by Mark McDonald

Daily News Staff Writer

 Democratic mayoral candidate John Street sounded like a preacher yesterday, exhorting a coalition of 150 African-American ministers to help him energize their flocks for the coming election.

And he continued to step up his attack on Republican Sam Katz.

Street told the ministers that they were on a a mission "to fire up our voters and let them know they must vote like their lives depended upon it."

Speaking at the 1st District Plaza in West Philadelphia, Street said black voters need to be awakened.

"They have to understand that if they fail to vote in this election, it is offensive to their very heritage. If they fail to vote, they have made Martin Luther King's death be in vain."

Street said he wasn't making an appeal based on race. "I don't have to ask anybody to vote for me on anything but the strength of my qualifications and plans for the city," he said.

And as Street proceeded to discuss his 19 years on City Council and seven years as Council president, he savaged opponent Katz as a man with little background for the job.

"You have another candidate who has zero experience. None. Never held a public office," Street said of Katz.

Katz "ran for mayor in 1991 and lost the primary. Three years later, he opened up his own business and moved it to the suburbs," Street shouted.

Bob Barnett, Katz's campaign director, said in an interview later that Street had it wrong. "Sam joined an existing partnership that had its office in Bala. So, John is wrong and this is yet another example of his negative campaigning."

Street said that while he was conducting the public's business, Katz "was always on the road trying to make money. . .I'm not saying stadium financing isn't important, but it certainly isn't going to solve the problems we have in the city today."

Barnett said he found Street's jabs at Katz curious.

"What Sam did was build a business into the premier municipal finance business in America," Barnett said. "It's a company that Mayor Rendell called upon to solve the fiscal problems created by John Street and his budgets."

Street spokesman Ken Snyder called Katz a "loser and a weasel" as well as a "weasel in sheep's clothing" for trying to portray himself as a businessman when he's really just a "career politician."

Said Barnett: "Ken Snyder ought to go back to Washington. We don't need that in a Philadelphia mayor's race."

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