Milton Street Wants Another Shot at Mayor

T. Milton Street Sr., who managed to snag 24 percent of the Democratic vote from Mayor Nutter in 2011 despite having just finished a federal prison sentence, said on his Facebook page Sunday that he intends to run for mayor again in 2015.

His post was accompanied by a picture of the Bartram High School "conflict resolution specialist" who was knocked unconscious by a student in March. Street, who attended a meeting at Bartram last week to discuss violence in the school, said he had organized the "414 community movement to stop the violence."

He said he would make a formal announcement of his candidacy and describe the 414 community movement "in detail" after the May primary.

Street, a former hot dog vendor who served terms in both the state House and Senate, built his 2011 campaign against Nutter around what he called the "don't counts" - former inmates, the mentally ill, and poor people in general. He won at least 40 percent of the vote in seven primarily African American North Philadelphia wards.

That could make Street, the older brother of former Mayor John F. Street, something of a spoiler if he peels votes away from other black candidates. The two most prominent potential black candidates are state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams and City Council President Darrell L. Clarke.

Street, who was sentenced to 30 months in prison in 2008 for failing to file three years worth of taxes, had some prominent backing in 2011 that he's unlikely to get this time around. In 2011, he drew endorsements from two municipal workers unions – AFSCME District Council 33 and Local 22 of the firefighters – that were frustrated over contract fights with Nutter.

In his post, Street said he considered supporting Williams in the Democratic primary, but he thought Williams would be a "disaster" for the black community – Street cited campaign contributions Williams took from three executives of the Susquehanna International Group in 2010, when he ran for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

Williams accepted more than $5 million from the three men, who said at the time that they favored Williams' position on school choice and publicly funded vouchers. Williams finished third in that race.

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