For Democrat John Street, it marked the start of a new assault on his GOP rival Sam Katz, charging that his plan to lower the city wage tax to 4 percent or less by 2003 would endanger city services, wreck its bond rating and "be a disaster for us."

For Katz, it was a victory of sorts as Street finally conceded that he will re-appoint popular Police Commissioner John Timoney -- a position that Katz has been pushing for months but that Street had stayed away from until now, disappointing some voters.

For Philadelphians, it was a first chance to see the two major-party candidates vying to replace Mayor Rendell in January going toe-to-toe -- and several said Saturday they were impressed with their knowledgable and at times impassioned give-and-take on attracting jobs, cutting taxes and paying for schools.

"I still don't know who I'm going to vote for," said Sui San Mui, a 47-year-old Center City architect and Democrat who said that her support "ping-ponged" during a 90-minute debate held Saturday by the Inquirer Citizen Voices project at the Anneberg Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

Mui said, "Katz sounded rational about so many issues." Another woman discussing the debate with her -- who didn't want to give her name -- agreed, but she and a couple of others said they shared Street's concerns about cutting taxes too far.

"Are services going to suffer?" the second woman asked.

Street evidently believes that his position on the city wage tax -- that anything more than small, gradual cuts over the next four years would cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars and damage its efforts to fight crime -- is the popular one.

Sources in both camps said they expect Street to make his campaign theme of the coming week attacks on Katz' wage-tax ideas, just as the former City Council chief spent much of last week bashing his Republican rival on school vouchers.

This week, sources said, City Controller Jonathan Saidel is expected to officially endorse Street and to criticize Katz's position on the wage tax.

Privately, Katz aides said that any comments from Saidel would be ironic, since the Democratic controller was one of the most enthusiastic backers of Street's primary foe Marty Weinberg, who wanted to reduce the wage tax below 4 percent.

High taxes, Katz said in the debate, "have made an unfriendly city for jobs." Talking with reporters, he stressed afterwards that new approaches are needed for the city to become more competitive with the suburbs and elsewhere.

Most revealing, perhaps, about the weekend's two debates -- the other, sponsored by the Philadelphia NAACP, was taped for TV Saturday morning and aired yesterday afternoon on Channel 6 -- were the things that didn't happen.

No personal attacks and not much talk about character. Street and Katz have stuck to their promises to remain focused on the issues.

There were nervous chuckles in the crowd at Penn, where voters asked questions of both candidates, when a woman alluded to a concern of many -- after seven years of the boisterous and popular Rendell -- asking Street if he and Katz lacked "the charisma, warmth and creativity necessary" to lure jobs.

"Sam, we're being put down together!" Street exclaimed in mock umbrage, although his long-winded answer about his ability to work with suburban officials on SEPTA issues and on the city's fiscal-control board, PICA, seemed to do little to address the woman's worries.

No appeals to party. With Democrats holding a sizable 4-1 registration edge in Philadelphia, much of the early political appeals have been aimed at the so-called "swing Democrats," liberals who live in places like Center City and Chestnut Hill.

But Street surprised some observers by never once uttering the word "Republican" to refer to Katz, while Katz did not make much of his recent endorsement by prominent Democrats John White Jr. and Happy Fernandez.

No major differences on the issues. That was clearly underscored in the major news of the day Saturday, when Street declared in the NAACP televised debate, after weeks of saying that no one was guaranteed a job in a Street administration, that he would in fact reappoint Timoney, the popular New Yorker seen as an innovator in fighting crime.

The verbal heat over the wage tax masked the fact that the difference between the two candidates isn't as great as their rhetoric suggests. Street has said he supports proposals by the Rendell administration that would reduce the levy on city residents to 4.45 percent by the time of the next mayoral election in 2003, while Katz says he'd like to get it down to 4 percent.

For a Philadelphian making just over $40,000 a year, that's a weekly paycheck difference of about $3.50.

Consider the debate over vouchers, government payments to parents who elect to send their children to private or parochial schools, which has dominated much of the first weeks of the fall campaign. Street calls the idea "radical" and says it could take money away from public schools.

Saturday's debates gave Katz an opportunity to defend his support of vouchers, and he did so calmly but forcefully.

"John, you're trying to scare people," Katz said, and he noted that the Philadelphia school system was already paying 13 charter schools and a Texas contractor to educate some children and that vouchers -- backed by Gov. Ridge and many GOP lawmakers in Harrisburg -- may be the only way to leverage more state money for schools.

Katz sought to turn the tables on Street by noting that his idea for getting more school monies -- giving PICA fiscal oversight of the troubled district -- has been roundly rejected in Harrisburg and that his ideas of budget brinkmanship will only guarantee an eventual state takeover of Philadelphia schools.