Mayor Nutter expected to name Richard Negrin as new managing director today

Mayor Nutter was expected to name attorney Richard Negrin as his second managing director today, according to administration sources.

Negrin, a former member of the Board of Ethics, joined the administration in December as interim executive director of the Board of Revision of Taxes. He will replace Managing Director Camille Barnett, who is set to leave June 30 after two low-profile years as the city's chief operating officer.

"I think he's an excellent pick for the job because he has the right combination of public and private experience, tempered by excellent judgment," said Ethics Board Executive Director Shane Creamer. "[The Ethics Board] experience gave him a great overview of city government."

Efforts to reach Negrin were unsuccessful last night. Mayoral spokesman Doug Oliver declined comment.

Nutter hired Negrin to manage the BRT after the administration reached an agreement with the troubled agency to take over assessment powers and day-to-day control. But Negrin was stalled in April after the board members refused to extend the arrangement. He was moved from the BRT's offices into the city Finance Department.

Before coming to work for the city, Negrin was vice president and general counsel of Aramark, the food-services operation. He's a former president of the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania. And he briefly played professional football, for the Cleveland Browns and the New York Jets.

The key question now is how Nutter will ask Negrin to approach the job. Traditionally, the city managing director is a major player in charge of overseeing city operations. But in Nutter's government, many of those powers have been handed to the deputy mayors, who report to both the mayor and the managing director.

Barnett, a professional city manager who previously served in Austin, Texas, and Washington, D.C., has been largely invisible during her two years here, focusing on a few singular projects, like establishing the 3-1-1 non-emergency call center. Unlike previous managing directors, Barnett didn't ride on trash trucks, stop at fires, manage traffic disasters or hold news conferences.

Barnett's tenure in Philadelphia was marked by tragedy. Her husband was killed in a car accident on Interstate 95 in January 2008, as he was transporting some of their belongings from Washington to Philadelphia.