Democrats Running for Philadelphia Mayor Sound Off

Nutter: “Some success,” Street: “Facilitator & conceptualizer”

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Democratic mayoral candidate T. Milton Street appeared separately on NBC10 @ Issue on a program that aired on May 8. The primary election is May 17.

Here are some of their answers on some key issues:

City graduation rates and job growth are key for Nutter:

“We have to continue to increase the graduation rate. Our goal is to get it up to 80 percent plus. We have to have more jobs in this city. When I came into office before the recession the unemployment rate was between 5 and 6 percent last summer it was at 11.9 percent and now coming down. So we still have a lot of work to do, we have a great city and it's growing.”

Fire safety is a key issue for Street:

“There's money available in safe grants from homeland security for firefighters. The mayor didn't make application for this money. So there's $15 million there that's available in these safer grants that we could have not had to have brownouts, we could have kept firehouses open and also we could have hired some more firefighters. [Responding to firefighters union endorsement] They want somebody to be sensitive to the safety issues. The firefighters want fairness. And from everything that I've been able to gather they haven't been treated fairly. And their major issue is not financial their major issue is safety.”

Street on crime

“Violent crime is up. Violent crime is not down. Homicides are not down, sir. In 2010 at this time there was 95 homicides. 2011 at this time there's over 108 or 109 homicides. How are they down? How does that add up? And that may be your reality. But I'm on the streets campaigning and it doesn't matter what numbers you or the mayor or anybody else puts out there, if that's not the reality of the community where the voters live, that's what's important.”

Nutter on crime:

“I think what that's produced [“progressive thinking”] is a new way of fighting crime in the city, that's led to a 22 percent reduction in homicides, from the time before I came into office in 2007 as compared to 2010. Violent crime is down in the city as well. We've redeployed our officers. I also hired the best police commissioner in the United States of America, Police Commissioner Ramsey, who's brought innovation to the department as well. The city has to be much safer. I want to see us get on at least a top ten safe cities list in the United States of America.”

Nutter on the size of government, cutbacks and layoffs:

“Somebody's gotta pick up the trash, somebody's gotta plow the snow. We need officers out on the streets of the city. We have fewer police officers today than the day I was sworn in to office because we have not hired as many as we would like. So every city is different, 1600 people off of the payroll is 1600 people off of the payroll, however they got off of the payroll. We have not laid off one police officer, not one firefighter, not one sanitation worker, not one social worker, not a one.”

Street on the size of government, cutbacks and layoffs:

“Well you have to look at the growth of the city. There may be growth. You may have to look at, I mean there's just a lot of information that I would need before I could definitively answer that question.”

Street on DROP:

“I would keep the DROP program for the workers, I would not keep the DROP program for the elected officials. The DROP program for elected officials is bad. It's been abused. The DROP program for the employees, the police, the city workers is not a bad program if you look at it properly and get all of the financial information that's associated with it and from the way I've looked at it. It can be a benefit.”

Nutter on DROP:

“My position is very clear, we need to end the program completely. Gone. Done. Finished. That's where we need to be.”

Contact Us