October 23-29, 2003

cover story

What's Bugging Him?

"I actually know that I am not in serious trouble. I haven't done anything wrong." Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Fishing for answers with a mayor in turmoil.

by Howard Altman

The office on the second floor of the old Reliance Insurance Building on 16th and Cherry is quiet, save for the thundering voice of the televangelist who is emoting heavily about salvation.

The preacher, in a show called The Lord's Prayer, tells a story about a man who ruined his life with one act of adultery.

His house was filled with the sounds of silence, deep depression and absolute rage, he shouts to an empty conference room festooned with smiling pictures of Mayor John F. Street.

It is 25 days to the election and here I am, finally, to grab some quiet time with the mayor. Away from screaming reporters. Away from the bright lights of television. Away from the madness of this campaign.

Considering what has transpired, the preacher might have been talking about the mental state of the average Philadelphia voter.

This was supposed to be a fishing expedition.

Following a tradition established in 1999, mayoral candidates Sam Katz and John F. Street agreed to spend time during this campaign season with City Paper. The idea was to get them out of an office so readers can see them on a more personal level.

So, in August, CP went nine holes with Katz on a golf course for a cover story that ran in early September. And in the interest of equal time, the plan was to take to the water with Mayor Street, like we did four years ago.

Two guys. Two fishing poles. Interesting conversations.

Months of begging, pleading, cajoling and, ultimately, a threat to call off the interview all together -- not to mention a suggestion to accompany the mayor on a shopping trip (turns out he¹s got a mall rat hidden deep inside.

Confirmation came about 8 p.m. Sat., Oct. 11, with a call from Street pal Bruce Crawley, who called to tell me that the mayor would talk to me, but only if we avoided the probe. I told Crawley there was no way to avoid it. He said the mayor did not want to limit the conversation to the probe and I told Crawley neither did I -- this interview was part of our campaign series that kicked off with Katz golfing. Crawley agreed and told me Street would meet me in his office at 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

It is now past that time.

I am standing in the lobby, awaiting the mayor, who is holed up in a room down the hall. At 9:35, Shawn Fordham, the mayor's nephew and campaign manager, arrives and is taken aback by the imposing stack of photographic equipment schlepped in by Pascal Blancon, who is filling in for our staff shooter.

A few minutes later, the mayor, looking ever spiffy in a black suit and brightly striped tie, ambles out of the shadows.

He looks down at the pile of equipment.

He looks up.

He is not happy.

"I hope you aren't planning to use all this stuff," says Street, who is bugged by, among other things, the sound of shutters clicking.

Such is the beginning of an hourlong head-butting session during which the mayor discusses the FBI probe, his reasons for not wanting to talk about it, the criticism of his campaign, rumors of efforts to replace him on the ballot, taxes, other actual campaign issue and, of course, his political legacy.

And there is the ubiquitous photographic freakout, in which the mayor breaks off an important conversation about NTI to urge the photographer to stop taking pictures.

It is the height of Bug-gate and, given the hoopla surrounding the aforementioned bombshell, the interview actually did turn into a fishing trip of sorts.

I went fishing for the truth.

The Probe Probe

Three days after I spoke with Street, the Inquirer reported that the listening devices were placed in Street's office two weeks before they were found and that the FBI received only limited permission to use them on an unnamed group of selected individuals.

City Paper: Mr. Mayor, the first question comes from my 13-year-old daughter who asks how you are doing, not as mayor, but as a person?

John Street: I came into politics to serve the people of this city and feel there was a significant portion of the Philadelphia community that was undeserved and underrepresented and after 25 years, within 30 days of an election, I am all of a sudden the subject of an investigation and it doesn't feel right.

CP: How is it affecting you on a personal level?

JS: I go about my business and I'll go about this election and I'll run the government and I think I'll win the campaign. But it doesn't say very much for the process and it has a tendency -- no matter how objective you try to be -- to undermine your confidence in certain public officials and in certain agencies such that you really have to wonder, why all this and why now?

CP: Which agencies?

JS: Well, I don't know all the agencies and I'm not getting into all the details of this. I have said what I have had to say about it and I think it is time to move on and go on about running the government and the campaign.

CP: I understand, but I do have more questions about the probe. The federal grand jury is investigating corruption in the city, your office has been bugged, city records taken, your BlackBerrys taken. Do you think you are in serious trouble here?

JS: Well, it all depends on what you mean. You should ask a better question. I am not trying to be disrespectful. I don't know what constitutes serious trouble. I don't know what's in your mind when you say serious trouble. Are you talking about is my re-election in jeopardy?

CP: I guess two things. A) Do you think you personally are in serious trouble, as an individual, and B) Do you think your campaign is in serious trouble?

