Candidate Profile: Howard Treatman

Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a series that will run throughout the week in which we publish question and answer sessions with each of the seven candidates in the . Each candidate will answer the same five questions. We'll also run videos of the candidates talking specifically about Chestnut Hill issues.

Today's featured candidate is Howard Treatman. Watch his video here, and remember, Election Day is May 17.

Tell us about your background and about why you’re running for City Council.

I've lived in Germantown for the last 17 years with my wife, and we've raised our three children there. I'll give you a little bit about my background—I'm a lawyer by profession. My business is real estate development, which I've been involved in for the last 25 years. In Philadelphia, the most notable projects that I've been involved with have been the redevelopment of the Rittenhouse Hotel and Condominiums in Rittenhouse Square, the redevelopment of the Wanamaker Building after the Wanamaker store closed down, and a large apartment complex in Northeast Philadelphia where we came in and did a large capital improvement effort there. And my real estate work really takes me around the country, where I've learned sort of what makes cities successful and what makes other cities not successful.

Bringing those lessons back to Philadelphia and on to City Council is a major focus of mine in the campaign. In terms of my community work—I've had very heavy community work really for the last 11 years. I'm the immediate past president at Germantown Jewish Centre, and I've been very active in leadership there for really 11 years and continue to do so. I'm on the board and the real estate committee of Mt. Airy USA and have been a major member in the real estate development efforts that are being pursued by Mt. Airy USA. Other community work—I've been nominated to join the board of the Neighborhood Interfaith Movement. I'm on the board of my kids' schools and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

There are two things about this moment that motivated me to stand up. Number one, in the wake of the controversy over DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Plan), and with a number of councilpeople resigning, we've got more seats turning over in council than we've had in decades. This is an opportunity to change the culture of City Council and to turn that ossified chamber into a platform of vision, energy and ideas. That'll only happen if we pick the right people, and that'll only happen if we pick people who have vision, energy and ideas. I didn't want to squander this moment, and I felt that I'm a person who has those qualifications.

The other thing about this moment is—Philadelphia's growing again for the first time in decades. This city has so much potential and the potential exists almost despite the actions of our government rather than because of the actions of our government. I think that someone with my skills, who has experience with investment, job creation and development, is the right skill set we need right now to seize this opportunity for our city to grow and to move forward, and to take advantage of the fact that people are moving to Philadelphia. And they want to be here. And I don't see any other candidate in the field who has those skills.

Frankly, I don't see much of those skills in City Council right now, and that's what I want to bring to it.

How would you, as a City Council member, work with the School District of Philadelphia to improve students' performance?

Well number one, when we talk about schools, we need to start with where we are. And where we are is that our schools are controlled by the School Reform Commission, and that's effectively controlled by the state. And when we had a friend in Harrisburg, that wasn't such a bad thing. Gov. Corbett isn't that kind of friend, and he's to our schools. So, unfortunately, the first job is damage control. And one thing I can do on City Council is be part of efforts to claw back funding for Philadelphia and build the alliances that we're going to need to build with the other affected communities throughout the state of Pennsylvania to increase the money allocated by Harrisburg toward education. That's job one, because everything else we try to do pales in comparison to the fact that we've got major cuts coming, and the school district is going to be scrambling to figure out how to deal with them.

With regard to efforts of the school district to become more efficient, some of the consolidation work that they're looking at is stuff that will probably come before council. And it's the kind of thing that the concept in general is the correct concept. How it's done is the kind of thing that we would want to see. In terms of the policies of the school district, I think it's important that a major function of City Council is approving allocations towards the school district, and making sure that our schools are supported as well as they can be, and making sure our teachers feel supported and making sure that our quality institutions in the school district are supported.

In the city's budget, where would you like to see more funding, and where do you think cuts could be made?

Well number one—and it's a major part of my platform—is we really need to look at how city services are provided. So to go right to a discussion about cuts is the wrong conversation. The conversation should be: 'Are we providing the right services and are we providing them efficiently? Are we providing them the way an institution in the 21st century ought to be providing them? Or are our departments operating the way they did 40 years ago?'

There's probably great efficiencies and improvements in customer service that can be realized just by insisting on modernization and efficiency in city services. And I think that if we realize the savings that could be achieved through there, and the improvements in customer service that could be realized there, we may find that we never get to the issue of cuts.

Where do you stand on DROP?

DROP is a major issue in this campaign. And first of all, let's talk about elected officials. This program should have never been applied to elected officials. It is shameful that City Council members applied this law that they themselves drafted to themselves and exploited ambiguities in the law to allow themselves to get large six-figure payouts and then continue their careers the next day.

So it is a big problem. Voters are very angry about it. And I believe any elected official that took a DROP payment, a DROP payout, ought to retire the way they promised, and shouldn't continue their political career. Furthermore, elected officials who are currently eligible for DROP—and new elected officials are not, but grandfathered elected officials are—should forswear any participation in the DROP program. It should never have been applied to elected officials.

With regard to the DROP program itself, this is a program which was supposed to be revenue-neutral, and we need to go back to the mathematical analysis to make sure that this program is not a drain on the pension fund, but rather is either revenue neutral or results in savings to pension system. If we can't do that, we need to discontinue the program.

How would you work to fill vacant properties and revitalize business districts?

On my website, I have a comprehensive economic development plan. And two of the ideas that I mention there are directly responsive to that—actually more than that. Maybe like three ideas. But number one, I call for opportunity zones at our key neighborhood intersections. For example, let's say Germantown and Chelten. These opportunity zones attract investment and increase the value of office space where they're located. So in this vision, we would bring investment and jobs to the heart of our communities. So many of our communities have a blighted commercial street, with vacant stores—imagine what that would look like having jobs and investment right in the heart of our communities through the implementation of an opportunity zone strategy.

I'm also calling for tax simplification for a small business. So any business making under $100,000 in profits, I think, should be exempt from Philadelphia business taxation. They're effectively sole proprietors, and the sole proprietors will be paying their personal taxes. We don't need to tax them twice. (With) small businesses, the quickest way to jumpstart job growth (is)—we know that we have so many creative and entrepreneurial people in Philadelphia. I want them to use that energy here in Philadelphia and make it an easy place for them to start their businesses. I happen to think that Northwest Philadelphia is a real center of creative energy, so with this kind of a program, I think, many of these storefronts that we were talking about could be filled up by many of these new enterprises.

Another part of being a city councilperson is linking programs with people who can use programs. And we have numerous programs to assist entrepreneurs—in particular, minority and women entrepreneurs—making effective use of those programs to make sure that everybody is included in increased economic opportunity is another thing that I could do. So those are three different ideas.