September 17, 1999

No issue has generated greater interest, or sparked greater controversy, than the future of the Philadelphia school system. It is a sad reality that Philadelphia's schools have failed many of our children. It is the primary reason why, since 1992, 8.5% of the City's population has packed up and left.

The "choice frameworks" on education developed by citizens participating in the Citizen Voices project present sharply disparate approaches for turning the system around. Yet, in my view, the solution defies easy categorization. For there are benefits inherent in each approach that merit support.

A key step in both "Sharpening the Mission" and "Supporting the System" is placing the school system more clearly under the direction of the Mayor. This is a step I strongly favor and, to this end, I have endorsed the City Charter reforms that will be presented to the voters on the November ballot. These reforms, which include allowing the Mayor to appoint School Board members with terms coterminous with that of the Mayor, will give to me the authority and responsibility to make the schools work better. I will gladly accept the public accountability to ensure better performance that goes along with this greater authority.

My willingness to accept responsibility for the operation and performance of the public school system is the most fundamental part of my platform on education. Education will be a top priority for me and I expect to spend significant time every day personally working on public school issues. I will be, in effect, the Chief Executive Officer of the public school system. I will make it run more like a business so that we can operate efficiently, find ways to save money and cut down on a bureaucracy where 27,000 people are paid to come to work but only 12,000 are classroom teachers.

I do not share the fear expressed by some that giving direct accountability to the Mayor will politicize education, leading to more patronage, nepotism and bad policy. To the contrary, once I am given direct responsibility for the schools, the onus will be on me to ensure a system that is rid of patronage and nepotism. Once I am able to dispel the lingering perception that the schools are fiscally mismanaged – which I intend to do by enhancing and reinforcing the professionalism of the system's business operations – management and finance should cease to be the political issues they now are.

I concur with Citizen Voices participants that sharpening the mission of the schools requires setting rigorous standards for student performance. I have every intention of meeting that expectation. One of my proudest accomplishments as a former member of the Philadelphia School Board was advancing a proposal that required students to meet minimum academic achievement standards in order to participate in sports or other extra-curricular activities. This was a controversial, but necessary proposal, but we had to put academics first.

We must also stop the practice of social promotion. Approximately 45% of children in Philadelphia's public schools are not reading at grade level by fourth grade. If this continues, how can we expect our 18-year-olds to graduate from 12^th grade with the skills to take them into good jobs, college or other post-secondary schools or into the military?

Putting academics first also means putting the best possible educators in the classroom. We can do this by demonstrating a commitment to teacher training, a comprehensive curriculum of core knowledge to guide and assist teachers, recruitment of qualified professionals to teaching positions and better salaries. I am also open to reconsidering the residency requirements as they pertain to how much time a new teacher has to move into the city, in order to attract high quality teachers who now live in the suburbs.

We won't get very far setting standards for academic achievement if we don't first set standards for behavior. First, our schools must be safe. I support the establishment of effective alternative schools for violent and chronically disruptive students, so we can get these kids out of regular classrooms and get them the help they need. Second, our teachers can't teach if their time is continually taken up by unruly and disrespectful students. We must have a clear, consistent and swiftly enforced code of conduct that tells students and parents what we expect of them as well as what behavior we will not tolerate. We should consider allowing educators and parents in individual schools experiment with school uniforms to encourage a sense of order and discipline. Students should be taught how to treat each other and teachers in a respectful manner.

We must also work to reduce class size, particularly in grades K-3, and, at the same time we must work to remedy the causes of children falling behind. A study by the Mayor's Children and Families Cabinet shows that a lack of pre-school learning experience is one cause of children being unready to advance from first to second grade. Problems compound from that point forward. We need more and better pre-school programs, we need intervention for better health care and nutrition for pre-schoolers and we need more remedial education. The more we do in the early years, the better the pay-off in later years.