JS: I actually know that I am not in serious trouble. I haven't done anything wrong. And the people who want to listen to tapes of everything that has happened in my office in the last three and a half years? They will find no corruption, no sex and no profanity and that's pretty much the end of it. I don't think I am in any kind of jeopardy but these kinds of things can have an impact on political elections. And so you just never know how people are going to react. But I have great confidence in the people of this city. But there will always be that question until Nov. 4, at the end of the day, when the votes are cast. And you worry about that.

CP: How much do you worry about that?

JS: I probably don't worry about it as much as other people might worry about it. I have been around too long and I have done too much in this city politically to be upset by it. But you have to have a concern, a 25-year political career on the line. An otherwise spotless, um, career and you know, it is a matter of concern.

CP: Everywhere I go, people are wondering what's going on. I talk to people all over the city and they want to know what's happening with the mayor. Can you confirm you are the subject of the grand jury probe?

JS: I am not having any other comment on that, Howard, and I really wish you would accept that.

Street leans back. I lean forward, pressing him on the subject.

CP: Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, people want to know about this.

JS: I am not going to comment on it. I am not going to sit here and give an interview, right, on this election and it end up being a 45-minute interview on the probe.

CP: Let me continue. Is Arthur Makadon representing you?

JS: I am not having any further comment on it. I have said everything I want to say about it. You know, at some point in time I have to get on with the election and get on with running the government.

CP: But is Arthur Makadon representing you?

JS: I am not having any further comment on it, Howard. I have already said that.

CP: Can he talk to me?

JS: I am not having any other comment on it. I think I have said enough about all this and I am ready to move on.

CP: On Friday, I talked to [Committee of 70 Executive Director] Fred Voigt about the word in the air that there were talks in the Democratic Party about replacing you on the ballot. Mr. Voigt didn’t think that was likely. Are you aware of any such talk?

JS: I am in this election to win and I will be here on Nov. 4 and I believe I am going to have a big Election Day victory.

CP: So there is no way. Has it been discussed?

JS: I have no knowledge of it. I haven't discussed any of that and I think this is just more hype than reality and it is probably the kind of thing that gets started out of speculation. This kind of stuff starts when people ask – when reporters ask – other people to speculate.

CP: Well, I am asking the source.

JS: I am telling you there has been no discussion of any kind that I know of. Certainly I haven't been in on [any], and [Democratic] Party Chairman [Bob Brady] -- no significant elected official that I know of -- has had any discussion about replacing. And in any event, I am the only one who could cause me to withdraw and I have no intention of withdrawing. And I am going to win.

CP: DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe's comments [about this investigation being a Republican "fog machine"] were fascinating. What do you think about that? Do you believe this was engineered by the Republican Party.

JS: I am through with this.

CP: You don't want to talk about it anymore?

JS: I have to stop. You just want me to come back to it. I am a candidate. I am in the race. I am the incumbent. I believe I am ahead in the polls. I believe I am going to stay ahead in the polls. I believe we are going to have a great Democratic victory. And it is time to talk about my three and a half years as mayor.

CP: Have you done any polls since news broke about the probe?

JS: I have not polled.

CP: What do you think about Sam Katz's polls? He was not specific, but Sam Katz said that you are in trouble in that poll.

JS: Well, Sam Katz says a lot of things. Sam Katz said that he had a poll that showed he was nine points up. About a week later, the whole world found out that an independent poll showed that he was eight points down. I wouldn't put very much credence in Sam Katz's evaluation [of] where he stands and where I stand in this election.

CP: How difficult will it be for him that so many of his supporters have left the city in the four years since you guys last ran against each other?

JS: I don't know how many of his supporters have left the city. I don't think anybody knows how many of his supporters have left the city and that assumes a conclusion that I am not prepared to make.

CP: Bruce Crawley put that figure at about 75,000.

JS: I have no idea. I am not prepared to speculate on who left. If somebody is not here, how do I know where those people are?

CP: How frustrating is it that it is difficult to get your message out because – both people are having difficulty – because of this probe? And can you understand the point of view of the press, especially when we are asked by people all over the city what is going on with their mayor?

JS: I find it difficult when I give you an interview and you keep asking me why is it difficult. Because if you stop asking me about it, and we have been friends for a long time

CP: Yes?

JS: Right. If you stop asking me about it, even though we talk, and you ask me how difficult is it for me to get my polls out. I say it is difficult because you won't stop asking me. Even as you ask me how difficult it is, you are making it more difficult.

CP: But people want to know.

