January 6 marked the end of Wilson Goode's reign as mayor and the end of an era marked by controversy. When Goode was elected as the first black mayor of Philadelphia in the fall of 1983, many people believed he would make Philadelphia one of the best cities in the country. And he tried, but it was often not enough to meet those lofty expectations. Goode was so popular in his early days as mayor that presidential candidate Walter Mondale considered making Goode his running mate in 1984. But on May 13, 1985, Goode made the decision that would plague him throughout his career, when he and his administration decided to drop explosives on the MOVE house at 6221 Osage Avenue. When the smoke cleared, six adults and five children were dead. MOVE was a radical back-to-nature-cult which boarded up its windows, set up a public address system to shout obscenities to the neighborhood at night, ran across roofs assaulting residents, and kept stray dogs and cats. Philadelphia and the world watched when the city droped explosives on the house as a threat to the cult. But MOVE members shot at the police as the building burned, and firefighters could not reach the house to put out the flames. Because of the delay, 11 people died and 61 houses on the block were destroyed. After the MOVE incident, Goode's popularity plummeted and he had difficulty working with the city and state governments. "Nobody who does a serious analysis of the Goode years could not understand what happened without understanding MOVE," Theodore Hershberg, Director of the Center for Greater Philadelphia at the University, said. "The guy was cut off by the knees, and we will never know what he would have been like if that hadn't happened." And Political Science Professor Jack Nagel agreed that MOVE had a tremendous impact on Goode's effectiveness as mayor. "Before MOVE he was walking on water and he could do nothing wrong," Nagel said. "After MOVE he lost influence with state government and city council." Goode, a University alumnus and son of a North Carolina sharecropper, easily defeated John Egan and Thomas Leonard in his first bid for public office. In 1980, Goode had been appointed managing director by Mayor William Green. Previously, he had served as the chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission. He also worked for the Philadelphia Council for City Advancement, a non-profit organization that aids community housing development. While he was there, more housing units were added by the organization than by all other city agencies combined. In 1987, Goode narrowly defeated Republican Frank Rizzo to become mayor a second time. And today, many blame the city's disastrous financial condition on Goode, saying he could have prevented the city's enormous deficit. But depsite the critics, some say Goode has helped the city. "Wilson Goode was mayor during a period of time when good things happened to Philadelphia as well as bad things," said Hershberg, who also worked for Goode as assistant to the mayor for strategic planning and policy management during his first administration. Goode's accomplishments include plans for a new convention center which, when completed will be the second largest on the East Coast, increasing the Philadelphia sky line, convincing businesses to move to the city and bringing a lot of dedicated people, especially minorities, to city government. During the 1983 campaign Goode had promised to include women and minorities in city government. And Hershberg said Goode made some significant reductions in the budget over the last few years despite the fact that the city is now in a difficult situation. "It would have been worse without his interventions," he said. According to Hershberg, the city's financial problems are due to the withdrawal of federal aid to cities, people and businesses leaving the city, the rise of social problems such as AIDS and crack addiction and Goode's own failure to attack the systematic problems of city government. "He may have fallen short of people's hopes as a black mayor, but one man cannot create miracles when he is working against problems," Nagel said. "He knew what the fiscal problems were, but he was not able to do anything about it." Nagel also said he believes that in the future people will look more favorably on the Goode era when some wounds have had time to heal. "I think people will put it in a better perspective than it is now," he said. And Regional Science Professor Thomas Reiner also said the majority of Philadelphia's problems should not be blamed on Goode but on national and state government. "We are dealing with the impact of very changed national and state financial requirements and expectations," Reiner said, "We are seeing the results of the Reagan-Bush depresion."
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