For once, Philadelphia Republicans mount a lively Council race

Philadelphia's Republican Party is often derided as moribund, but the GOP primary race for at-large City Council seats is anything but.

Usually, only five candidates run, guaranteeing that all move on to the November general election.

This year there are nine candidates, and political observers say several have a real shot at winning one of the two leather chairs that the City Charter reserves at a minimum for the minority party - generally, the Republicans - in Council's marbled chambers.

"I think having nine candidates up here for a race that previously wasn't contested is historic," at-large GOP candidate Elmer Money said at a debate Wednesday.

In fact, this is the first contested Republican primary race for any city office that anyone can remember since 1991, when Frank L. Rizzo beat former District Attorney Ronald Castille, the GOP's endorsed candidate, and Sam Katz for the mayoral nomination. Rizzo died two months later.

There's more. In a party not known for diversity, one candidate is openly gay. Another is Korean American.

For comic relief, there is even an Andy Reid impersonator.

The race also occurs against a backdrop of a declining city Republican Party whose members are warring among themselves and whose registered voters are outnumbered by Democrats more than 6-1 in Philadelphia.

And incumbent Frank Rizzo - son of one of the city's most famous politicians and long one of the top GOP vote-getters - is vulnerable because his participation in Philadelphia's controversial Deferred Option Retirement Plan has angered some voters. It cost him his party's endorsement this year.

The Council at-large race could even affect who becomes Council president if GOP Councilman Brian O'Neill is reelected and he and the at-large Republican candidates decide to vote as a bloc, Democratic political consultant Larry Ceisler said.

One of the GOP seats is available because incumbent Jack Kelly is retiring.

DROP has weakened Rizzo, but polls suggest he will win. Name recognition and a strong record of constituent service make him hard to beat. In the 2007 primary, 15,451 people voted for Rizzo, ahead of the No. 2 vote-getter, Kelly, with 12,354.

But DROP, which allows city employees to take home large lump-sum pension checks, is a real threat. The program requires employees to retire when they get the check, but Rizzo intends to use a legal loophole that allows him to run for reelection, retire for a day, and return to office if he wins.

DROP already forced Democratic Councilman Frank DiCicco to decide not to run again. It also played a role in the decision of Council President Anna C. Verna and three other Council members to retire.

Rizzo, who stands to collect $194,517 from DROP, has said he would get out of the program if the law allowed him to, but it does not.

Cases to knock both Rizzo and Democrat Marian B. Tasco off the ballot based on their DROP participation are pending before the state Supreme Court.

At Wednesday's debate, Rizzo introduced himself and then left before anyone could ask questions, saying he had other obligations.

Rizzo has said he relied on the opinions of two city solicitors that elected officials could retire for a day to fulfill DROP's retirement requirement.

After Rizzo left the debate, rival candidate Al Taubenberger, who ran for mayor against Michael Nutter, said legal opinions were irrelevant.

"It's not moral," Taubenberger said. "It's as if he were down in the kitchen in the middle of the night with his hand in the cookie jar, and the lights went on."

Rizzo says voters will reelect him because he has made the city better by bringing red-light cameras to busy intersections and by lobbying to have state police patrol I-95, allowing more Philadelphia police to go back to the streets.

That decision, along with DROP, led the Fraternal Order of Police not to endorse Rizzo this year, a shocker for the son of the former law-and-order mayor and police commissioner. Rizzo said he had picked up endorsements from some ward leaders.

Sharing a name with his father has helped with voters, he said, but it's not what has kept him in office.

"My father has been deceased since 1991," Rizzo said. "Having a great name may open a door, but it doesn't keep it open."

In 2007, lawyer David Oh came very close to winning the seat that Kelly eventually captured. A battle over who won played out in federal court for nearly a year, with a judge finally deciding that Kelly won by 122 votes.

Oh hopes this Council race, his third, will be the charm.

He wants to turn Philadelphia into the "800-pound gorilla" of the regional economy. He would start by lowering the city's business-privilege tax, often cited as a job-killer.

"We cannot tax our way to paying off our debts," he said.

Oh also opposes other regulations - such as a proposal before Council that would require employers in the city to pay workers when they are sick - because he say they discourage businesses from locating here.

In 1953, his father, Ki Hang Oh, established Philadelphia's first Korean American church, in West Philadelphia.

Candidate Oh is similarly focused on new ideas. For example, he says a SEPTA or Amtrak train stop near the Philadelphia Zoo could ease traffic there. He would pair that with a shuttle between the zoo and the Please Touch Museum, possibly boosting attendance at both places.