JS: Because people are fascinated by it, Howard. You all can't walk away from it. You can't let it go. And so, you say to me, You must be in trouble if you can't get your point out. And I say, yeah, if you would ask me about the Safe Streets program, maybe both of us would be less frustrated.

CP: We are going to get to that.

JS: All I am saying is that when you keep asking me about it, you keep making it not possible for us to get on with the campaign and get on with the real questions.

CP: This is going to be a long story, Mr. Mayor. It is not just going to be a quick hit. And obviously, everyone I talked to wants to know what's going on. And Mr. Mayor, I have a lot of respect for you and I have known you for years, but I would be remiss in not pressing you on these matters. I think that our readers deserve the answers.

JS: You should tell them that you pressed me on it.

CP: Do you think the warrants should be unsealed, as PNI is trying to do?

JS: I am not, I am not, I am not going to continue this.

"Well, there is a dramatically lower amount of drug- dealing taking place. Period. The amount of illegal narcotics sold in this city, as a result of the Safe Streets program, is down dramatically." Photo By Michael T. Regan

Business As Unusual

CP: What lessons do you think you learned in three and a half years as mayor?

Street crinkles his face in disgust and leans back almost in horror.

CP: I mean, seriously, in three and a half years as mayor, what kind of things have you learned about yourself, about running a city, about what it takes to be a good mayor?

JS: [pauses] I learned that this is, ah, I mean I learned that this is just a great big city. I have always known that. I have always known that this is a city that is, um, burdened with bureaucracy and burdened with regulation and civil-servant control and that, and that a mayor, who takes over the fourth, the fifth largest city in the country isn't like taking over a private corporation. There are some people who think that taking on a government is just like throwing a switch. There is a huge amount of bureaucracy, there's a huge amount of process built into the government, that most people don't know and don't understand. It really causes, creates, people to have unrealistic expectations as to the amount of time it takes to change the way the government operates.

CP: But that's the problem with this city. If somebody is trying to start up a business, there are so many taxes and licenses and all kinds of levels that you need to jump through to get there. Have you changed that and how can you change that moving forward?

JS: We now allow people to do a whole lot more business online instead of in line. And if you were to check with our information people, you'd find out that businesses can now pay taxes online, businesses can now register online and with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania you can go online and register your business with the city and the commonwealth all at the same time. We have, um, consistently, since I have been mayor, tried to simplify business, [and the] way in which businesses can do business with the city of Philadelphia. But as you know, technology is not cheap. Technology requires a significant amount of investment and has to be done in a way that takes into account the rapidly changing technology that you have out there and so it is a little bit of a challenge for us. And, when I came in to this office, we were really lagging way, way, way behind in the areas of technology in the government. We were just one step away from carrying around note cards and files. We spent an awful lot of time, and some money – probably not as much money as we would have liked to have spent -- but I spent a lot of time bringing this government into the 21st century.

CP: Let's take for instance the garage on 19th Street, which recently received approval. Is that an example of business as usual?

JS: When that project was done, it was supported and I think it was supported by the Center City residents. We are never going to be 100 percent here. That project has been around a long time. It went through a whole community process. The Center City Residents' Association actually took a vote and sent a letter in support of the project. Now, you could never get anything done in this city if every time one or two people raised their voice against something -- notwithstanding the approval of a duly organized and recognized community group, in a particular community -- you would never get anything done. Probably there is somebody in every neighborhood that will oppose everything. And you end up having to worry if you did the right thing. And that you really worked hard to include the neighborhood, the neighbors, in a process. And at the end of the day, you really do have to move forward.

CP: Anything you would do differently in your second term? Any staff changes?

JS: I would probably spend a little more time talking to Howard Altman and you guys.

CP: Well, why not talk to the press more?

JS: I'm just kidding. [laughs]

CP: Through the campaign -- and this is before the probe – Sam Katz has blasted you for cronyism and nepotism. I just wanted to give you a chance to respond to that.

JS: [pauses] At the end of the day, Sam Katz really can't criticize in any legitimate way, our programs. Our programs, notwithstanding people asking where we are with the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, but the Neighborhood Transformation is a program that really works and I think people are now seeing that work. People criticized the Neighborhood Transformation program initially because they said it was moving too slow.

CP: So, tell me how it is working.

JS: It is working because there are literally thousands and thousands of units being developed. Neighborhoods are cleaner and safer.

CP: Are these, are these, um –

JS: Both.

CP: Subsidized?

JS: They are affordable as well as --

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the waving hand of Shawn Fordham, who has been sitting in on the conversation. He stops Street in mid-thought.

Shawn Fordham: Wait a minute now, Howard. How many pictures? How many pictures? Can we do – can we do the interview? You already have got pictures now. You guys are going to take some time to take pictures with the mayor after. Right? Can you let this go right now?

