Nutter is gracious in final speech to Chamber of Commerce

AS MAYOR NUTTER strode onstage and took to the podium, the song "Run This Town" by Jay Z, Rihanna and Kanye West echoed through the hotel ballroom speakers:

Got a problem, tell me now. Only thing that's on my mind. Is who's gonna run this town tonight . . . We gonna run this town.

Although the intro music elicited a laugh from Nutter, the mayor's speech at yesterday's annual Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce luncheon seemed crafted to leave little doubt about who has run this town - steering the city through one of the worst economic downturns in the nation's history and installing a chief integrity officer to weed out government waste and corruption.

"Today, I am pleased to say Philadelphia is in its best shape in many years," Nutter told the crowd gathered inside the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown Hotel, at 17th and Race streets.

In his eighth - and final - Chamber address, Nutter cited accomplishments of his administration: a population boom, a drop in violent crime, job growth, more than $8.5 billion in development projects either completed or underway, an increase in high-school graduation rates, successful negotiation of contracts with the city's four largest unions, more than 1,300 new hotel rooms, and Philadelphia's ability to attract new companies and draw international events such as the September 2015 World Meeting of Families.

But Nutter said that his job is far from done, and that the next mayor must address what he called the city's "three greatest challenges" - education, poverty and "the epidemic of violence among young men and boys of color."

Nutter cautioned that the next administration must focus on fixing the city's public schools, or else the wave of millennials who recently have settled in Philadelphia will leave.

"Not only will our future workforce lack the education and skills needed to work in your businesses, the millennial population who loves Philadelphia today, works in your businesses and owns their own home, well, they won't stay here if it means the possibility of sending their children to some of our underperforming schools," Nutter said. "They will not stay here."

Nutter said he hoped that under Gov. Wolf, the state would implement a "full and equitable system of funding for public education in Philadelphia."

Nutter's roughly 30-minute speech largely centered on accomplishments during his tenure, but also credited his predecessors, including former mayors W. Wilson Goode, Ed Rendell and John Street.

Mayors, he said, "stand on the shoulders of those who came before them: They drink from wells they did not dig, and benefit from the shade of trees that were planted by others."

"In Philadelphia, we've had 30 years of strong leadership, innovation and investment - three decades of change for the better."

Nutter also praised City Council members past and present, for "many contributions to our great city." He made no mention of last year's failed attempt to sell Philadelphia Gas Works, which Nutter had argued would reduce the city's pension-fund deficit. Council leadership killed the proposed $1.86 billion sale of PGW to UIL Holdings Corp. by refusing to bring it to a vote.

"It was a very gentlemanly thing," noted attendee Elliot Curson, a longtime advertising executive and Republican political strategist. "He's had battles with all of them, and he gave kudos to City Council, which really did something against him that would have been a defining moment in his career. With Gas Works, they were totally against him. That was a black eye."

Overall, Curson said, Nutter's speech sent a strong message that he's in charge, despite his lame-duck status.

"Michael Nutter said he was in charge, and his speech proved it," Curson said after the luncheon. "If I didn't know any better, if I was some out-of-towner, I would have thought, 'This is one hell of a city,' and it is a great city, but he really sold it well. I was proud of him."