School-plan pushback, endorsement drama and mayoral forums: NinetyNine’s week in review

At high noon each Friday during Philadelphia’s mayoral-primary season, NinetyNine will post a roundup of noteworthy stories from the previous week. Miss a couple days of coverage, or just want to catch up over the weekend? We’ve got you covered.

From NinetyNine and NewsWorks:

— Nutter’s team blasts mayoral candidates on education funding ideas, pushes property tax hike: On Monday, Nutter deployed two of his top officials to go through the mayoral candidates education funding ideas, and, plan by plan, explain why they’re not the best routes to delivering the recurring $103 million that Superintendent Hite has requested by September.

— Mayoral candidates say education is integral to solving city’s public health issues: Philadelphia’s mayoral candidates are promising to work with the city’s many public health organizations to address issues like health education and access to care. Six of the candidates spoke at a forum on public health hosted by PHMC. A surprising number of candidates suggested that city government would be unable to fix Philly’s public health problems.

— Philly mayoral candidates get one-on-one talk time at WHYY/PENJERDEL Council forum: WHYY and the PENJERDEL Council teamed up for a Wednesday morning mayoral forum that afforded each of the six Democratic-primary candidates (at least) 15 minutes to tell attendees their takes on the energy hub idea, taxes, education, public safety and more.

— Unique ‘MillenniaLab’ event draws mayoral-candidate quartet to Center City co-working space: As mayoral-campaign events go, the “Mayoral MillenniaLab” gathering inside the Benjamin’s Desk co-working space at 17th and Walnut sts. stood out to the point that organizers said they were shocked when it came together as pie-in-the-sky planned.

— Tony Williams seeks votes outside the Reading Terminal Market [photo gallery and subsequent Q&A]: Sitting at a small table just feet from NinetyNine’s second-floor cubicle at WHYY, mayoral candidate Tony Williams set aside 20 minutes for a one-on-one to talk about the campaign week that was and more (including an underlying sense of coverage concerns).

— Doug Oliver wins Philly mayoral primary (at weekend summit of teenage voters): About 150 children, most younger than the legal voting age, headed out to Manayunk on Saturday for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeastern Pennsylvania’s first-ever Youth Mayoral Summit. There, they got face-to-face time with six of the seven mayoral candidates.

— Lynne Abraham chats with PlanPhilly about how bike lanes impact seniors, fixing L&I and more: NinetyNine’s good friends over at PlanPhilly recently sat down with mayoral candidate Lynne Abraham to discuss an array of issues including “protected bike lanes and seniors; her vision for a strong mayoralty; her plans to end (or limit) abuse of councilmanic prerogative; the changes for rapid transit on Roosevelt Boulevard and how to fix L&I.”

— New ad for Kenney; Doc to endorse (Off Mic): Forward Philadelphia, the independent expenditure group backing former City Councilman Jim Kenney’s mayoral bid is running a new ad touting Kenney’s endorsement last week by a group of African American elected officials.

— Candidate Oliver discusses plan to help students outside the classroom: Philadelphia mayoral candidate Doug Oliver has released a plan he says will deal with the issues affecting the city’s school students outside the classroom.

— Pro-Williams group spending at $4-million pace (Off Mic): An independent group backing Philadelphia mayoral candidate State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams is on a pace to spend $4 million dollars on advertising in the race.

— Organizers: Williams counter-endorsement event in Northwest Philly not about racial politics: Though organizers said the endorsement event was not driven by racial politics — pre-emptively blaming media for possibly portraying it as such — several speakers mentioned topics of race to a crowd of which Williams was not a part.

— Which of these Philly mayoral candidates will best improve city schools?: Philadelphia’s future depends in large part on developing a public school system that can serve the city’s large economically disadvantaged population while attracting middle-class families that will expand its tax base. So, for good reason, education has been the forefront issue in this year’s mayor’s race.

— Leading Questions II: NinetyNine’s top recent moments of the mayoral race : As part of WHYY’s second “Leading Questions: A City Elections Special” which airs twice Friday (11 a.m. and 11 p.m.), NinetyNine sat down with WHYY’s Dave Davies for a “Best of the Race” recap.

— NinetyNine’s Mayoral Race Quotes-of-the-Day Quiz Vol. 6: Who said what this week? Take our quiz!

