Nutter fills seven key staff positions

Mayor-elect Michael Nutter rounded out his leadership team with seven senior appointments yesterday, including three new deputy mayors and city solicitor nominee Shelley R. Smith, a former attorney with the city's Law Department and Ballard Spahr who is now counsel to the Exelon Corp.

The selection of Smith leaves Nutter with just one charter-mandated cabinet position yet to fill, commerce, and he suggested that post and other senior appointments would be made shortly. Nutter already is much further along in staffing his administration than Mayor Street was before taking office for his first term.

In a news conference at City Hall, Nutter signaled that the deputy mayors - one for public safety, another for transportation and a third for health - would play major roles in his administration.

"Their responsibility is to coordinate policy and budgetary affairs related to the departments and agencies that they will be responsible for," Nutter said. "Deputy mayors will report directly to me and/or the chief of staff. Their responsibility is broad, their authority is broad as well."

"When you get a call from the deputy mayor you should pay attention to what they have to say," Nutter said later.

Although former Mayor Ed Rendell employed a host of deputy mayors, Street discarded the title. Instead, he used the title "secretary" for senior officials who headed up major areas such as education and external affairs, while also installing deputy managing directors in departments throughout the government.

It is too early to tell whether Nutter's administration will be more or less top-heavy than Street's and Rendell's, but Nutter said yesterday that he would not name many more deputy mayors.

Like all of his appointees to date, Nutter's deputy mayors have decades of experience in their fields.

The most unorthodox selection was Nutter's pick for deputy mayor for public safety. That job - which includes working with the Police Department, the district attorney and the courts - was given to Everett A. Gillison, a public defender in the city for nearly 22 years who has specialized in representing accused killers.

When asked what his views were of "stop-and-frisk," the aggressive policing strategy favored by Nutter, Gillison said he looked forward to airing his views as the policy went into effect.

"How we go about doing it and how we go about implementing it is something that I look forward to bringing my voice to," Gillison said. "We have to do something in order to make sure we make our city a safer city, but there's a whole lot of strategies that are going to be talked about and implemented."

Charles Ramsey, the next police commissioner, still will report directly to Nutter.

Nutter named Donald Schwarz his deputy mayor for health and opportunity. A professor at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a leading researcher in adolescent health and risk behaviors, Schwarz also will serve as the city's health commissioner. The city departments that will fall under his policy purview include Health and the Department of Human Services.

Philadelphia veteran Rina Cutler will be the city's deputy mayor for transportation and utilities. Cutler is currently a deputy secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and for six years served as executive director of the Philadelphia Parking Authority when the agency was under the city's control.

Before arriving in Philadelphia, she was transportation commissioner for the city of Boston and director of parking and traffic for the city of San Francisco. Cutler will have policy and budget oversight over the departments of Streets, Water and Aviation, and will be the city's representative to SEPTA, the Philadelphia Gas Works and the Parking Authority.

Filling the new post of director of multicultural affairs is Israel "Izzy" Colon, the director of the Eastern North Philadelphia Youth Services Coalition and a former chief of staff for former City Councilman Angel Ortiz. Colon will serve as the mayor's liaison on "issues important to various minority communities across the city," according to the news release announcing his appointment.

The next city representative will be Melanie Johnson, who was Nutter's communications director during his mayoral campaign. Johnson also served as press secretary to Rendell and held jobs with the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau and at Beach Advertising.

Although the charter calls for the commerce and city representative slots to be filled by the same individual, Nutter said he would ask City Council to split the jobs. Johnson's job will be to tout the city and the administration's accomplishments.

Replacing Johnson as Nutter's spokesperson is Douglas I. Oliver, who is director of corporate communication for Philadelphia Gas Works. Oliver also has served as press secretary for the state Department of Public Welfare.