I've been working on a similar piece, but I can't seem to get it right.

The issues over the past year and a half have been complicated. The times have been tough. I generally agree with Doron Taussig who observed during the budget debate

Thank God it's Nutter. Given the scope of this shitstorm and the political talent in this city, we could be doing a lot worse...we have a mayor who's been taking the problem seriously, searching for intelligent, sustainable solutions, respecting the desires of the citizenry, and improving as he goes along. That's not nothing.

And yet...

More than a third of the way through what likely is his first term (look at a political map of the City with non-partisan eyes, and it's hard to conclude that post-Sam Katz a Democratic mayor -- please excuse my noting, especially an African American Democratic mayor -- can lose a reelection bid as long as he/she is backed by the Party; post-MOVE Wilson Goode even beat Ed Rendell in '87), you can't help notice that City Government is adrift in a way that it should not be; a crisis seemingly is being wasted by a reform mayor who should have been just the guy to take advantage of it. You ask yourself what big goals you're looking forward to pursuing in the next 2 1/2 or even 6 1/2 years, and you find yourself coming up with...I don't know what.

Mine focuses on Nutter's lack of a clarifying vision for reforming the City, or simply making it better.

I compare him unfavorably to President Obama who, facing an even more challenging and dysfunctional government, came up at budget time with three big transformative ideas that others could buy into and work on and even improve upon, a)Reforming Health Care, b) Improving Education c) Pursuing the Green Economy. While work on b has been slower than the others, the vision of a better U.S. government in the future manifest in these three goals allows the American people to weather the bumps and compromises of daily politics and to stay the course with Obama, whose approval ratings will mean easier passage of his more controversial initiatives.

Compare this to Nutter -- who currently has to lobby Harrisburg to pass City Council's budget, rather than his own.

He could have held his own better with Council if he had a broader vision for transforming the City. One that Council could have gotten onboard with, one that their constituents could have pushed them to support.

Watch how Obama eventually gets a more broad and diverse public onboard with a health care plan that will cost more than anything Nutter will ever ask for.

Give people a clear goal they can buy into, and they'll follow, even if it costs them real money.

During the budget, Nutter was at times tone deaf, but at times he seemed almost too eager to cede hard decisions to somebody else. That was a lack of leadership I didn't expect. It's like he knew he came out too harsh and uncompromising at the beginning of the budget crisis, so he went to the other extreme. Part of the problem with Penn-run budget meetings was that there were no big Nutter initiatives for saving money/reforming city government that that we were debating. He hadn't really tried to sell any.

Also: he was never upbeat about the future in the way a city in crisis needed him to be. Again there were no big transformative goals we were all working toward.

Mine too was somewhat occasioned by the editorial by Bissinger, whose Rendell hagiography I have gone through three seasons with (long digressive story, I'm afraid). I conclude he gets it partially right, partially wrong. Part of the problem is a message thing with Nutter, but buddying up with City Council should come only after he decides what he wants to accomplish.

City Council has smart people on it now, but given the way power works in the City, and given where we find ourselves in history, the mayor should start with strong, clear agenda that he can get the best Councilmembers to buy into, work with, improve upon.

Sadly, this has not yet been the case. The City, I think, has suffered from this lack of clear vision and leadership.

There's still potential there. A City where reelection is so easy provides a forgiving stage.

But Nutter needs to communicate a vision of the City that we're still waiting for.

The Library issue severely disappointed me from a Mayor who pledged to try to reduce dropouts by 50% on his inauguration day. Libraries should be community leverage points for improving literacy and workforce education levels. The disconnect between removing libraries specifically where childhood poverty is highest and where schools don't have in-school libraries - when that did not even go into the calculation process - rubbed me deeply the wrong way.

On the other hand, going with Council's budget - "let's do sales taxes - it will be easy because people don't notice them when they pay them" - I would point out that as great as the Inquirer's investigative reporting was - it was also timed intentionally by Inky editors to foil property taxes as part of the budget solution. They had been building that series for years and they sepcifically decided to put it out when they did, specifically to sink property taxes (and therefore defacto to tip it to sales taxes). The reporters said as much in their interview with Marty Moss Coane on Radio Times.

Nutter came out swinging against corruption in the BRT (as he should and got Verna to join him for that matter) but that was the end of political valency for a property tax solution.

Here's the deal:
1.) he's got to get Council to put their money where their mouth is on this budget. They unanimously passed one that banked on signficant savings on benefits from municipal unions so any member of Council who wants to play it both ways on that is in so many words a lying sack of shit. They stood behind that plan when the voted for it, they have to own up to that decision now. Some people may dislike me saying that but its the truth. The Mayor is resonsible for ill considered cuts he makes on his own but if he explicitly says some of the money has to come out of X and Council votes for that plan, they politically own those consequences every bit as much as the Mayor does - period.

Members of Council likewise are also every bit as responsible for how lackidasical the Philadelphia delegation in Harrisburg is on making sure Plan B does not come to pass as the Mayor is - no ifs, no buts, no maybes. So district council people reading this - if the state rep in your district is unsure on where they stand on actually approving that budget you passed - you are not doing your job till you have gone to their office so many times they tell you they are sick of seeing you.

2.) This fall, things like the BRT, the Clerk of Quarter Sessions - they have to change. You can't ask the people of Philadelphia to make sacrifices, municipal workers to make sacrifices, and not follow through here. Its time for wasteful party patronage to take a hit too. Again, no ifs, no buts, no maybes. And again members of Council, it would be awful nice to have some of you who aren't named Jim Kenney or Frank DiCicco to stand with him on that. Your constituents deserve more than lip service to accountability.

-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.