent. PHA emergency crews tackled just about every complaint within 24 hours, and regular maintenance crews completed the job on time for about 90 percent of calls.

In November 1997, HUD gave PHA a score of 60.2—just barely a high enough score to get off the federal government's "troubled" list.

What White is less likely to talk about when discussing his tenure at PHA, however, is that he was the target of an investigation by the City Solicitor's Office.

When he ran PHA, White did business with PRWT, a company where his friend and former aide Harry Sewell served as an executive. In 1996, PRWT won a contract for $148,000 to develop employee guidelines for managing housing authority developments. Between late 1994 and early 1998, PRWT took in $1 million in PHA business.

After White resigned from PHA in October 1997, he was hired to work at a real estate and consulting company formed by Sewell several months earlier, the Ujima Development Corp.

After reviewing the charges, both the City Solicitor and the PHA's Inspector General determined that there was no conflict of interest.

Dean Levitan, White's campaign manager, characterizes the investigation as "politically motivated" and stresses that it was "shut down" without finding any wrongdoing on the part of his boss.

White was embroiled in another scandal that received little ink in the mainstream Philadelphia press. This one involves a man named John Cresci, whom White hired as PHA police chief in May 1994.

The housing authority has doled out more than $2 million in damages, settlements and legal fees in the wake of a rash of civil suits filed against Cresci and his deputies. In January 1997, a jury found that Cresci squashed a drug investigation led by one of his detectives, and then retaliated against the officer. (White himself was cleared in the mess.) In March 1996, PHA paid $120,000 to three men who claimed that a high-ranking PHA officer illegally strip-searched them. And to top it off, Cresci—who is black—allegedly assigned police officers to their shifts based on skin color. White cops were never allowed to patrol together.

In a recent interview, White emphasized that he knew nothing about the drug investigation and that as soon as he became aware of problems with Cresci, "he was gone."

Under a White administration, Philadelphia would have a "kinder, gentler" mayor, according to his spokesperson. John White has a feel for people," says Paul Bennett. In contrast, "there is not a lot of warm fuzziness" associated with his main political opponent, John Street.

But question White about whether he would be "tough enough" to avoid giving away the store during contract negotiations for the city's four municipal unions, and watch out. Such inquiries certainly raise his ire. Since when is being a nice guy a liability?, White wants to know. When John Street is shown acting like a thug, no one is heard praising his behavior, White points out.

With most of the candidates spewing policy initiatives on crime, education and economic development that practically mirror one another, White has one other thing to sell to the public—his persona.

"Nice to see you again, Mr. White," a pretty female server says, smiling at the candidate as he stands to leave the restaurant.