Abandoned-vehicle plans offered _Katz and Street proposed ways to speed their removal. The issue is an important one in many neighborhoods.
A city that frees its candidates from the money chase
Extensive background, a poll and a forum.

The two candidates said that they were in favor of the idea, which is being pushed by Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth, the organization that sponsored the

candidates forum at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Republican Katz and Democrat Street each spoke separately before the crowd of about 130. Several candidates for City Council also addressed the forum.

Katz spent a considerable amount of his time at the podium trying to deflect apparent hostility in the audience to his support for school vouchers. The GOP candidate sought to present vouchers as a lever to extract more money from Gov. Ridge, who favors school vouchers and who has been hostile to the city school district's requests for more state funding.

"The only place we can go is Harrisburg," Katz said.

He said that "vouchers are just another test of an alternative way to help keep folks in the city."

"It's time to recognize that all of the children of Philadelphia, the children who attend public schools and parochial schools and private schools, are our kids," Katz said.

Katz also criticized Street, who has said that one solution to the school district's money woes is to wring more funds out of Harrisburg. That tactic failed when Mayor Rendell tried it, Katz said.

"I'm not interested in going to Harrisburg and playing more brinksmanship, as my opponent has suggested that's the way to play the game," said the Republican candidate.

Street, a former City Council president with a reputation for mastering the details of government, appeared unfamiliar with his own children and youth proposals as he addressed the candidate forum.

"I have a whole proposal with all kinds of details," said Street, who had some trouble enumerating those details. However, he assured the audience that "all of what I have here is stuff that you gave me."

Street said his first year in office will be the "Year of the Child." He said his administration will begin programs in education, child care and parenting.

Street also used the forum to retool his standard campaign charge about Katz's wage tax cut proposal for the children's advocate crowd. Katz has proposed cutting the wage tax from 4.61 percent to 4 percent by 2004, a step that Street says is too drastic.

The former City Council president said that "we can't take care of the children of our society with good intentions. We have to be willing to spend some money."

Street told the group that if Katz puts his tax plan into effect, there won't being any money to spend on new programs for children.

Street broke with some Council candidates at the forum who told the assembled child advocates that some of the profits the Phillies and the Eagles are expected to obtain from the new stadiums - which the city and the state are helping to pay for - should be put into a special fund to finance child-oriented programs.

"I don't like the idea," the Democratic candidate said.

Street said he did not want funding for child programs dependent on whether the stadiums succeeded or not. He said his new programs for children and youth would come from the general fund budget.

"I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to make sure that if there are stadiums we get a good deal," Street added. "Of course, we should get a good deal."

Councilman Angel Ortiz, a Democrat running for reelection, said that there are some Central American countries that have lower infant mortality rates than sections of North Philadelphia and Kensington.

"Black and Latino kids are dying before they reach the age of 1," Ortiz said.

He said the sports teams and the developers should be required to give some of their profits to children's funds.

"Some of that money should go for kids," Ortiz said.

Councilman Michael Nutter, a Democrat also seeking reelection, said that while the Rendell administration had been right during Rendell's first term to focus on the city's fiscal problems, the administration had "missed out" by not emphasizing children and youth issues in Rendell's second term.

Nutter also said he opposed school vouchers, although he went to Catholic schools for 12 years.

"It's one of the things that really drives the Archdiocese crazy," Nutter told the appreciative audience.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia is one of the major backers of Gov. Ridge's school voucher plan.

"What I say to them," Nutter said, "is that I was Jesuit-trained at St. Joseph's Prep and they should just understand it."