Ed Rendell Issues Box

Although all polls show he is running far ahead of his opponents, he has still been campaigning as if he is "at least five points behind," Rendell campaign director David Cohen said yesterday. Rendell has focused his rhetoric on cutting costs in government in order to save the city from its fiscal crisis. He believes it is possible to reduce the deficit without increasing taxes or cutting services. The issue on which he has centered his campaign is the contracting out of certain city services. He claims that by making the municipal unions compete with private contractors, the unions will become more efficient. Rendell maintains that private firms which successfully bid for municipal services would be required to hire additional labor from the pool of displaced city workers and that private firms contracted by the city would be required to have union workers. Rendell also proposes: · Increasing the police force by nearly 1000 officers. · Providing health care clinics for children in schools. · Pushing for a 10-cent surcharge on lottery tickets in the city to pay for the increase in the police force. · Streamlining administration of city housing authorities. · Bringing in outside management to look over city operations. · Standing tough with City Council members if they hold up his proposals. Rendell, a 1965 University graduate, served as the city's district attorney before losing the 1986 gubernatorial primary and 1987 mayoral primary. Republican mayoral candidate Joseph Egan is new to mayoral politics. When Frank Rizzo died this summer, he was chosen as the new candidate by close friend and Republican party boss William Meehan. Egan won his first election in May -- a nomination on the Republican Council At-Large slate. Egan trails in the polls and in financial support, and experts point to an inability to articulate and define specific issues as a major weakness in his campaign. Egan has criticized harshly the specificity of Rendell's plans while on the election stump, saying it is not possible for him to know specifically what to do. Egan opposes bidding out city services because he said it would shift the burden of city mismanagement onto city workers. He also favors placing the superintendent of schools on the mayoral cabinet. Egan also said he does not think the city can depend on state or federal funding to bail it out of its financial crisis, although he said he will be able to work with other government officials because they will respect him more than Rendell. Egan also favors changing the City Charter to loosen civil service regulations and to allow managers more flexibility in managing their departments. Egan, who has studied at St. Joseph's University and at evening divisions of the Community College of Philadelphia, has served in four mayoral administrations as Commerce Director and as head of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation. He was also instrumental in bringing the Pennsylvania Convention Center to Philadelphia.

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