Goode talks on city's financial crisis

Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode candidly described the causes of the city's financial crisis and called on the state to aid the city with human services as a partial solution to the problem in a campus speech last night. Goode, a University alum, described the city as "a child of the state government" and said the state refuses to allow the city to charge certain taxes while requiring it provide several services. He told the approximately 80 audience members that Philadelphia has embraced short-term solutions for the mounting financial problems for the last 25 years and now is faced with the consequences. Goode walked around in front of the podium and sipped a soda as he interspersed teasing banter with succinct explanations about the sometimes painful lessons he learned in his seven-year tenure. He said he has faced the political reality that when he sought legislative support, many public officials would focus on their re-election campaigns. "Your agenda is not necessarily that of others," Goode said. He also explained that he should have crusaded more diligently in public for approval of various plans. Goode also said that if he were to start over, he would ensure that his staff shared his vision for guiding the city. Drugs and AIDS have come to plague the city and its residents during the 1980s, creating new and difficults demands, Goode said. Sounding a theme that ran throughout the evening, the mayor said that these problems need to be addressed on state and national levels. "No city can be asked to solve these problems by themselves," Goode said. As for the federal government, Goode said, "We do not have any domestic policy, and we haven't for the last ten years." Goode said that he and the governor -- along with the state legislature, and the city council -- are the players necessary to work out a financial plan to rescue the city. He added that those very players are developing a plan which will expand on a plan the mayor presented last November. After speaking for a half-hour, Goode answered over one hour of questions on topics ranging from the quality of the school district to keeping the Flyers in Philadelphia. And Goode said, if the election were today, his successor would probably be Democrat and fellow University graduate Ed Rendell. Students said they were impressed with Goode's candor about the city's financial problems and what he saw as the possible solutions. But some said he did not give enough concrete solutions. The Penn Political Union sponsored Goode's speech and will also host a forum for the 1991 mayoral candidates on March 19.

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