Barring massive tradgey or something out of the Wire Season 4, Philadelphia will have less murders in 2007 than it did in 2006. If you recall, 2006 was noted for having 406 murders - the highest number since 1998. And, earlier this year, it seemed we were on pace to surpass the 2006 mark. Somehow, some way, the murders slowed at the end of the Summer. Otherwise, we would have certainly surpassed 406.

Despite the issues pointed to by some, I am eager to see how the Nutter Adminsitration and Comm'n Ramsey respond to these numbers and gun violence in the City. After reading Dave Davies article in the Daily News today, it does seem that, a shift in policing strategy can lower the rate of gun violence and murder in Philadelphia. Check this out:

Changes at the top

Did the leadership of the Police Department and the rest of city government have an impact?

It's a controversial subject.

The decline in Philadelphia's murder rate coincided with the tenure of Police Commissioner John Timoney, and overlapped with a period when then-Mayor Ed Rendell was particularly focused on guns and gun crime.

For the first five years of Rendell's tenure as mayor (1992-96), the city's murder rate soared. But the administration focused on crime and guns in his second term and made visible progress.

From 1998 to 2000, veteran police commander Richard Zappile was deputy mayor for gun violence. Recreation Commissioner Michael DiBerardinis was developing anti-violence programs, and Rendell was making national news criticizing gun manufacturers and liberal gun laws.

There was an emphasis among police on confiscating guns on the street, and there were partnerships with federal agencies to track illegal gun sales and to shut down traffickers.

Starting in 2000, the Youth Violence Reduction Project, a youth-intensive outreach effort based on a successful model in Boston, was initiated in one police district.

And Timoney brought a tough statistics-driven approach to fighting crime and regularly moved commanders he regarded as underperforming.

Several former Rendell administration officials said they believe that those efforts made a difference. None would speak publicly, both because they were reluctant to criticize their successors, and because they said they weren't as aware of current crime-fighting efforts.

Sylvester Johnson, who succeeded Timoney as police commissioner, has been popular among community activists, and along with Mayor Street has pursued a series of crime-fighting initiatives.

The most visible was Operation Safe Streets, a massive crackdown on open-air drug sales begun in 2002. It achieved dramatic short-term results in some neighborhoods, but the effort was expensive and ultimately impossible to sustain.

That was followed in early 2006 by Operation Safer Streets, a plan to put more cops in high-crime areas and intensify social service and community programs there.

Later that year, Johnson announced plans for an elite unit to tackle high-crime areas during night hours. The unit would report directly to the commissioner.

In July 2006, Street made a televised appeal to city's youth to "lay down your weapons," and earlier this year he announced a program to flood the 12th District in Southwest Philadelphia with cops and other city services in response to violent crime.

The administration also expanded the Youth Violence Reduction Project and initiated special curfew- and truancy-enforcement programs.

And still the murder rate has risen.

Thomas Nestel, who recently retired from the department as staff inspector, worked as a district commander under Timoney and Johnson.

"Johnson brought the same intensity to crime-fighting that Timoney did," Nestel said, "but my sense is that we started to over-specialize. We had these special units, and the focus on patrol cops in the districts got slimmer and slimmer."I think the district cops started to feel less responsible for stuff in the sectors, because there were special units to handle that," Nestel said. "But of course there weren't enough specialists to handle problems all over the city."

I understand that policing is not the way to lower our violent crime numbers in a permanent way. But, it is a start and something needed in the short to medium term.

Clearly, what Philadelphia needs most is economic development and jobs. We've done a good job in the last 15 years making this City a better place to live, work and do business-for some. Now, it is time to take that next step and educate our workforce and children, better, attract industries that will, at the very least, pay a sustainable wage to employees and encourage our citizens to take the risks of small business and give them the tools to succeed.

Happy New Year!