I turn to Fordham, then back to the mayor.

CP: What are you doing? We are just trying to take a good picture.

JS: I don't want to sit here. I don't want to sit here and listen to somebody try to take pictures, Howard. I have to focus in this interview.

SF: I can't concentrate with all this clicking going on.

CP: Listen, we've been down this road. Where were we? We were talking about NTI. Let's go back to that.

Street grimaces.

CP: Oh, was it the number of subsidized housing vs. non-subsidized?

JS: I don't carry all those numbers on me. If you want the numbers, I could supply them to you, but there's literally thousands of affordable units that are being developed right now and there are probably more market-rate housing units being developed than at any other time in the recent history of this city. In the beginning of this campaign, people were speculating that the Neighborhood Transformation program would be an issue. It isn't an issue and you don't hear my opponent talking about it, because upon close examination, if you start thinking about it, the work we have done in neighborhoods is unparalleled. It's unprecedented. We are focusing on the quality of life in neighborhoods. All of the things that make a community livable and make a community desirable is being covered under the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. From the CLIP Program [Community Life Improvement Project] in [Sixth District] Councilwoman [Joan] Krajewski's office, in her district, all the way to the kinds of things we are doing in the Fifth District and the Eighth District that really have some fairly deteriorated neighborhoods.

CP: Tell me what have you done.

JS: [Fifth District] Councilman [Darrell] Clarke's area in North Philadelphia – Tioga – some of those areas have seen some advanced deterioration. But I keep telling people that the biggest evidence that the NTI program is working is the amount of private investment that is going into neighborhoods. Citizens Bank just announced a couple of months ago $104 million going into NTI neighborhoods for mortgages, for mortgage programs going into neighborhoods. And there are literally hundreds of millions of dollars of private investment going into neighborhoods. All of this, much of the unsubsidized and market-rate housing that is going out in neighborhoods, is a result of various components of the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. All this cleaning and all this greening that is going on and -- the tree-trimming and getting rid of the abandoned cars and you know, and the old dead trees and the graffiti -- and all of that stuff caused people to feel very differently about our neighborhoods. And, when we layered on the Safe Streets program that eliminated probably 95 percent of the open-air drug sales that were taking place in neighborhoods all over the city, these communities have a very different feel to them.

Does Safe Streets Work?

CP: I want to get back to Safe Streets now. I must say, when I was giving [dean of Drexel University's media arts and design department] Jonathan Estrin a tour, he wanted to see some of the open-air drug markets that I had written about in the past but they weren't there. We couldn't find them. We drove up by Fairhill Cemetery, Third and Indiana, all these places, there seemed to be a good deal of success. But I have two questions about that. A) The police are concerned that they are going to pay for this in the long-term because of the overtime in the ensuing contract and B) Any concern about criminal activity increasing elsewhere? I know in my neighborhood, in Mt. Airy, we have seen an increase in crime.

JS: Well, there is a dramatically lower amount of drug-dealing taking place. Period. The amount of illegal narcotics sold in this city, as a result of the Safe Streets program, is down dramatically. That doesn't mean that people are going to fold their tents and go to New York or someplace to sell their drugs. They are going to have to sell it in a different way. There are more people trying to sell drugs inside, as opposed to outside. And so, we are chasing them inside. And I guess it was Oct. 8, whenever that was last week, we shut down another large indoor operation, and I think 77 warrants were executed, and more than $300,000 in illegal narcotics were confiscated, almost $100,000 in cash, somewhere around 40 guns and a huge number of drug dealers were arrested, all in one day. And we have really upped our emphasis on shutting down indoor operations, because you can only sell drugs outside or inside. And when we take away the outdoor market they have to go inside and when they are inside, they're trapped. We have made tremendous progress in shutting those indoor markets. And people admit that.

Let me comment, though, on this increase in crime. In 2002, the end of last year, we had the lowest number of homicides in the city in 18 years. An 18-year low, right? And now they are back up a little bit and people are saying homicides are on the rise. Now, we are never going to be able to lower the homicide rate every year to zero. It is not going to happen. We'd love for it to happen, but it's not. So what you are having people saying is that the homicide rate is up, but the homicide rate is dramatically down from where it was when I became the mayor. And to me that is the relative statistic. Not that homicide is up just last year. Of course, you are not going to have this banner year every single year. In the '90s, when we had as many 400 or 500 homicides, we got that all the way down to 288. And then it goes up. It hits 325 and somebody says, 'Oh my god, homicides are on the rise!' That's unfair. There is an ad my opponent has that says arrests are down 40 percent. It's not true. It isn't true. And there has just been a lot of distortion through all this. And there is not much we can do about all this, but I will tell you, overall, crime is down in this city. I think the last percentage is around 19 to 20 percent. Homicides been fairly dramatically down now compared to the '90s, crime in Center City is down probably 30 percent. And so we have, except for those people who want to try to distort the specifics, we have an impeccable record on crime.

