Nutter - Mayor: the best job in politics

MAYOR

The City in the Twenty-First Century

Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, Series Editors

A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

MAYOR

The Best Job in Politics

Michael A. Nutter

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia

Copyright 2018 Michael A. Nutter

All images in the gallery between pages 68 and 69 are copyright City of Philadelphia. Photos by Kait Privitera and Mitchell Leff.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

Published by

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

www.upenn.edu/pennpress

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-0-8122-5002-2

To my mom, Catalina; my dad, Basil; my sister, Renee; and my grandmother, Edythe, thank you always for the love, support, and encouragement to be a good man.

To Councilman John C. Anderson, Obra S. Kernodle III, Congressman William H. Gray III, and committee people of the Fifty-Second Ward, thank you for your inspiration, leadership, and mentorshipyou made me a better man.

To Lisa, Olivia, and Christian, thank you for making me the best husband, father, and public servant I could ever hope to be.

This book is dedicated to the incredible citizens of Philadelphia who cared about me and gave me a chance to lead our great city, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the Transfiguration of Our Lord School, the Jesuits and lay teachers at Saint Josephs Preparatory High School who taught me to be a man for others, the faculty and staff at the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School, all of my classmates throughout my education, my incredible City Council staff, the tremendously talented leaders of my mayoral administration, the fine public servants of the City of Philadelphia, and public servants across America. Thank you for what you do every day.

CONTENTS

I n 1975, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, I commandeered a large Deer Park water jug from somewhere on the campus. Every night, Id empty my pockets and put the change in that jug, and after I graduated, wherever I moved, I always took that jug with me. By 1988, the water jug contained a fair amount of change. When I was first running for City Council in the 1987 election in Philadelphia, my car had died, and after Id lost the election, I turned that jug upside down every day to get quarters so that I could scrape together the money to catch the SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) bus and elevated train to work.

That was in 1988. Twenty years later, on January 7, 2008, I was standing on the stage at the Academy of Music at Broad and Locust Streets in Philadelphia, being sworn in as the ninety-eighth mayor of my hometown. The road was long, and there were many events and happenings, in between. And I didnt take the journey by myself.

This is a story, and a political autobiography, about commitment and perseverance, about the passion and desire to serve. If you enter the world of public service for the right reasons, its the most incredible feeling that you will ever have. You will never make a lot of money in public service. Most of the people who try to make money in politics (government) end up going to jail. But there is something entirely unique about the opportunity, every day, to make somebody elses life better. Its a feeling that you can perhaps get in some other professions, but I know that it happens in this one. I would contend that being the mayor is the best job in politics, and possibly the best job in America.

Mayoring involves many paradoxes. Being mayor is a lonely business, and leadership of a city can be a very lonely place. At the end of the day, youre the ultimate decision maker, at least within your realm. To be sure, there are external factors and influences in city government: there are other nearby local governments, and state and federal governments with which you have to build relationships and interact. Cities generally are a political subdivision of their respective states. There can be a lot of tension between and among cities and their respective states, and between states and the federal government, depending on the policies and programs that are being proposed at any given time. But, for the most part, cities are allowed to operate autonomously. Many have home rule, and as mayor you are pretty much out there on your own. As mayor, just about all the bucks do actually stop at your desk. That doesnt necessarily mean, unfortunately, that the actual, financial bucks stop at your deskbut the problems, issues, and challenges all end up there. And, quite honestly, whether or not you have any control over the problems or issues in question, youre the mayor, so it all becomes your responsibility on some level.

At the same time, the mayors office is the position that I believe is closest to the people and to their real lives and experiences. Its unlikely that youll be able to chat on the streets with the president, a senator, or even a state legislator, but anyone in Philadelphia might have stopped me to talk at the supermarket or found me at Woodys barbershop in Wynnefield once every two weeks.

A lot of people depend on you on a daily basis. There is a weightiness to the mayors office. The other political offices are certainly weighty, as wellbeing governor is an incredible responsibility, as is being the president of the United States. But people are sometimes not entirely sure what the governor may be doing at any moment, and I dont mean that disrespectfully toward the governor in any state. Its just that the gubernatorial position is usually a little more removed and distant from the people. Most presidents, of course, look at Washington, DC, as the place where they function and operatealthough apparently not President Trump. As I write this in 2017, we mostly know where the president is but rarely know what hes doing. While some people consider both governor and president to be higher offices than mayorand they are indisputably different officesthere is no office as close to the people as being in charge of a city. People understand intuitively the mayors position more than other political offices, so while it may at times feel lonely, it is also a much more visible one, and you are rarely alone. People know where you are, and usually want to be near you.

When you as a citizen wake up in the morning and turn on your faucet, you have started your daily relationship with your local government and the mayor. You have an expectation that waterand potable, clean waterwill come out of that faucet. When you step outside, you expect that the streetlights and traffic signals will work. Your roads on your drive to work in the morning will be decently paved. When you put your trashcan out on your trash day, you expect that it will magically be emptied by the time you come home. When you call 911, you expect a trained, respectful call taker will help you, and then a first responder will appear. When you take your children to a recreation center, there will be equipment such as basketballs and soccer nets, and in good condition. That is all city government. And that is the work of mayoringan ongoing exchange between larger government policies, including the budgets that fund them, and a daily engagement with and in the lives of citizens.