Rendell to host lunch mayoral candidate Ken Trujillo

Former Mayor and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell will host a meet-and-greet for Democratic mayoral candidate Ken Trujillo on Wednesday, a day already bursting with events for two other unannounced candidates.

Trujillo will get a chance to make his pitch to some of Philadelphia's biggest political donors at noon at the Pyramid Club in Center City. That will be the same time that former District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham will formally announce her candidacy, and a few hours before State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams is to announce his.

The invitation-only lunch is described as "a 'get-to-know-you' gathering," not a fund-raiser.

Rendell is cohosting the event with real estate developers Walt D'Alessio and David Marshall.

"Of the entire field, the most intriguing person is someone who is not very well-known, particularly by our business community, Ken Trujillo," Rendell said in the invitation.

That's not necessarily an endorsement.

In an interview, Rendell said he had not decided whom he would support in the mayor's race, but believed Trujillo was "very well-qualified" and would be "an extraordinary mayor."

Rendell said the timing was a coincidence.

Since Trujillo's announcement in September, some business leaders have been working the fund-raising circuit for him.

Marshall, CEO of Amerimar Realty Co., said he has had two or three fund-raisers for Trujillo, whom he calls "extraordinarily well-qualified."

"We need a new approach to things. We need a business person, and he is a business person," Marshall said. "We need to bring new business to the city."

Trujillo, a white-collar defense lawyer at the Schnader law firm, owns a Spanish-language radio station and website. He served as city solicitor under Mayor John F. Street in 2000 and 2001, and before that as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia. Trujillo lives in Chestnut Hill with his wife and teenage daughter.