This city has tremendous resources to draw upon to improve our schools. The frayed school-community connection that Citizen Voices participants observed is not beyond repair. Many Philadelphians are ready and willing to serve as mentors to help students succeed and to understand the benefits of a good education. Others are available to tutor students who need some extra help. And we must continue to expand after-school programs and to fully utilize schools and community recreation centers to give young people an alternative to being out on the street.

Finally, we cannot overlook the most obvious resource: parents. There has been a lot of talk about holding teachers accountable for the success of their students. But before we are ready to hold teachers accountable, parents must do their part. Students are in the care of their teachers for only 6-7 hours a day; the remaining hours are spent at home. It is the responsibility of parents to get their children to school on time, every day, with homework done and without weapons. All the research shows that there is a direct correlation between parental involvement and student achievement.

One way to ensure this will happen is to empower principals and teachers so they can more effectively work with parents and the community to decide what is best in their own buildings. We must recruit and promote good leaders who will take charge, inspire their faculty and motivate their students. (Think about John Timoney's effect on the Police Department and recognize we need to find a Timoney for every school).

Another correlation is often made between level of funding and pupil performance. While there is an important connection, dollars are not the only thing that matter to student achievement. Because of the extraordinary pressures on Philadelphia's tax base to fund county and municipal services, we have been unable to use the property tax to fund education to the same extent as suburban school districts. As a result, Philadelphia consistently looks to Harrisburg to make up the gap. This has become an excuse for not doing more with what we have and for not finding ways to make the schools more entrepreneurial.

I will be an aggressive advocate to get our school district the funding it needs to teach our kids and I am willing to risk political capital to do so. But, as we have seen time and time again, our legitimate funding requests will be denied unless and until we can convince the legislature that we have made tremendous strides in fixing mismanagement, waste and inefficiency. We must show that we can better manage what we have. And I believe that the Mayor and School Board can make this happen – we don't need PICA to do it for us. However, there is one type of relief I will seek from the state: to lift all of the unnecessary or redundant regulations among the 449 state mandates that limit our creativity and entrepreneurial approach to solving school issues.

All of the above should make clear that "scrapping the system" altogether is not an approach I endorse.

However, this does not mean that parents should not be given more choices. Even as we fight to improve the public schools, I strongly support trying many competitive educational service delivery mechanisms such as tuition vouchers, educational scholarships for low and middle income students, tuition tax credits and expansion of the charter schools. I believe that such approaches make sense. Philadelphians who can afford private schools or who can afford to move outside of the city already have a choice. Expanded opportunity and competition will have positive effects on the public school system. My concern will be that our kids obtain the education they need to lead successful lives no matter which school they attend. To the extent that our efforts to upgrade, strengthen and reform our schools enhance the image and performance of the system, I will fight for additional state financial support. I believe I can be a force to build a coalition that will generate votes for funds with votes for school choice.

In short, my goal is to make the Philadelphia public school system the best choice for families. No goal will have a higher priority for my Administration.

We owe Mayor Rendell our thanks for bringing the city back from the edge of bankruptcy and for giving us hope. But in the last two decades, Philadelphia's population continues to decline. The City lost over 6% of its residents between 1980 and 1990, and about 9% of our residents between 1990 and 1998. And we continue to lose jobs as businesses close or move out. The City lost 4.5% of its jobs from 1980 to 1990, and lost 10% of its jobs in the 1990s. Yet the number workers on the city payroll has risen in the last few years to 28,000 and the City budget continues to grow.

Besides addressing the problems of crime and under performing schools, Philadelphia must reduce its cost of living and doing business if the City to survive. Many of the city's problems are caused by forces outside the city limits -- the changing global economy and government policies that support suburban sprawl, to name two. However a large number of our problems are due to poor management and leadership on our part, and poor choices we have made in the past. We can change that. We must focus on these problems with intelligent, realistic plans and approach them with a sense of urgency so we can halt the exodus of our population and jobs.

Taxes. Philadelphia residents and businesses pay some of the highest tax rates in the nation to pay for one of the costliest governments in the nation. We continue to lose businesses and residents to the lower cost suburbs surrounding Philadelphia. Many studies over the years have demonstrated the relationship between Philadelphia's high taxes with its loss of jobs and population.

