Goode lectures on city concerns

Wilson Goode has escaped City Hall, but has found refuge in the ivory tower. Former Philadelphia Mayor Goode, speaking free from political considerations, said candidly the city needs to cut personnel expenses and get money from the state and federal government to an Urban Studies class yesterday afternoon in Houston Hall. Goode stressed the city has to make tough decisions to become financially sound and to be able to provide basic services -- police, fire, sanitation, public health and public education. He said that "we are living in a period of retrenchment" where the city government will have to roll back the costs of health benefits to city workers, freeze city wages across the board for two years and receive help from the state and federal government. Goode later said it is "hard to rollback pay when City Council gives itself a $25,000 pay increase and the mayor got a $40,000 increase." He added if the state does not give Philadelphia help in providing social services, Philadelphia would be left with a "defense budget" only able to provide police and fire protection. Since Philadelphia is both a city and a county, it must provide not only the basic services all other cities in Pennsylvania provide, but also social services traditionally provided by counties. "The state should assist the city in solving the overall problems [of the city]," Goode said to the over 60 people there yesterday. "Where's your [the state's] investment in people?" The former mayor and Wharton graduate also said Philadelphia now has an unprecedented "window of opportunity" that will end by this summer to make the rollbacks and wagecuts needed for the city's fiscal stability. This window is made possible by the City Council and mayor not facing an election, as they did last year. College senior Sarah Rose said she agrees with Goode that city government must make major decisions, but she doesn't "think they're going to be made." Another student in the class, College senior Greg Cohn, said Goode "was able to be much more candid now he is out of office." But he added some of what Goode said was a "revisionist" look at his eight-year tenure as mayor where "he took great pains to paint the obstacles he had as mayor." Goode has lectured to the the Urban Studies class "The City" -- taught by Graduate School of Fine Arts Lecturer Mark Thompson -- every year for nine years. Thompson said this year Goode's visit was different since "in prior years, he come as a point person at the end to bring things together. Mayor Rendell will come to fill those shoes." Goode did offer promising signs about the city's future. He pointed to the improvement of the Center City business district, with new buildings such as Commerce Square One and Two, and the special service district as "boding well for the future." "If the heart is healthy and the heart is ticking, then the whole body will be strong," Goode said. Goode said he plans in the futrue to, "write a book, lecture, and make some money -- lots of it."

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