Rallying the troops, but without the troops

Funny thing happened on the way to Mayor Nutter's City Hall rally Thursday: Not a single City Council member decided to join him.

In fact, just one other elected official was in sight as the mayor painted a deadly grim picture of the widespread layoffs and service cuts that would occur if the General Assembly does not agree to raise the city sales tax and delay city pension payments for two years.

That official was State Sen. Anthony Williams of West Philadelphia, who stood to Nutter's right on stage as the mayor talked about 3,000 city jobs that could be lost.

"I happened to be downtown at a meeting, and I told the mayor, if you want me to come by, I'll come by," Williams said.

Moments before, the mayor had been sitting in his Cabinet room, briefing eight Council members and leaders on what has come to be known as Plan C, and what was in store in the weeks ahead.

"He didn't say come or don't come to the rally," said Anthony Radwanski, spokesman for Council President Anna C. Verna. But none of the Council members decided to brave the day's heat. Instead, they discussed Council business while the rally got under way in the courtyard below, Radwanski said.

"Everyone was invited. I don't think you should read anything into it," Nutter said when asked about the dearth of elected officials. "It's been made clear in a variety of ways that Council and the mayor are in this together."

Asked about their absence, some Council members said they didn't learn about the late-scheduled rally until reading about it in the newspapers or seeing a news release from the Mayor's Office the day before.

"I don't know if I was invited," Councilman Brian O'Neill said. "But it was hard to get there while I was driving up to Maine."

His prescheduled vacation plans also precluded him from attending Thursday's Council gathering. Said O'Neill: "Sounds like there may be more than just myself who didn't get an invite."

- Marcia Gelbart

Mayor Nutter has made much of his budget cuts in recent weeks, telling state lawmakers that Philadelphia has already slashed spending and thus needs to increase the sales tax and restructure pension funding to get through the budget crisis.

And all that is true, as far as it goes.

But what Nutter has not done is lay off workers at anything close to the pace of his counterparts in New York, Phoenix, Chicago, and other cities where hundreds of municipal employees have been sent packing.

Indeed, this year Philadelphia has laid off only five employees.

That's right: Five.

Now, the city has eliminated 250 positions, saving $12.5 million on the books. But 197 of those spots were already vacant, 40 more workers were moved into other positions in city government, and eight employees chose to retire rather than be laid off. Still, the total is clearly tiny relative to the mass layoffs in many other big cities.

It could be a short-term respite.

If Nutter does not get state approval for key elements of his budget, or if he fails to win concessions in the next round of union contracts, he may have no choice but to get rid of hundreds or even thousands of employees.

The layoffs in either case would certainly top five.

- Patrick Kerkstra

Four weeks after being fired by Mayor Nutter, Michael Bell, who led Philadelphia's minority business office, decided to speak out publicly.

In an interview published in Friday's Philadelphia Tribune, Bell said he was a scapegoat whose firing stemmed from personality clashes with his boss, Commerce Department deputy Kevin Dow, more than anything else. He said he had a hard time getting the mayor's attention for such matters as the presentation of a plan for the department Bell led - the newly formed Office of Economic Opportunity, which replaced the Minority Business Enterprise Council.

"I'm a mayoral appointee and I can't call and get 10 minutes with the mayor? Then why was I in the position?" Bell told the Tribune.

Nutter's spokesman, Doug Oliver, had another explanation for Bell's firing. "There wasn't as much progress made in his portfolio as we would have liked," Oliver told The Inquirer at the time. "Given the importance of increasing minority-business participation and ensuring that economic opportunity is available to all, now was the appropriate time to make the change."

Bell's comments were being digested Friday morning by Nutter's chief of staff, Clay Armbrister, Managing Director Camille Barnett, and City Solicitor Shelley Smith, who were together for a meeting of the city's Administrative Board. Nutter, who was also at that meeting, was seen glancing at the story.

But in an interview afterward, he said he had not yet read it and would have no comment. "It's a personnel matter," Nutter said.

- Marcia Gelbart