In a 1998 analysis, economist Robert P. Inman and policy analyst Gary W. Ritter of the University of Pennsylvania compared Philadelphia's taxes on businesses and residents with taxes imposed on both groups in the suburbs. They compared taxes on a median income household in the Philadelphia region that earns $40,000 a year and lives in a $120,000 house. A family like that living in Philadelphia would pay 14.95% of its income to local taxes, but a suburban family, living and working in the suburbs would pay only 8.54% to 11.21%.

The two economists compared taxes that would be paid by a representative small business and found that the total burden of direct businesses taxes in Philadelphia for such a firm would be $53,834 or 16.67% of the firm's income. In the suburbs, taxes for this same business would range from 12.76% to 13.82%. By relocating to the suburbs, that typical small business could save, on average each year 3.58% of its before-tax net profit. (Note that this analysis does not take into account the wage tax differential this firm must pay to its employees).

The Five Year Plans that have been written and implemented over the past eight years have adequately addressed the city's need for balanced budgets and fiscal integrity. However, they have not adequately addressed the city's pressing need to reduce spending, so we can significantly lower taxes.

How can the City reduce taxes without sacrificing vital services? Outsiders have urged the City to "inflict pain" or decide which "ox to gore." City officials regularly promise to "trim the fat" or get rid of "waste, fraud and abuse." Historically, the City government has reduced spending only when faced with a budget crisis. For decades, the traditional methods used include slashing services, hiring freezes, layoffs, revenue or borrowing gimmicks, or wholesale program elimination. These actions focus on inputs instead of end-results and lose sight of the City government's reason for being. And most are short-term, one time fixes that do nothing to change a fundamentally flawed system.

I believe that a more effective way to reduce spending while maintaining good city services is to use universally effective management tools that are common to the private sector like strategic planning, performance based budgeting, cost accounting, internal personnel reform, labor-management cooperation and managed competition. Our city managers must think out of the box and determine the best mix of "men, machines, materials and methods" for city services. In order to make significant and permanent change, the city needs to rethink its essential goals and bring about fundamental change in the way we operate. Making these changes can transform the "corporate culture" of a large organizations like the City of Philadelphia and enlist all City workers in the drive to improve service delivery while constantly lowering costs.

Reducing Regulation. Besides high taxes, there is a growing realization that regulation comes with significant costs along with its purported benefits. The direct costs of over-regulation, whether intended or not, are:

1. Less competition – someone who is not licensed cannot compete.
2. Less business activity – regulation, permitting and licensing fees raise the costs of doing business. Businesses and individuals "vote with their feet" to where the climate is more suitable. We have seen this over the last two decades. Philadelphia cannot afford anything less than a positive business climate.
3. Encourages non-compliance with all regulations – a resident spending just several hundred dollars for lumber to build a small deck has a powerful incentive to avoid paying $80 and spending several unproductive hours getting a permit.
4. Obstructing new technologies -- regulations which focus on inputs (the type of material that can be used), hinder advances in technology and protect those who benefit from the status quo.

As Mayor, I will assemble a diverse group of knowledgeable and thoughtful citizens to work to review our regulations to eliminate the ones we don't need, and simplify the ones that we should keep. Many licenses, permits and fees should be for more than one year when it makes sense so that our citizens (and city agencies) aren't burdened with unnecessary paperwork and expense. Regulations should have sunset provisions, where they expire after a period of 5 or 10 years when they can be reviewed and reauthorized. A cost/benefit analysis must be performed for any new and existing licenses, permits and fees to determine what exactly are benefits to city and what direct and indirect costs would be incurred by those paying license, permits and fees.

After we have determined which regulations can be eliminated or simplified, we should reengineer the number of approvals and uncoordinated and lengthy processes we force developers, contractors, business owners and individuals to go through. By reviewing and eliminating current and future unnecessary regulations, our city government can lift a burden from businesses and residents, relieve a nuisance. And it can free up the resources of L&I and other agencies to concentrate on matters that truly affect the public safety.