CP: Let me get back to the question though. What about the concern about the police budget on this. Do you have any figures on how much the overtime will cost on all this?

JS: I don't carry those figures around. We are committed to the Safe Streets program. We are committed to the largest investment in public safety in the history of the city because you can't have world-class neighborhoods and you can't create a world-class environment when you have open-air drug markets and rampant and runaway crime.

CP: What about the police officers' concerns that they are going to have to pay for his down the line at contract time because you have to bring the budget into line?

JS: I don't have an answer for you.

On Cutting the Wage Tax

CP: What's wrong with cutting the wage tax and borrowing $750 million, as Katz proposes?

JS:

I don't know how much time we have left. I can go on about this for a couple of minutes. First of all, borrowing money to pay operating expenses is a violation of what we refer to as public finance 101. You don't borrow money and pay for police and fire and the everyday operation of the city. No. 2, my opponent is calling for reducing taxes by $1.182 billion in a five-year period. And borrow $750 million to run the government. You have to pay $900 million back. Where's that $900 million going to come from? There are probably three very distinct problems. One is that you are borrowing for operating expenses. Two, in order to balance the budget when there is that deep a cut in the revenue, according to his own website, he has to cut over $500 million out of the budget. To cut $500 million out of the budget, you have to reduce personnel by somewhere close to 4,000 people. And that's in addition to the cuts I have already proposed. Now, there are some fixed expenses that you can't do anything about. You can't do anything about the debt service in the budget. You can't do anything about the SEPTA payment. You can't do anything about the Convention Center payment. You can't do anything about the fixed expenses, so he is going to have to try to reduce personnel.

CP: You might argue that there are a number of no-bid contracts that add to those expenses.

JS:Let me tell you something. There aren't enough no-bid contracts out there to fund even a smidgen of his proposed tax cuts. And believe me, if there were, he would have told us by now. And I am telling you. Lack of experience, lack of appreciation for local government causes him to speculate about things that just can't be done. I can tell you what the dilemma is. The problem is that there are 24,600 people who work for the government. Twenty-four thousand six-hundred. That's how many there are. You can't change that. Now, he would have to get rid of somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 of them to save his $500 million. Now, he's not talking about laying off police. He's not talking about laying off firefighters. So that's 24,600 [minus the 8,000 police and firefighters] that gives you 15,000. Now, he has to get rid of 4,000 or 5,000 out of 15,000, or about one-third of the city's workforce. Plus, you can't get rid of the 2,000 people who work in our prisons because then you would have to release prisoners. You can't get rid of the almost 2,000 people that work for the courts, because they would just mandamus us for their budget. So that leaves you down to about 12,000 or 11,000. You can't get rid of 4,000 out of 11,000 people. It's even worse than that.

We are not getting rid of any DHS workers because we get about 80 percent reimbursement for those workers. Now he's down -- is he going to get rid of the few park workers we have? Is he going to get rid of the 750 people we have working in our branch libraries? And in our main library? I figured it out. If you have to get rid of 4,000 or 5,000 people, and you took out the cops and took out the fire and took out the prisons, took out City Council – 'cause you're not getting rid of their people – and you take out DHS workers, you have to get rid of somewhere in the neighborhood of 60, 70, 80 percent of the remaining workforce. Thats never going to happen. You cannot do it. And it's even worse than that. Because in his five-year projection, the first five years, when you get rid of all these taxes and he borrows the money, you have $288 million in trickle-down income from the creation of 63,000 jobs. Now, if there is a person naive enough to believe that he can do one thing -- reduce taxes and create 63,000 permanent jobs, that will put $288 million into the budget – that's a person who knows zero about any of this. And 63,000 jobs is probably twice the net increase in jobs in the metropolitan area of Philadelphia between 1990 and 1999. Do you hear that? Twice the net increase in jobs in the whole metropolitan area of Philadelphia. In the metropolitan area of Philadelphia, between 1990 and 1999, there were 117,000 jobs created, [about] 80,000 lost, for a net increase of somewhere around 33,000. It is never going to happen.

CP: Do you think Sam is still inhaling?

JS: [laughs]What I think he is doing is making a lot of frivolous promises and commitments that he is never going to be able to keep. It is a plan that is a fraud on taxpayers, it is a fraud on the voters, it's a fraud on the people of Philadelphia. In addition to which, he has over $400 million in promises out there. He promised the African-American Chamber of Commerce money, he promised the LGBT community money. He is promising to pick up condominium trash. He's promised lifetime health benefits to firefighters. He promises everybody everything and he cannot deliver.

