Wilson Goode - Mayor of Philadelphia

Mayor of Philadelphia

During the primary election of 1982, Green decided not to seek re-election when his wife, Patricia, became pregnant. Goode jumped into the race and defeated former Mayor Frank Rizzo in a racially polarized primary election. Goode went on to win the general election over former Green fund-raiser and Philadelphia Stock Exchange Chairman John Egan, the Republican Party nominee.

Goode continued his heavy public schedule as Mayor. However, he failed to sell City Council on the necessity of a trash-to-steam plant to avoid using landfills, and the economics of landfill use soon changed, lowering landfill costs and raising incineration costs, making a trash-to-steam plant too expensive to be feasible.

Goode's tenure as mayor was marred in the spring of 1985 by the MOVE confrontation, in which police attempted to clear a building in West Philadelphia inhabited by a radical back-to-nature group whose members, under the leadership of founder John Africa, had long been a nuisance to the city by shouting slogans and statements from a megaphone at all hours, ignoring city sanitation codes, assaulting neighbours, and barricading themselves in houses when law enforcement came to enforce them. During the final assault on the building, the police dropped an improvised bomb made of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex, an explosive gel used in underwater mining. This caused the house to catch fire, and ignited a massive blaze which eventually consumed almost 4 city blocks, killed 11 people, and left 240 people homeless.

While public opinion initially supported Goode, an investigation by a commission appointed by Goode held extensive public hearings in which Goode's judgement was held up to public scrutiny. The negative publicity helped elect Republican Ron Castille as city district attorney in 1985 and encouraged Ed Rendell, a former district attorney and an unsuccessful 1986 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, to oppose Goode for the Democratic mayoral nomination in 1987. Goode defeated Rendell for the nomination and then defeated Rizzo, who became the Republican nominee, in the general election. In both primary and general elections, Philadelphia's black voters stuck by Goode, although with less enthusiasm than he had aroused in 1983.

During the Green Administration, the city budget had been balanced; the first few years of Goode's reign caused the city to go into debt again, this time deeply, and the fiscal troubles continued throughout his tenure. In an attempt to re-balance the city's budget, Goode pushed through tax increases that raised the city's wage tax to an all-time high of 4.96 percent. Yet despite this record tax increase, on the day Goode finally left office Philadelphia was only twenty-seven days away from being insolvent—bankrupt—and Moody's gave its municipal bonds junk bond ratings. His successors, Edward G. Rendell and John Street were able to reduce the city wage tax incrementally and impart a degree of fiscal health to the Philadelphia city government.