In 1985 there were 1,427 new businesses started in Philadelphia. In 1995, that number had fallen to 775. We are acutely aware of the number of Philadelphia companies that have closed, moved or been acquired resulting loss of local jobs. The decline in the city's job base must be reversed in order for Philadelphia to be competitive in the future. The steady loss of businesses from Philadelphia has contributed to the loss of population and further deterioration of our neighborhoods and our tax base. Job creation, company retention and business attraction will be my highest priority since it is the foundation for our future economic prosperity. We must have lower wage and business taxes in order for existing companies to grow as well as to attract new business to our city.

In the last several years, we have done a great job of promoting Philadelphia to tourists and conventioneers and I intend to work for the continued expansion of the tourism industry here. While I applaud this effort and the jobs that have been created from it, the Katz administration will concentrate its efforts on promoting the competitive advantages of Philadelphia to key businesses that can benefit from locating in the Mid-Atlantic region and more specifically, in Philadelphia. In order to grow our economic base, the City must prioritize strengthening professional and financial services, data intensive services, information technology and electronic commerce, precision manufacturing, maritime and port industries, and the health services and biotechnology industries with a strategic, targeted and reality grounded approach to expansion. Our location, history, quality of life, major colleges and universities and large, available labor pool must be emphasized in promoting Philadelphia as "open for business."

We will also concentrate our efforts on retaining the employers that are here by meeting with them to understand their business, offer our assistance and insure that any concerns they have or problems they encounter will be addressed. This is particularly important to small businesses and neighborhood-based companies that operate on small profit margins and do not have the time to work through massive bureaucratic obstacles. As Mayor, I will engage our hands-on business partners and non-profit organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, Pennsylvania Economy League, the colleges and universities, and workforce development agencies to work with me to develop jobs for Philadelphia residents.

My economic development plan will focus on neighborhoods with the goal of stopping population loss and the resulting dis-investment. We will drastically reduce red tape that prevents neighborhood commercial strips from succeeding and aggressively pursue small projects with the same energy used to develop the Avenue of the Arts and Penn's Landing. Our use of economic development tools such as tax increment financing, HUD 108 subordinate loans, empowerment and enterprise zones and Keystone Opportunity Zones will be made more accessible to neighborhood based small businesses. I intend to focus the attention of our development agencies such as PIDC and the Redevelopment Authority on small business and neighborhood commercial corridors with the same level of attention given to major Center City projects.

Depressed property values in many parts of our commercial and industrial areas do not encourage businesses to invest in their older buildings. When faced with the choice of making capital improvements or moving, the choice is often made to move to a new location and often that location is in a neighboring county with lower taxes, less costly land and fewer regulatory hurdles. I will work aggressively to stop this abandonment and resulting loss of jobs by redirecting existing resources to these areas. While the city cannot directly affect global market forces, it can help to create a physical atmosphere conducive to development and investment by eliminating graffiti, improving and replacing street and road signs, improve street lighting, keeping sidewalks, streets and vacant lots clean and promoting the use of abandoned and underutilized commercial and industrial sites. The Katz Administration will insure that these basic city services will be delivered by the appropriate city agencies.

As Mayor, I will aggressively pursue new businesses and work aggressively to insure that existing businesses stay and expand. To achieve this, I intend to create a customer-friendly city where citizens as well as businesses can come to receive prompt assistance and rapid response to their questions. It will not be acceptable in the Katz administration to hear from a business owner that he or she was not able to locate in the city because they tried but it just took too long and cost too much to work through the regulatory process. Regulations must be simple, fair and enforceable, and their costs must not outweigh their benefits. I pledge to work with City Council, our city managers, businesses and residents to overhaul all our regulations so business and citizens can build our city back again.