Such changes, he said, would bring more tourists here, and more business to the city.

Despite his success in the last election, increased competition means Oh will have to fight to make it to Council.

Three other candidates - Taubenberger and Dennis O'Brien, and Malcolm Lazin - also have significant political bases.

Taubenberger is head of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. He says the city must work harder to improve the business climate, saying forthcoming increases in charges for stormwater runoff could hurt some companies.

He says the change should be imposed in a way that avoids large jumps in water bills.

"Of the things I think we should be in the forefront of, charging our businesses more to do business in the city is not one of them," he said.

O'Brien is a state representative popular with voters in his Northeast district, which is rich with the dyed-in-the-wool Republicans who tend to vote even in a low-turnout election like this one.

Some party leaders, however, still hold a grudge against him because he cut a deal with House Democrats in 2007 that made him speaker of the House for two years.

That does not deter O'Brien. If elected, he promises to bring the same energy to Council that he is known for in Harrisburg, where colleagues joke about how fast - and how much - he talks.

Fellow legislators credit him with anticrime measures, including the state's Megan's Law, and with getting funding for autistic children.

The primary merely sets the stage for the real battle: November's general election.

If he wins the primary, O'Brien could be formidable in November because he is popular with Democrats, Ceisler said.

Lazin, too, could tap into Democratic voters if he can make it past the primary, Ceisler said. Lazin, who heads the Equality Forum, a gay and lesbian civil-rights organization, has focused his campaign on the city's fiscal problems.

"We're on a collision course with bankruptcy, which would result in a significant reduction of services for all Philadelphians," Lazin said.

As a symbolic gesture, he said, he will not take a city pension or health-care benefits if elected to Council.

Joseph McColgan, who ran for Congress against former U.S. Rep. Robert Borski in 1990 and 1996, also promises to focus on pension reform and on luring more businesses to the city. He wants to lower the business-privilege tax and sell off properties owned by the city.

Money, a hospital administrator from the Northeast, also said he would focus on fiscal responsibility if elected to Council.

Michael Untermeyer, a local lawyer who most recently ran for district attorney, said he would get the city out of the bail business to improve chances of collecting an estimated $1 billion in unpaid bail.

"As a Republican, my focus is to be a fiscal watchdog," he said.

Steve Odabashian, a lawyer at Dechert L.L.P. and a political unknown, also said he would work on such issues as collecting bail money and improving accounting practices.

Odabashian is perhaps best known for his appearances as Eagles coach Andy Reid in Forman Mills commercials, but he said his alter ego would appear in Council only under certain circumstances.

"If we ever won the Super Bowl," he said.

Age: 58.

Occupation: State representative.

Education: Archbishop Ryan High School; bachelor's degree, La Salle College.

Website: www.dennyobrien.org

Age:

68

Occupation: At-large city councilman.

Education: Bishop McDevitt High School.

Website: None for campaign; for Council, see www.phila.gov/citycouncil/ FrankRizzoJr.html

Age: 67.

Occupation: Executive director of the Equality Forum, a gay and lesbian civil-rights organization.

Education: Bachelor's degree, Lebanon Valley College; law degree, Boston University.

Website: www.lazin forphiladelphia.com

Age: 57.

Occupation: President of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.

Education: Northeast High School; bachelor's degree, Pennsylvania State University.

Website: www.taubenbergerforphiladelphia.com/

Age: 48

Occupation: Principal, Philadelphia Private Wealth Management.

Education: Archbishop Ryan High School; bachelor's and master's degrees, Villanova University.

Website: http://vote mccolgan.com

Age:

51.

Occupation: Lawyer, Zarwin Baum.

Education: Central High School; bachelor's degree, Dickinson College; law degree, Rutgers University-Camden.

Website: www.davidoh.com

Age: 60.

Occupation: Lawyer.

Education: Riverdale Country School, Bronx, N.Y.; bachelor's degree, Sarah Lawrence College; law degree, Rutgers-Camden.

Website: www.untermeyer forcitycouncil2011.com

Age: 45.

Occupation: Hospital administrator, Abington Memorial Hospital.

Education: Bishop McDevitt High School; bachelor's degree, St. Joseph's University; master of business administration, Holy Family University.

Website: www.elmermoney.com/

Age: 41.

Occupation: Lawyer, Dechert L.L.P.; entertainer.

Education: Lower Merion High School; bachelor's degree, University of Virginia; law degree, Villanova.

Website: www.steve odabashian2011.com/EndText