April 25-May 1, 2002

hall monitor

Waging Peace

Street signs: After getting whupped by his opponents, the mayor signs the wage tax reduction bill into law. : Michael T. Regan

by Daniel Brook

At a public signing ceremony on Tuesday for the wage-tax-reducing Bill 92, Mayor Street claimed he was “absolutely delighted to be here.” After publicly opposing the measure and threatening deep cuts in city services if it were passed, the mayor threw in the towel and tried to put the best face on a lost political battle. In his brief remarks, Street did not mention a single budget cut. He even endorsed deeper reductions in the wage tax if statewide tax reforms made such cuts possible.

Councilman Michael Nutter, who authored Bill 92 along with Councilman Frank DiCicco, said he was "very excited to hear the mayor say that [he would consider further tax reductions]." Nutter plans to introduce legislation this week that would create a commission to study further tax reforms.

Asked whether Street's public peacemaking signifies that the mayor, well-known for his ability to hold a grudge, has turned over a new leaf, DiCicco replied, "I have not know him to be that way. I have not felt the wrath of that so-called vindictiveness."

In December, as the mayor and governor were negotiating a state takeover of Philadelphia’s schools, a confidential report prepared by Street advisors was leaked to the press. The 67-page document detailed a number of strategies for blocking or undermining the takeover. As soon as the report surfaced, the mayor distanced himself from it and only a few days later, Street had entered into an agreement to turn over the city’s schools to the state. But it appears the mayor may have taken one bit of advice recommended in the report: appointing a “whistle-blower/watchdog” to the School Reform Commission. According to the report, “the ideal appointee would be a person who is genuinely interested in school reform who is loyal to the mayor and who would be an outspoken, theatrical gadfly.”

For months School Reform Commission meetings were filled with unanimous votes and little public disagreement among the members. The only "theatrical gadflies" were the students and parents heckling the commission from the audience.

All that changed at last week's meeting when Mayor Street's two appointees broke with their fellow commissioners and openly criticized plans to turn over 42 elementary and middle schools to private companies, including 20 for Edison Schools.

Street appointees Michael Masch and Sandra Dungee Glenn supported striking 20 schools the state had identified as improving from the list of 70 schools to be drastically altered. They also supported reducing the number of privatized schools from 42 to 25 and the number going to Edison from 20 to six. Both measures failed by a three-two vote.

After the meeting, Dungee Glenn acknowledged having discussed her plans with Mayor Street before the meeting. Dungee Glenn said Street was supportive of the effort to reduce the role of privatization and of Edison but that the mayor did not expect the measure to pass: "He has a very good feel for numbers." According to Dungee Glenn, the Mayor's feeling was "we will have our say, but not our way."

Judging from the following day's City Council meeting, the mayor seems more concerned about having his say--loudly and publicly--than about getting his way. When Councilman Angel Ortiz proposed holding up the city's school bond issue until the state legislature passes a school funding reform bill that aids cash-strapped urban districts like Philadelphia, he was soundly defeated. Without backing from the mayor, the proposal garnered only one vote--Ortiz's own. (Councilman David Cohen presumably would have voted with Ortiz but was out sick recovering from adjustments to his heart monitor).

"What we're doing here today...is a Band-Aid," Ortiz said, predicting that in a year and a half, City Council will once again be figuring out how to come up with emergency funding for the school district. Ortiz called the city bond issue "the only leverage left" and urged Council to hold the money.

While the governor's appointees to the School Reform Commission, the three gubernatorial candidates and Mayor Street are all on record supporting statewide school funding reform, Ortiz remains skeptical. "With politicians, if there's not a crisis involved, politicians are not going to move on it," Ortiz says. "The envelope has to be pushed," and holding up the bond issue, according to Ortiz, would have been just the right way to push it.

Street administration spokesman Frank Keel defended the mayor's position, saying, "to play the holdout game was probably inevitably going to fail. The mayor's instincts were right to enter into hopefully a fair and equitable partnership with the state instead of playing the political holdout game." While Ortiz maintained that the city had foolishly squandered its leverage with the state, according to Keel, "the city had very little leverage to bring to bear on the state" in the first place.