Transportation and child care are two critical issues for working families in Philadelphia. Our mass transit system is critical to getting Philadelphians to their jobs. We will call upon our transportation partners, including SEPTA, AMTRAK and the commercial rail carriers to maintain their physical investments, provide safe environments and improve shared assets such as bridges and transit stations. SEPTA has made a number of changes in routes to meet the needs of their riders, but should constantly reevaluate routes and make improvements to meet the changing needs of riders and businesses. We will work in partnership with our transportation providers to insure that the city is assisting them in any way we can to make the provision of services to riders a top priority.

I understand how important affordable child care is to working families and single parents in Philadelphia. As Mayor, one of my top priorities will be to expand the child care market by reducing red-tape and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of state subsidies. We need to reduces barriers to entry by reviewing license, zoning and fee requirements and to find safe and affordable ways to make it easier to start small child care businesses in quality facilities. This task can only be done with the safety of our children as the foremost requirement. Child care providers who are forced underground are dangerous for our children, drain city resources and will not be tolerated in the Katz Administration.

Philadelphia's labor force is large and in this period of national low unemployment and economic expansion, having an available and trained workforce is a key advantage for employers. However, our workers must have the education, flexible skills and training resources available to them to fill the jobs required by companies today and in the next Century. We must reorganize our educational system to provide focused job training that will meet the needs of Philadelphia companies. Despite the large number of colleges and universities in Philadelphia, we are falling behind in the number of technological degrees awarded and training programs available. Philadelphia does not have one dominant industry that defines it in the way that Detroit is defined by the auto industry or San Francisco by computers. Without a clear demand for certain technical training, the educational system has been slow to respond to demand for programs.

Philadelphia continues to have many heavy manufacturing and industrial companies. Many of these companies have shifted to producing more sophisticated products requiring workers with advanced technical skills. As Mayor, I will work with our employers and training providers to close the gap between the employers immediate needs for workers and the employees need to gain the skills necessary to secure these jobs. The PhAME (Philadelphia Accelerated Manufacturing Education) program that focuses on machinist training and Certified Manufacturing Technology was initiated by the Crown Cork & Seal Company in concert with the City of Philadelphia and is an example of the Customized Job Training programs that must be developed and expanded by training providers. We intend to develop a targeted strategy that involves our business partners and training providers in upgrading the skills of workers, providing higher skilled workers to employers and removing barriers to work.

The Community College of Philadelphia, with 40,000 full and part-time students receives $19 million from the City. In the City Controller's recent study, there was no indication of the mission, performance or accomplishments of the College. As Mayor, I will work closely with the College leadership to develop a system for turning out higher skilled workers. A combination of city and private sector work force training support can be used to develop important new programs at the Community College that respond directly to the city's strategic industries.

Throughout the 1990's, the city economic development strategy ignored the new engines of economic growth that are re-shaping the way we live and work. We paid little attention to the new technologies driven by knowledge-based entrepreneurship, the need to have a skilled 21st Century work force and the creative synergy's of computer applications to an ever widening array of manufacturing processes, financial services, design and information processing.

Entrepreneurs are flourishing throughout the United States with the emergence of computers, information technology, telecommunications and the internet as main drivers of the new economy. The amount of venture capital invested in companies grows larger each year. There are two premier venture capital firms located in suburban Philadelphia which are in the forefront of this new era of wealth creation. The Delaware Valley Community Reinvestment Fund, a community development financial institution located in Center City, uses creative venture financing to revitalize low and moderate income neighborhoods. As Mayor, I will call upon the DVCRF and the private venture firms to work in partnership with me to develop non-governmental and non-traditional financing sources for business development, expansion and job creation.

The Philadelphia envisioned by the Katz Administration is a city that works and is open for business. Economic growth means better jobs for residents. Job creation and retention will be a top priority.

The most important overarching issue for neighborhood revitalization is cost efficient and quality public services, especially involving crime and education.

Earlier in this document, I outlined my approaches to reducing crime and turning around the public school system and creating more jobs. I strongly believe that my success in each of these areas will be critical to improving the "quality of life" in our neighborhoods. When families can feel safe in their homes and on the streets, and can trust that their children are receiving a good education, there will be little reason to move away. And our neighborhoods will once again be an attractive option for families looking for a new place to live.