Everybody wants to reduce taxes. Everybody wants to reduce taxes. Listen to me. Sam stood up and said, "I am going to reduce taxes by a billion dollars. I want to do some borrowing." These are the short-term sacrifices we are gonna have to make. We are going to have to make some short-term sacrifices. These are the ones. Many people would know -- yes, we are going to have this tax-reduction program that is designed to create jobs, but there's going to be some pain involved. When asked if he is going to have to cut anything, he says no and that just doesn't make sense and not enough people are asking questions about it.

On the Campaign

CP: This campaign, with all respect to [campaign manager] Shawn Fordham -- I turn, expecting to see Fordham, but he is gone and Bruce Crawley is sitting in his seat -- has been marked by a lot of missteps. Alleged Molotov cocktail, guys arrested for making threatening remarks --

JS: [interrupts] I disagree with that. I disagree with that. I think this campaign has not been marked by a lot of missteps. I disagree with that. You can't blame that Molotov cocktail incident on this campaign.

CP: There is a series of things.

JS: I'm not going to –

CP: There's [Street aide Tumar] "TuTu" [Alexander, who was charged with one count of making terrorist threats outside Katz's North Philly headquarters] --

JS: [interrupts]

I am not going to argue with you on that.

CP: Well, fine, you are the mayor, but this really crystallized for me the night of the [recent] debate. You had no supporters. You had all these Katz guys with Katz signs and Katz shirts. There was nobody from you.

JS: Because people are more interested -- you know what? The proof of the pudding is that this campaign has not been marred by missteps. My recollection is less than a week ago, the cover of one of the local papers had an independent poll that had us eight points up. And you can't win an election by creating a perception. So, my opponent gets 25 people with signs that say, "Sam Katz for Mayor" to get on television. You think that is going to win the election? Howard, it's not going to win the election.

CP: But they left you all alone.

JS: Hold on, you asked me a question and I would like to answer. It is not going to win the election. We happen to know he is paying people in North Philadelphia $125 to walk around with his T-shirts on.

CP: How do you know this?

JS: Because we have had people tell us.

CP: Do you have any names?

JS: It's not going to win the election.

CP: Any names?

JS: I'm not getting into – I'm not naming names. I don't have to name names. I'm just telling you that. [Katz] stands up and says we have a poll that shows we are taking it to our opponent. He hasn't released any numbers. I'm telling you, we have people who have said to us, "He's paying me money to wear this T-shirt." Here's a guy who runs around putting up a lot of Democrats for Katz signs. I've had people say to me say to me that they know for a fact that there are a whole lot more Democrats for Katz signs than there are Democrats for Katz. On Election Day, it all comes out. In 1999, he was walking around talking about he had a 10-point lead. He was talking about a 10-point lead – because some people believe that perception is everything. And perception is everything if there isn't an Election Day. Perception is everything if there is no Election Day. But in the end, there is an Election Day. Now, you know, this is a person who will, who two and a half, three weeks ago, had all of the city thinking he had a six- to a nine-point lead. We didn't do any polls to show he doesn't have a six- to a nine-point lead. Somebody else did a poll that said he was losing and I guarantee you people were shocked, "Oh my god, we all thought he was winning." I am telling you, the voters of this city are smarter than that. And, you know, I am not saying this is a perfect campaign, but the first thing people talk about is the Molotov cocktail.

CP: That's just one of many things.

JS: I'm just telling you –

CP: Frank Keel, the letters from his wife –

JS: Frank Keel? Frank Keel's wife did something that wasn't smart, right? It wasn't smart. And I think it was given probably a little bit too much attention. But I don't worry about that. Think about it, Howard. Prior to this current controversy, prior to this current controversy, not withstanding all those things that people said were going wrong in my campaign, we were eight points up.

On why he hasn't stopped "pay-for-play": "I'm going to be brutally frank. Because nobody asked Ed Rendell to change it." Photo By Michael T. Regan

CP: And now?

JS: We still have, in my judgment, we still have a considerable lead.

CP: Is that based on your intuition?

JS: It's based on a number of things. Not the least of which is I think I have a sense of this community that I have been relying on because I have been doing this for 25 years. And for people to – I think the proof of the pudding is in the tasting and notwithstanding this whole attitude out there that this campaign is not that good, I think this has been – I think our campaign has done a good job. I think folks who are around me have evaluated this voting public. I think we have a strong message. I think that message is getting through and I think we are going to win this campaign.