— Introducing the Philadelphia Mayoral-Race Endorsement Tracker [regularly updated]: Current standings: Jim Kenney (19), Tony Williams (10), Nelson Diaz (5), Lynne Abraham (1) and Doug Oliver/Milton Street (0)

From elsewhere:

— A call to millennials to vote for mayor (The Next Mayor/Inquirer): Right now, there is a palpable civic energy and pride among the city’s millennials, for those Philly born-and-raised and transplants alike. In every neighborhood, from Point Breeze to the Northeast, we’re starting businesses and leading nonprofit organizations; more than a thousand people registered for Young Involved Philadelphia’s City Council Candidate Convention in April (full disclosure, I’m on the YIP board); and Pew’s recent polling shows that millennials have fallen in love with the city.

— City finance director: Candidates’ plans for schools fall short (The Next Mayor/Inquirer): Philadelphia Finance Director Rob Dubow was a bit more politic than his boss, but his message Tuesday was the same: The plans offered by the Democratic mayoral candidates to fund city schools just don’t add up.

— How educated are you about education? (The Next Mayor): Voters tell pollsters that education is the No. 1 issue in this year’s mayoral election. Yet, most Philadelphians don’t have much firsthand knowledge about the district. How much do you know about education in Philadelphia? Test your knowledge with this 10-question quiz.

— Should foul-mouthed cops get booted off the force? (The Next Mayor): Mayoral frontrunner state Sen. Anthony Williams is taking aim at opponent Jim Kenney’s relationship with the Philadelphia police, four weeks after Kenney picked up the endorsement of the city’s law enforcement union. (Related: NinetyNine’s Tony Williams: Fire police officers who use disparaging terms about race, sexual orientation)

— Tony Williams: It’s Time to Talk About Johnny Doc’s “Dark Money” (Citified): When pressed to name names, Williams would not explicitly say the words “Johnny Doc,” but he was clearly referring to him.

— Lynne Abraham: Down But Hardly Out (Citified): Philadelphia is a city that has a documented soft spot for fighters, and Lynne Abraham is nothing if not a fighter. Counting her out now is premature, if not foolish.

— Should City Hall Lend Money to Small Businesses? (Citified): State Senator Anthony H. Williams has an interesting idea. He wants the City of Philadelphia to form a municipal bank that would lend money to small businesses that he says are overlooked by traditional lenders. It’s a notion that is sure to freak a lot of people out.

— While Williams and Kenney contend over Black endorsements, Diaz gets nods from Latino pols (Al Dia): Diaz, the former Court of Common Pleas judge, has won favor across city and state lines. Early in his campaign, he got the favor of state Rep. Angel Cruz, state Rep. Leslie Acosta, and the Latino Victory Fund, a non-partisan organization created to build political power within the Latino community. This week, three new endorsements came his way from labor organizations and Puerto Rican party leaders, as well as the highest ranking Latino in American politics.

— Abraham says racially charged comments from 1990s were brought up in ‘political context’ (Al Dia): Comparing careers, Lynne Abraham has defended herself against allegations of racism more so than any other candidate in the mayoral pool.

— Who was empowered to give away Black community’s political birthright? (Philadelphia Tribune): Perhaps the most surprising thing that I’ve read during this whole, entirely-too-long, political season was The Philadelphia Daily News’ headline, last Tuesday, which asked an absolutely stunning question: “Is Kenney the Future Voice of Black Philly?”

— Commonwealth Court: Milton Street stays on the ballot for mayor (Inquirer): T. Milton Street Sr., the former state senator who served time in federal prison for unpaid taxes, will remain on the May 19 Democratic primary election ballot for mayor, according to the state Commonwealth Court.

— City Dems split on mayoral endorsement (The Next Mayor/Inquirer): Party boss Bob Brady said the ward leaders were “split down the middle” on who they wanted to endorse for the May 19 primary. The split was between state Sen. Anthony H. Williams and former Councilman James F. Kenney.

— Obama’s coattails, subway handshakes, 1,000 calls a night: How candidates try to get voters to care (Billy Penn): Though “Get out the vote” strategies can turn an election in the last five days of a race, candidates must first build a foundation.