Philadelphia firefighters endorse Street for mayor

It may not win him the election, but on Thursday, long-shot mayoral candidate T. Milton Street Sr. pulled off a not-so-small coup by winning the endorsement of the city's firefighters' union.

The executive board of Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Fighters - with about 2,100 active members - chose Street as their candidate over Mayor Nutter after meeting with Street Thursday morning.

The union has feuded with Nutter since he deactivated seven companies as the recession hit in January 2009. Last year, Nutter cut paramedics out of the union after an overtime dispute, and appealed a contract arbitration award in November that gave firefighters 3 percent raises in each year for fiscal 2011-13 and exempted them from furloughs.

Nutter argued that the fire contract was too expensive, but at the time, Local 22 president Bill Gault called it "a slap in the face."

Gault could not be reached Wednesday. The appeal is pending.

Street met with the union's executive board Wednesday morning for an hour, said Michael Bresnan, the union's recording secretary. Street did not return a call seeking comment. Nutter was not invited to meet with the executive board. The 10-member executive board is elected by union membership.

At the meeting, Street promised to restore the seven companies, return all medic units to round-the-clock, and end the temporary deactivation of companies in single shifts begun last summer - called rolling brownouts.

As for Street's past misdemeanor conviction on federal tax-evasion charges, for which he recently finished a 30-month federal sentence, Bresnan said: "What's the difference? We look at it as criminal what Nutter did to the Fire Department and the citizens of the city."

Nutter did not have a single union endorsement in the 2007 Democratic primary, and the firefighters endorsed U.S. Rep. Bob Brady in that one. Nutter has a number of major union endorsements this time around, including Laborers Local 332, and the carpenters union.

The initial response from the Nutter campaign on the Street endorsement: "OK. Wow. Unbelievable," said campaign spokeswoman Sheila Simmons.

"The mayor has been a strong supporter of firefighters throughout his career, and he deeply respects the lifesaving work they do," Simmons called back to say. "We have to think that the driving force behind this decision had to have been the appeal of the arbitration award. Philadelphia is still in an economically challenging position, and the mayor of course wanted an award that was respectful to the firefighters and also one the city could afford."

Simmons said the endorsement "will have no impact on the admiration and support the mayor has for firefighters in Philadelphia and the brave work that they do."

As to the mayor's reaction? "I don't know if I could quite say surprised, but I don't think he expected it."