GOODE TO HIRE A DEPUTY WITH NEW POWERS

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - Sunday, November 3, 1985 Author: Russell Cooke, Inquirer Staff Writer In an effort to address what he called "deficiencies" in his staff, Mayor Goode has said he is on the verge of making a key appointment - a new deputy mayor. The official will replace W. Oliver Leggett, who resigned as deputy mayor in July, and Goode said he would give the new aide greatly expanded powers. In an interview Thursday, the mayor said his new deputy would function as "a right arm to me for a number of important and critical issues." According to government sources, the job as Goode's second-in-command has been offered to attorney John E. Flaherty Jr., deputy city solicitor from 1980 to 1982 under the Green administration. Flaherty, 40, known by the nickname Jay, referred questions about the job to Goode last week. The mayor said "delicate negotiations" were under way and declined to say whether Flaherty was his choice. Amid growing criticism of Goode's handling of the MOVE crisis, Goode has embarked on a talent search and staff reorganization that he said would shore up his handling of major policy matters, political lobbying, long-term planning and news media relations. Some allies and some critics of the mayor have said that the MOVE hearings unmasked weaknesses in Goode's running of the city that have been apparent to them for some time. Goode dismisses that assessment. "I'm sure you will find people who will say, 'Well, this points out that the mayor can't manage,' " Goode said in the interview. ". . . But I don't think this points up anything other than the fact that what we're dealing with (MOVE) is unique." Goode said the new deputy mayor, who will not be a cabinet member, will be freed of responsibility for day-to-day operation of city agencies, instead devoting full time to "assist me on a major policy level." Goode has never before talked of delegating such power to a deputy, although concerned supporters, especially business leaders, have been urging him to do just that. "There's been a strong feeling for a long time," said Ralph R. Widner, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia First Corp. (GPFC), ''. . . that he very much needs some strong people on his personal staff who can follow through on his personal commitments, but at the same time occasionally tell him when they think he's wrong."

William V. Donaldson, the former city manager of Cincinnati and current director of the Philadelphia Zoo, whom Goode often consults, said, "He's got to have someone - and Wilson has said this to me - who's not afraid of him." Widner said five executives from firms belonging to the GPFC, a coalition of Philadelphia corporations, delivered a similar message to Goode during a four-hour meeting on Columbus Day. He said the executives also voiced their concern about the administration's progress on building a long-delayed trash- disposal system and a convention center and coping with a likely deficit in the city budget next year. The session was described as friendly, and a follow-up meeting was held Wednesday. But one participant in the Oct. 14 meeting, who asked not to be named, said the group had wanted to convey its "deep, deep concern" about Goode's effectiveness. Few civic, business or political leaders are willing to express such concerns publicly. One notable exception has been former Mayor William J. Green, whose recent remarks about Goode's handling of MOVE prompted Goode to tell his former boss to "shut up." Green last week accused Goode of making ''a series of bad decisions that . . . have greatly disadvantaged the city." Among the issues raised by Green were the administration's decision to scrap a trash-to-steam plant that Green had readied, its failure to buy a desperately needed landfill in Chester County, its approval of what Green regards as an overly generous teachers' contract and the renegotiation of the Eagles' and Phillies' leases at Veterans Stadium, which Green said were ''giveaways." Goode has defended his actions on each of those issues in the past, and he insisted last week that no matter whom he had working for him, there was nothing "we could have done differently with our major projects." He also downplayed the significance of the current changes in his office, describing them as part of a routine "mid-term adjustment." Thus far, Goode's bid to strengthen his office has included: Hiring former New York State housing official Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich as a deputy for services; bringing in a SmithKline Beckman personnel executive, Webster Fitzgerald, under the executive-on-loan program to do strategic planning for one year; and, within the last few weeks, hiring David M. Boonin , a former chief economist for the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, as director of intergovernmental relations. All three have close ties to Goode. Scruggs-Leftwich worked with him in the late 1960s at a nonprofit housing agency; Fitzgerald ran management seminars in 1980 for Goode when he was managing director, and Boonin , the son of former school board member Tobyann Boonin , worked with Goode when the mayor chaired the PUC from 1978 to 1980. Still to be hired, in addition to the new deputy mayor, are a director of communications and

deputy press secretary and another Harrisburg lobbyist who Goode said would be "a nuts-andbolts person who can stay on top of things." Those moves have yet to satisfy some observers, who worry privately that Goode, in the words of one, still "tries to do everything." One civic leader, talking about the kind of right-hand person he hopes Goode will hire, said the mayor has no one "who's a real political heavyweight who can do the down and dirty negotiating you frequently need to do to get something to happen." Donaldson, whom Goode tried to hire as managing director in 1983, said the mayor is "really interested in . . . someone whom Wilson will see as an equal." Goode, added Donaldson, "needs somebody there that, number one, will speak up and say, 'Have you thought of . . .,' and then someone who has the clout to demand accountability from the bureaucracy." Jay Flaherty would bring that kind of clout to Goode's staff, his associates and friends said. Now a partner and litigation specialist at Dechert, Price & Rhoads, one of the city's largest law firms, Flaherty has an Ivy League manner and law-school credentials but also was an officer in Vietnam. Also, Flaherty is white - a factor that some of the mayor's advisers insist is important politically because Goode's other top staff people are black. "Jay was . . . one of the really important members of Bill Green's Law Department," said former City Solicitor Mark A. Aronchick, who joined the Green administration with Flaherty in 1980. Although Flaherty is not a heavyweight with party regulars, he did rally other young lawyers around Goode early in the 1983 mayoral campaign and staged a fund-raising event that brought in an estimated $50,000, according to those involved. He appeared in Goode's earliest TV commercials, and was a member of a so-called "truth squad" dispatched by the campaign to refute assertions made by Goode's Democratic primary opponent, former Mayor Frank L. Rizzo. Besides beefing up his personal staff, Goode will have to replace Finance Director Richard G. Gilmore, who has said he will resign by the end of the year. And City Solicitor Barbara W. Mather has said she will consider whether to resign at mid-term in January. Goode insisted last week that the growing criticism of his administration would have no effect on his ability to attract qualified aides. "No one that I've talked to," he said Thursday, "has even blinked at all about wanting to come."