And I don't want you to think – I wouldn't – I wouldn't dare sit here and let you think I think that Shawn Fordham and [field director] Greg Naylor and [campaign spokesman] Dan Fee and all of our folks, [campaign media consultant David] Axelrod, Crawley, all those people who are working, these people are the best. They're the best and I wouldn't care what anybody writes about them. I will tell you on Election Day, on Election Day, on Nov. 4, that there will be a big Democratic victory. Because there are people who completely and totally misunderstand this process and some things you can't fake. And you have to understand where people are and you have to do the concrete things necessary to get you where you need to be on Nov. 4. And that's what we're focused on. You know, we are not focusing on the fluff -- waves his arms through the air, flicking his wrists -- and maybe somebody could say we should have more people around there with "Street for Mayor" signs. Re-elect the Mayor. But I will say at the end of the day, those signs will be gone and people will have to walk into the polls and they will have to make up their minds. And I think our people really did it.

CP: How's your family holding up? I know you are a family man. And this has been a pretty intense. That press conference after the debate was one of the most bizarre. The level of viciousness was pretty high. How is your family holding up?

JS: My wife is actually energized, as you probably can tell.

CP: She seemed pretty fired up.

JS: Look, my children are mostly grown. I have a 16-year-old and he is more concerned about running and basketball and taking the PSATs.

CP: He doesn't care what people say about his dad?

JS: Well, he is concerned about all that. Right? But, you have to remember, he's never known anything else. He is 16 years old. I am 25 years into this so he has been a little bit of a subject of this for his entire life. He didn't do anything to anybody, but from the day he was born, his daddy's picture was in the paper. It was always something. He goes on about his business and I don't wear my children like some badge of honor. He's not running for anything, so I try my best to have a private life as best as possible. He goes about doing what he wants to do. He goes to parties and I try to keep him out of the spotlight. I don't want him in the spotlight.

CP: Any concern that the tenor of this race, with the probe, that we will see an increased racializing?

JS: Oh, I think that the election will be over and people will go on back to doing what they always do. I think people have very, very strong feelings about it but they have always had very strong feelings about it. All of the recent controversy will probably heighten people's sensitivity to all this.

CP: Does it increase the distrust in the black community of the FBI, of the federal government?

JS: Well, I think that there's bound to be some heightened appreciation for all of this because of the nature and the way all of this has come to light, in particular, the timing. But I think in the end, the voters of this city, they are real smart voters. They will figure this out and they will come to their own conclusions about it and then we will have an election and people will go back to doing what they always do.

CP: There are some theories about these charges. You have a White House that didn't win the popular vote, that lied about the war in Iraq, that dimed out a CIA agent as payback. It's not beyond the realm of believability that they could have affected this race by the bug. But who knows? What do you think?

JS: Well, first of all, I have made it very clear that I am ready to move on. I have to move on. I can't continue to talk about the probe. I have to move on. I have a city to run and we also have a campaign to run. And, you know, the one thing I know is, there has been almost no criticism of any significance on the policies and the programs of this government. It's real interesting. In the beginning, people were thinking there was going to be this broadband attack on our work. Let me tell you something: almost no one is talking about our work in the area of education. Almost no one is talking about our Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. Almost no one is saying anything in anyway negative about our children's initiative. Almost no one is talking bad about Center City and growth and development of all the things that are important to the city. When you think about the Kimmel Center, the stadiums, Independence Mall, stuff that is going on --

I interject my thoughts on the Phillies new ballpark.

CP: The baseball stadium is in the wrong place.

JS: I would have preferred having the baseball stadium in town, but I couldn't get that done for some reasons that were fairly obvious. It had partly to do with the finances of the team and all – and I am never going to be unreasonable – and I believe that it would have been a huge problem for the Phillies to have to wait at least another year. In addition to which, we would have had to keep the Vet open another year, so it would have been a problem.

So, let me mention one other thing to you that I would like to mention that is real important to me. When George Bush took over the federal government there was a several trillion dollar surplus and now there is a several trillion dollar deficit. When the Republicans took over in Harrisburg, there was a $3 billion rainy-day fund. When Ed Rendell took over eight years later, there was a $2 billion to $3 billion deficit. The city of Philadelphia, in all of the same period of time, my three and a half years, we reduced taxes by $150 million and we have a $500 million tax-reduction program. New York City has raised almost every tax they can find. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is trying to dig its way out of a huge, huge financial problem. I instituted a hiring freeze in this city less than a year after I went into office and people in Harrisburg were pretending like it wasn't a problem. Matter of fact, [former] Gov. [Mark] Schweiker, in his last week of office, held a press conference that said we are leaving the state in great shape. Right? In the area of the fiscal integrity of this city and my management of this city, I ask you to compare what we have done here to what Bush has done with the federal government. Compare it to the fiscal stewardship of Republicans in Harrisburg. And they had the votes to do anything they wanted to do. Schweiker and [former Gov. Tom] Ridge weren't like Rendell. Rendell's got to get a Republican general assembly to go along with him. Gov. Schweiker and Gov. Ridge, they could get [state Sen. David] Brightbill and [state Rep. John] Perzel in their office. And they could do whatever they wanted to do because they controlled everything.

