Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Mike Nutter and Regionalism

From yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer:

While Philadelphia's bars and restaurants were trying to figure out the new smoking ban, Michael Nutter, the law's prime mover, was out trolling for votes, or rather contributions, at the Mendenhall Inn in Chester County last week. There, Nutter received an enthusiastic endorsement of his mayoral ambitions. He was praised as "a reform-minded public official, a person of the highest caliber who deserves to be elected mayor," in the words of Rob Powelson, president of the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry and the man who invited Nutter out to the suburbs. "When the city is doing well, the region is doing well," Powelson said.

Nutter was the keynote speaker at the second annual awards luncheon of the Chester County Chamber Foundation. "Philadelphia's future is inextricably tied to Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties," he said. "I want to change the nature of those relationships," seemingly a reference to Mayor Street, who has been little seen in Philly's suburbs.

Nutter noted that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was able to bring together 272 mayors from six counties and form the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus. "There's no reason why we can't have something similar," Nutter said. Powelson gave Nutter credit for working with suburban representatives on the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority on the facility's long-awaited expansion.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is much that the counties and hiladelphia can learn from each other and many benefits to be gained by putting aside attitudes that have ranged from ambilvalence to open hostility. It is great to see a regional leader like Michael Nutter who recognizes this.

Anonymous said...

its great to see a leader with vision stepping forward in the mayoral race!

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