Yet reducing crime and reforming the schools cannot along revive our neighborhoods. There are other underlying priority issues, many of which have been identified by Citizen Voices participants, that must be addressed. And I believe we can attack them simultaneously on several fronts.

One priority is what was described as "tending to the city's skin," or improving the environment. The City Office of Housing and Community Development (OHCD) has estimated that there are at least 27,000 vacant housing units located in Philadelphia's neighborhoods. The City Planning Commission reports an inventory of over 15,000 vacant lots. These eyesores are not only aesthetically distressing, but they cause individual streets and the surrounding neighborhood to lose market value quickly. This cannot continue.

In order to effectively deal with neighborhood redevelopment and housing issues, we must first conduct a citywide survey of abandoned property. I have called upon Mayor Rendell to complete such a survey this year so that I can hit the ground running to begin the process of revitalization. We must totally revamp the inefficient and costly system for acquiring and disposing of vacant property. By simplifying procedures, we will enable those properties to move more swiftly into the hands of people who will rehabilitate or otherwise make productive use of them.

Stabilizing neighborhoods also requires more effective policies relating to affordable and low income housing. We need to make sense of the uncoordinated maze of eleven different housing programs and eight different agencies with overlapping responsibilities and many redundant functions.

We also need to assess these housing programs by using performance measures and cost/benefit analyses so that we can change or eliminate programs that are ineffective and draining resources. State and federally funded programs must be better coordinated to ensure that Philadelphia is making the very best use of the available resources. We need to reorganize, reengineer and reduce the bureaucracy which make it difficult to move housing and neighborhood commercial developments through the pipeline on time and on budget.

Improvements to our streets are also important to neighborhood revitalization. We must improve our sidewalks, provide additional lighting and better signage. Well-kept blocks, many of which have been transformed through partnerships among community groups, store owners and City government, go a long way to helping residents feel proud about their surroundings. As Citizen Voices participants noted, "civic spirit grows out of a clean environment, not the other way around."

At the same time as we work to improve the environment, the city must also increase job opportunities. Our focus on neighborhoods must be on private business growth and investment as a means to stimulate job creation. We must use agencies such as PIDC and the powerful incentives that are its disposal to retain and attract neighborhood based business. At the same time we are working to attract a mix of larger retailers, we must fight to preserve "mom-and-pop" businesses with loyal clientele that sometimes stretch back for generations. And we must provide the infrastructure and services -- from a more visible police presence to less bureaucratic licensing and permitting procedures, from well lit streets to attractive green space – that will allow businesses operating at the margins to survive.

Neighborhood economic development projects must be vigorously pursued with the same vision, energy and capital that has been used to revive Center City. This will be a priority of the Katz administration. We can then market the advantages of a workforce that can meet the job specifications and have the added incentive (to employer and employee) of being close to work. In addition, once we open more incentive to neighborhood employers, we can better discuss the reciprocal need for local hiring.

Community Development Corporations can make valuable contributions in other arenas. Along with Community Associations, CDCs are an essential part of efforts to plan and develop strategies and neighborhood service plans that fit the individual communities – strategies and plans that can work and be acceptable to the residents. We must remember that what is a problem in one neighborhood will not necessarily be a problem in another. I support strategies that work to give neighborhoods help with their top concerns first, while giving all neighborhoods their fair share of attention.

Once there are demonstrable gains in ridding neighborhoods of crime and blight, in improving the public schools, and in creating more job opportunities and stimulating economic development, it is inevitable that people will feel more invested in their communities. And when this happens, the exodus from city neighborhoods will cease and be replaced by more and more people looking to live, work and visit here..

Too many people have left Philadelphia because they are afraid to live or work here. The Katz Administration will make improving public safety a top priority. We cannot feel safe when crimes are not reported properly or when criminals are set free because of a prison cap. We cannot have confidence in judges who fight against the public's right to know their sentencing records. We cannot rest comfortably when far too many crimes go unpunished.

