IBEW Local 98 (Philadelphia) Leader May Be Drafted to Run For Mayor

Posted on Fri, Jan. 21, 2005
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Saidel fund-raiser for a noncandidate

Admirers of Jonathan Saidel will have a chance to fete the four-term city controller Wednesday night, the evening before he's scheduled to announce plans for his future. Conventional wisdom holds that Saidel will shun a fifth try for his job so he can run for mayor in 2007. Under the City Charter, he can't announce he'll run for mayor until he leaves the city controller's post, meaning the proceeds from the $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser at the Wyndham Philadelphia at Franklin Plaza officially go to a Friends of Saidel group.

The event won't be the night's only chance to donate to a 2007 mayoral noncandidate. A group raising money to draft electricians' union leader John Dougherty plans a Wednesday night fund-raiser at a Northeast Philadelphia restaurant. And at $50, the event is a bargain by comparison.

Draft John Dougherty chairman Mike Neill said he expected roughly 1,000 people to attend. He said a previous event in South Philadelphia had raised about $40,000 for the group.

Neill said the timing of the event, opposite a higher-profile fund-raiser for a potential rival, was just a coincidence.

"We've had this planned for two or three months," said Neill, who grew up with Dougherty in South Philadelphia and works as director of training for his International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98.

- Michael Currie Schaffer

The mayor's salary: Guess again

Not even Mayor Street's press office, apparently, knows how much the mayor makes.

Last week, his office told Heard in the Hall that Street earned $165,000 a year - a figure, it turns out, that was inflated.

"I'm not exactly sure where the mistake was made," said Dan Fee, a consultant who heads the mayor's press office.

But it could be because in February, Street, with little fanfare, retroactively drew on three years' worth of cost-of-living increases that he previously had not taken. That boosted his salary by $16,975 to the current $144,009.

In an interview with reporters at City Hall yesterday, the mayor defended those raises, saying he was "entitled" to them.

And Fee also defended the mayor, saying Street could have taken an even bigger raise under a bill that Council passed in 2003. Under the bill, Council, the mayor, and seven other elected city officials were eligible to receive pay increases, and Street's salary would have shot up to $165,000.

Street vetoed the increase, saying he felt the pay-raise bill sent "the wrong message to our constituents and employees who will be asked to make sacrifices to help ensure that we maintain fiscal stability over the next four years."

Council overrode the mayor's veto, but Street never took advantage of the raise - just the smaller cost-of-living increases.

"It's still over $20,000 less than what he is due," Fee said.

- Anthony S. Twyman
Wanted: A few more city officials

A year into his second term, Mayor Street is facing a long list of vacancies in top posts: Interim or acting officials are serving as directors of communications, finance, and the Department of Human Services, among other jobs, and Managing Director Philip R. Goldsmith plans to leave this spring.

Now, at least one other post appears likely to come open, too: Health Commissioner John Domzalski enrolled in the city's Deferred Retirement Option Program in July 2001, meaning Domzalski must retire by this July.

Under the program, enrolled employees can have their monthly retirement benefits placed in a special account that the employee receives in a lump sum on retirement within four years. Domzalski, a 35-year veteran of city government, enrolled in the program before Mayor Street appointed him health commissioner in 2002, according to Deborah Bolling, an administration spokeswoman. Bolling said Domzalski, who currently makes $125,000, must leave by July 23 but could be gone sooner because he had accrued an unspecified amount of comp time over the years.
Michael Currie Schaffer