Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

New Mayoral candidate

GOP Committeman John Featherman says he will run for Philadelphia Mayor in 2011

As a Republican, real estate agent John Featherman knows it is nearly impossible for him to become mayor of Philadelphia, where most voters are Democrats.

But on Tuesday, he filed paperwork for the 2011 race, saying he wanted "to make sure that Nutter understands that there are people who don't agree with what he's done."

Featherman, who works for Prudential Fox & Roach, said he has been upset about tax increases and about the city's failure to create a more friendly business climate.
"If you're an Amazon.com, you're not going to come here," Featherman said, because the city taxes business revenues, even if they don't make a profit.

Nutter, too, has called for eliminating that levy, known as the gross-receipts tax, but backed off of such plans as the economic meltdown created a $150 million hole in the budget.

Featherman, 45, also has been a critic of his own party, which is rife with conflict over the continued leadership of Michael Meehan.

In announcing Featherman's candidacy Tuesday, Michael Cibik, 5th Ward Republican leader said Featherman would "reform the stagnant and ineffective Republican city committee, along with energizing, expanding, and developing a new Republican base here in Philadelphia so we finally have a viable two-party system in the City of Brotherly Love."
Featherman has made a run at political office before, including a 2007 effort to unseat Democrat Vivian Miller as Clerk of Quarter Sessions. She recently retired amid allegations of poor performance in her office.

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.