The level of coordination between and among the separate and independent parts of the criminal justice system is not sufficient to give us maximum effectiveness in preventing and fighting crime. Like other cities are doing, I will bring together the District Attorney, the leaders of the city's courts, and the Prison and Police Commissioners to plan strategy, increase efficiency, and better allocate resources. Putting aside concerns about getting credit for good results, I will establish regular and on-going contact with the State Attorney General, the Drug Enforcement Agency and other federal agencies to collaborate on crime fighting efforts.

Operation Sunrise, which has been in effect for just over a year, is a good example of how coordination can lead to results. While there is much more to be done, accomplishments of this initiative already include seizures of $14 million in drugs, removal of 1,424 abandoned automobiles and the clearing and sealing of 1,380 abandoned properties. Philadelphia Inquirer, 6/19/99.

In his short tenure as Philadelphia's Police Commissioner, John Timoney has made a tremendous impact in reversing the perception that the city is unsafe. Commissioner Timoney has already taken the first critical step in deterring crime with his insistence – for the first time in thirty years -- on the accurate reporting and counting of crime. Only with good information can police be more effectively deployed throughout the city and within each district. I support his efforts to get more police out on the street doing visibly police work rather than other work better left to citizens.

Commissioner Timoney has effected positive change not only in the police department's methods of operation, but also its mindset. He has challenged the police brass to think innovatively, and has rewarded them for doing so. With help from the FOP, we will banish the phrase "the way we always have" and find new ways to improve police effectiveness. I will ask Commissioner Timoney to stay with the Katz Administration. We need his leadership.

Efforts within the Police Department to restructure how manpower and vehicles are deployed in responding to 911 calls must continue. As Citizen Voices participants suggested, the current strain on the 911 emergency system must be curbed by setting up a non-emergency phone number and training the public how to use it.

The police department can and must be improved through structural reforms in recruitment and training. Restrictions that keep us from recruiting people ready to leave the military must be removed. We must also provide clear career path opportunities for police officers to keep morale high and allow for advancement through the ranks.

Most law enforcement officials do an excellent job, and are dedicated and hard working, often at the risk of their personal safety. Yet it is true, as Citizen Voices participants noted, that in some of our neighborhoods the police are not viewed as allies. As we make further advances in improving police department operations, this perception will be reversed. All of us share with the police a common interest of ridding our neighborhoods of crime, and there are many opportunities – such as through town watch programs – for community residents and the police to work together more effectively.

My commitment to getting tougher on crime requires that we work harder to dismantle criminal enterprises, not just arrest, prosecute and incarcerate criminals. We must shut down drug dealers, find and arrest the fences, and dismantle the chop shops. We must put an immediate halt to the City's resale of police department weapons. The $21,000 the City received from selling 195 used guns in May 1997 would be small compensation if even one child were the victim of gun violence.

We must have zero tolerance for crimes such as prostitution, illegal dumping, graffiti and other acts that contribute to neighborhood deterioration and often lead to more serious offenses. These quality of life offenses should not be tolerated as "just part of living in the city." We must consider establishing Community Courts in our neighborhoods to deal effectively with these crimes and require offenders to pay back the community they have harmed and rebuild their lives.

The City and the courts must work together to reduce the time from arrest to trial and sentencing so that more of our existing jail cells are available for convicted criminals. We need judges who follow the guidelines and sentence prisoners to state time instead of sending them to Philadelphia prisons where they are released because of overcrowding.

Making Philadelphia safer does not mean ignoring the root causes of crime. All too often, people turn to crime because they feel their lives are hopeless. My leadership in improving the schools, and in creating more and better job opportunities, will give would-be criminals more reason to be hopeful about their future. Expanded after-school programs and fuller utilization of schools and community recreation centers will help keep children off the street.

In Boston, a new program joined police officers with probation officers to target youths who were violating probation. This program reduced youth related crime, homicides and truancy dramatically. I will encourage the Police Department to work with the school system and others to develop similarly progressive programs here.