CP: Is Ed an effective governor?

JS: I – I – I think Ed Rendell would be a more effective governor when Republicans in Harrisburg stop trying to manipulate Harrisburg to impact who is going to be the mayor of this city. Republicans in Harrisburg started interfering with Philadelphia local government in the biggest way when they took over the Parking Authority and if the Democrats had done to the Philadelphia Parking Authority what the Republicans have done over there, people would still be writing about it. I think that it is a disgrace that there isn't more outrage over what the Republicans have done in the Parking Authority. And if ever there was a reason for people in this city to conclude that the Republicans, you know, often, are -- they have been worse when it comes to patronage than anybody I have ever seen. The whole [Pennsylvania] Convention Center labor situation would have been resolved 13 months ago but for Republican interference in Harrisburg.

CP: Katz denies a roll in that.

JS: He denies it, but some facts should be self-evident. The only [union] who did not sign the agreement was the carpenters. The carpenters supporters – whatchacall him, Brian Tierney – spoke for the carpenters in the whole thing. Brian Tierney is now running Sam Katz's campaign. The carpenters supported whatchacall him over Ed Rendell, [State Attorney General Mike] Fisher over Ed Rendell. The carpenters have been playing ball with Republicans in Harrisburg after I asked them to sign an agreement that was right for the city of Philadelphia. I could have played a game with them. I actually could have said, "What do you have to have?" And I could have given them what they had to have, and said my re-election is more important than fixing the problem over there. And I knew the moment that I didn¹t cave in to the carpenters on that issue, that I was probably going to lose carpenters support, I was probably going to lose a couple hundred thousand dollars in contributions. And sometime, you gotta do what you gotta do. And Sam Katz, Sam Katz was in this, because it was Sam Katz who admits he was the one who said [Fourth District City Councilman] Michael Nutter should be the chairman of the board of the new Convention Center Authority board. So it appears to me that the Republicans in Harrisburg started interfering with the way local government was running early on, as a way of trying to have an impact on the mayor¹s election. And I feel like we are going to have that great victory we are going to have in November and I think some of that will go away.

Street looks at his watch, which he has placed on the table. It is nearly 10:30 and he is late for his next appointment at Bright Hope Baptist Church.

CP: What's that red string around your left wrist?

JS: That's Rabbi – Rabbi – Rabbi Issacson supplied me one in 1999 and said you can wear this and you will be elected mayor and I wore it then and then about four months ago he said it is time to put on your – there is a name for this but I just can't think of what it is right now.

CP: Is it working?

JS: Well, we will know on Nov. 4. I think it is going to work.

CP: Here's a kind of wacky question I asked Sam Katz. Have you ever smoked marijuana?

JS: I have consistently refused to answer any kind of questions like that, because I happen to think that is irrelevant to this campaign. I do not think there is any relevancy to any qualifications for public office and do not think that people who run for public office ought to be required to go back into the hinterlands of their lives and talk about that kind of thing.

CP: Fair enough.

I would like to be able to ask you about the probe, about any other points. Do you know who is being investigated, Mr. Mayor?

JS: [stands up] A pleasure doing business with you, Howard.

CP: You are not going to answer me?

JS: It's too bad you stood me up on my fishing trip.

CP: Wait a minute. That's on the record. I gave your campaign a list of dates that I could not go. Including last weekend when I went to my brother's wedding.

JS: Well, you should have been at your brother's wedding. I didn't know that.

Street is asked to sit for some pictures, but refuses, opting to stand. He and Crawley banter about the Eagles.

JS: I picked them, when was it last week? Weren't they playing Buffalo last week?

CP: No.

JS: That was the week before last? I picked them that game. Philadelphia magazine once convinced me to do a picture like that. Remember that? And they did that Darth Vader-type photograph of me.

CP: Listen, you are sure you don't want to talk about this probe?

JS: The only thing I can say about this probe is that they can listen to all the tapes they want. There will be no corruption, no sex and no profanity.

CP: On your part or anyone else's?

JS: I am not going by what somebody else might say, but there's nothing from me about corruption, sex or profanity.

And with that, the mayor walks out of the office to start the public part of his day.