Mayor Nutter, GOP rival Karen Brown spar in debate

Mayor Nutter and his Republican opponent, former schoolteacher Karen Brown, sparred heatedly for an hour Tuesday over crime, the public schools, and the city's economy, in the first and likely last debate of the mayoral campaign.

"Crime has taken over our city. We need to take it back," Brown said in her opening salvo, criticizing the mayor for not hiring more police officers and focusing police attention on Center City, not neighborhoods.

"Flash mobs were nonexistent before you came along," Brown told the mayor at one point, typical of the tough, take-no-prisoners tone she maintained throughout the exchange, taped at Fox29 for broadcast at 10:30 p.m. Friday.

Nutter acknowledged the city's continuing problems with crime, schools, and unemployment but contended that the city had made progress in each area through his first four-year term - citing as evidence a reduced homicide rate, the improving school test scores and graduation rates, and recent development announcements.

"Yes, we've had challenges," Nutter said. "But I'm an optimist. . . . I see a bright future for the city of Philadelphia." The mayor took credit for "running the city with honesty and transparency."

Former School Superintendent Arlene C. "Ackerman and that secret money - how transparent was that?" countered Brown, referring to the mayor's role in raising $405,000 in now-abandoned pledges from still-unidentified donors to help buy out Ackerman's contract.

"I must be confused," Brown added.

"I'm glad you said it," responded the mayor, who complained repeatedly that Brown was unfamiliar with the details of running City Hall and mistaken in her allegations.

Twice, Brown accused Nutter of running small businesses out of town with tax increases and a requirement that they provide paid sick leave to employees.

While real estate and city sales taxes have climbed under Nutter, wage and business tax rates are slightly down. And the Nutter administration has been the strongest opponent of a so-far-unsuccessful City Council bid to require improved sick-leave benefits - testifying against the bill at Council hearings and vetoing it after Council passage.

Policy differences between Nutter and Brown were most apparent on questions involving the school system.

Brown said she would work with Gov. Corbett to replace the School Reform Commission with a locally elected school board. She said the city should have more business and trade schools, to help students get jobs without going on to college, and she said she favored vouchers, to help families pay for nonpublic schools.

Nutter said he was "not a particular supporter of vouchers." He praised the School District for "nine straight years of test-score gains" - failing to mention evidence of cheating on the tests - and improved graduation rates. "We're moving in the right direction," the mayor said.

After the debate, the two candidates faced reporters in a tiny hallway outside the television studio. Brown urged the mayor to agree to another debate before the Nov. 8 election, contending that the mayor owed it to the public, but Nutter said he had plenty of exposure with his own public appearances.

Meanwhile, a third candidate for mayor, independent Wali Rahman, protested his exclusion from the Fox TV event.

"This city is run by the Democrat and Republican Parties," Rahman, 34, a Germantown resident, told reporters on the sidewalk outside the Fox TV building. "They have no interest in having the voice of the people be heard."