Power Lunch: Sam Katz and John Street: Friends At Last

You must see some redeeming qualities.
He’s a classic case of the Peter Principle at work: In the large-organization hierarchy, employees rise to their level of incompetence. Nutter was a mediocre councilman. In the role of mayor, the job is way over his head.

Mayors can be known for a few things. Your legacy was about neighborhoods and troubled families. Fair?
Everyone knew what I was about. People were hurting in poor communities. They needed support, and I wanted to make sure they got it. Blight didn’t happen in a decade, and it wasn’t going to be eliminated in a decade. Intervening in the lives of troubled children requires an equally longer-term commitment and investment. We hired 400 truant officers. Habitual truants were subject to DHS oversight, so we set up this effort to bring those kids back to schools.

A lot of people didn’t see that.
I know, but I did the things people tend to remember, too. New stadiums, the Convention Center expansion, relocating the Barnes, the cultural-corridors program—these were Street administration legacy projects as well.

What did you learn in your 30-plus years in government about the limits of power?
Success derives from understanding that shared power of governance is critical. SEPTA, PHA, the Parking Authority, DRPA or the SRC — the leaders all want to work with the mayor. But you need a plan. With it, the mayor gets their cooperation. Without it, everything is adrift.

At times, you had rocky relations with certain segments of the community. Business. Press. How’d that affect your agenda?
I didn’t trust the press. They had their own agenda, and they weren’t interested in supporting mine. I never had the Inquirer at my back. In 1992, Rendell, [David] Cohen and I agreed to be a team. We met. We cooperated. We were a hugely successful team. Yet when I stood for reelection in 1995, the Inquirer endorsed my opponent. When I ran against you, I knew you were getting the print endorsements.

These days, you’ve got some issues with the Housing Authority and the Carl Greene mess. Where does that stand?
We’re working to bring in Michael Kelly from NYC—a serious public-housing executive with great national experience. He may be the best in the nation. Then we’ll do a national search to get a permanent leader.

And Greene?
Carl Greene is history. There are a plethora of investigations. At the end of the day, I think people are going to find out that Greene was a serial sexual harasser but a very good property manager, and one of the best housing developers in the country. Remember, we asked him to change the culture of an organization where many people didn’t think they had to work a full day’s work. He did that. But he had to go.

You’ve never been one to open up your private side, or let people in. Don’t you think it would have helped you to do that?
Maybe, but my private life is private. People don’t need to know the last book I read. The only book they need to know about is my last budget. That was a good book. People wanted to know you cared, delivered services, tried to be fair. I reduced taxes by more than $1 billion. No one writes about that. It gets lost in the political process.