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Despite Earlier Letter, Nutter Not Signing on to Dougherty's RDA Protest

Posted on: Monday, 27 March 2006, 06:00 CST

By Dave Davies, Philadelphia Daily News

Mar. 27--City Councilman Michael Nutter says he isn't joining Redevelopment Authority chairman John Dougherty's campaign to block Mayor Street's housing reorganization plan, despite a letter he wrote last week echoing many of Dougherty's criticisms.

"Mr. Dougherty and I share some concerns about the proposed housing reorganization," Nutter said in an interview Saturday. "But I don't have a plan in front of me yet which would permit me to conclude such a plan should be blocked."

Street's re-organization plans, not yet embodied in a public document, aim to streamline procedures and eliminate duplication in city housing agencies while also addressing a $7.8 million loss in federal housing funds for the next fiscal year.

Dougherty has condemned suggestions that the RDA staff might be drastically reduced and its benefits and union contracts altered.

In a letter to Dougherty last week, Nutter said he's troubled by information that the plan will "undermine employee benefits, deprive seasoned workers of their pension, and strip a labor union of its collectively bargained agreement."

An alliance between Nutter and Dougherty would be unusual because the two are potential rivals for the 2007 Democratic mayoral nomination.

The letter was reported in Saturday's Daily News, and Nutter, who couldn't be reached for comment, said afterward the attention is unwarranted.

"I'm not lining anything up politically," Nutter said. "I haven't talked to Mr. Dougherty about the issue. We aren't working together on this. Several Council members have expressed some of the same concerns I have."

Nutter said he wrote his letter to Dougherty in response to a letter Dougherty had written earlier this month.

Nutter also said no one should draw any inferences from the fact that he wrote Dougherty just after Mayor Street had a well-publicized lunch with his longtime adversary, Councilman Jim Kenney, who has been a Dougherty foe for years.

"I'm not keeping track of who's having lunch with who," Nutter said. "In fact, I had lunch with the mayor in his office Tuesday before last. We talked about a wide range of topics, and had a great conversation. I had a turkey sandwich, he had a salad. And we both drank lots of water."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Philadelphia Daily News

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Source: The Philadelphia Daily News

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