University pair in Council races

Two University employees will run for City Council on the Green Party ticket next year, hoping to become the first third-party candidates to serve on the Council in half a century.

Philadelphia Green Party Chairman Tom Hutt, who is in charge of off-campus facilities at the medical school, will run in the eighth district, in the northwest. John Hogan, who works at the Biddle Law Library, seeks an at-large seat.

"I'd like to be a voice for people who don't have much of a voice on Council, people who aren't major donors or major employers in the city but who just happen to live here," Hogan said.

Although the two men face an obvious disadvantage in coming from a third party, Hutt said he expects a victory anyway.

"At the local level, it's not rocket science to win an election," he said.

Hutt also maintains that there has not been a third party as strong as the Greens in the last 50 years.

Hutt will be running against two-term incumbent Donna Reed Miller, a Democrat who thrashed her Republican opponent in the 1999 election.

Miller did face a serious primary threat that year but ended up getting 43 percent of the vote, partly due to the support of then-mayoral candidate John Street. Miller's closest challenger pulled in 30 percent of the primary voters.

To Hutt, it seems Miller easily can be defeated in the 2003 race.

"I think the incumbent is weak," he said. "I don't think she's a very dynamic person, and she doesn't have a wide base of support. She's coasting, which is what a lot of Democrats do in this city."

Indeed, Miller has angered many in her district, according to community activists there.

"We've never felt that she represents our interests," said Mark Hanlon, a member of the group Concerned Neighbors United, which opposed a controversial zoning bill. Miller supported the bill.

"I'd vote for [anyone who opposed her]," Hanlon said. "I don't care who it is -- almost."

When asked about Hutt's candidacy, Miller said only, "It's America, it's a democratic society and anyone has the right to run for any public office."

Hogan, unlike Hutt, will not face one direct opponent. In electing at-large City Council members, voters can select up to five candidates for the seven at-large seats.

Two of the seven positions are reserved for minority party candidates. Historically, those seats have been occupied by Republicans, but Hogan hopes to capture one for the Greens by appealing to people who usually vote for liberal Democrats.

"People who vote for progressive Democrats have... not been using all their five votes," he said. "It's going to be a lot of hard work, but since two of the at-large seats are reserved for non-majority parties, there's an opening for a third-party candidate to win one of those seats with only 150,000 votes."

Green Party candidate for governor Michael Morrill said he believes at least one Green candidate will pull off a victory in next year's race.

"I'm pretty confident that we'll win a City Council seat in Philadelphia," he said.

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