Ken Trujillo to enter Philadelphia mayor's race

Former City Solicitor Ken Trujillo is poised to enter the 2015 race for mayor Wednesday morning at a news conference he has scheduled in front of Philadelphia School District headquarters.

He will be the second Democratic candidate to officially join the race, following Terry Gillen, former director of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, who announced her intention two weeks ago.

Trujillo would be the first Latino to run for Philadelphia's top elective post.

In a brief interview Tuesday, Trujillo said he was running to ensure that Philadelphia's young people have the same opportunities he enjoyed as he rose from being a child from a disadvantaged background to a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and then a partner at Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis.

"I really love Philadelphia," said Trujillo, an evangelical minister's son who grew up in Southwest Colorado and came to Philadelphia to attend law school. "I came here with nothing, and Philadelphia has given my family and me opportunities to do things I never thought possible. I'm running because if we don't address some fundamental, profoundly difficult issues we have right now, kids growing up in Philadelphia won't have the opportunities they deserve."

Trujillo, 54, said he his father drove a bus weekdays while serving as a minister on weekends.

"I grew up on food stamps, with school lunch programs," he said. "We had very modest means."

Trujillo is a highly regarded white-collar defense lawyer who served as city solicitor in 2000 and 2001 and before that as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia. He lives in Chestnut Hill with his wife and teenage daughter.

Over the last year, he has begun building a formidable campaign team. To guide his campaign, he hired Bill Hyers and Jessie Bradley from Hilltop Public Solutions, a national political consulting firm. Hyers was the architect of Bill de Blasio's successful 2013 campaign for New York City mayor.

While he and Gillen are the only announced Democratic candidates as of Wednesday, the race to succeed Mayor Nutter could be crowded. Other possible candidates include State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, City Council President Darrell L. Clarke, Councilman James Kenney, City Controller Alan Butkovitz, three-time GOP mayoral candidate Sam Katz, former Councilman Frank Rizzo, and former District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham.