In the second part of the SUN interview with Republican mayoral candidate David Oh, he outlines his vision for education in the city, 76 Place, and the importance of exchanging ideas.
By Denise Clay-Murray
SUN: You mentioned policing earlier in this interview. You said that you’re hearing a lot about it on the campaign trail. But solving the problem of crime is going to require more than just policing. While I understand that policing is a big chunk of your plan, talk a little bit about your plan beyond policing.
DO: So, the first thing is policing. People need to see the police. We need to saturate Center City. We need to make sure there’s a lot of visible police officers where there’s a lot of murder, violence, and crime so people know we care number one, and number two, they can come out of their house to return to work.
But as you pointed out, and I completely agree with this, police cannot be occupiers of the neighborhood. They have to be servants of the of the people. And so, part of what we have to do, or what I have to do as the mayor, the person in charge, I have to talk to our police officers and let them understand that it’s a new day just like for the criminals. It’s a new day for the criminals. It’s a new day for the residents. It’s a new day for the police officers and we will have a new attitude that I will embody.
We’ll have a new police commissioner that I will appoint and we’re going to take a lot of pride in our professionalism, which means knowledge, discipline, and restraint. And when I say restraint, I don’t mean sit in the car and not answering the call. I mean restraint when dealing with people, keeping a cool temper, and being polite and courteous. And when called, jumping into action with good training and good resources.
Public safety requires that the police be part of the community. You cannot be part of the community if you are rude to the people who need you. You can’t treat everyone like criminals.
That’s why I oppose the use of stop and frisk as a policing tool. There’s nothing wrong with that if the police have a reasonable suspicion of criminality. If the person is armed and dangerous, police should do this for their protection. But, I’m not going to send out the police and tell them to stop and frisk people as a way of harassing them, because that defeats the purpose.
SUN: What else would you suggest?
DO: Cleaning is something you could do very quickly. Taking care of parks and making sure that things are in good condition and that rusty and broken swings are replaced. [Another] thing that you can do, but not as quickly, is to make a change to the schools. School is critical and so important to improving people’s lives.
If [people] invest their time in getting an education and getting vocational and career training, they can have aspirations for a better future. The positiveness of that makes a tremendous difference. And so, yes, as mayor, I have to push and push and push that you can change your trajectory. You can change your life with your own power by really focusing on education and improving the quality of life in your neighborhood.
You don’t have to be rich to have a good quality of life and you are entitled to the same respect and the same enforcement of laws. That’s what the city is not doing and that’s why people feel that this is a pay-to-play town.
SUN: This question is similar to one I’ve asked your opponent. You were on City Council for a long time. Being on Council and being mayor are two different things. They’re two different offices with two different sets of responsibility. What do you see as your biggest challenge, possibly moving from one to the other?
DO: Well, I don’t really feel like there’s a big challenge. I have tried to be a legislator. I had to write my own bills. I didn’t have the cooperation of the Law Department because I was writing bills against the administration many times. I was writing bills that were not popular to the political machine. They might have been popular to the people. They might have even been bills that my colleagues really respected, but they weren’t going to vote for them. And so, you know, my time on council was more of a disrupter than a legislator.
SUN: Okay, but here’s my question. I mean, like I said, they’re two different offices. You know how Council works. The Mayor’s office is going to be new to you. What do you see is the biggest challenge you have should you occupy that office?
DO: I guess I should clarify. I don’t want to say that I don’t think it’s a challenging job. I think it’s a very unpopular job. You have to basically plow ahead and be reasonable in what you do. But you’re the executive. I’ve been the executive, you know, and it reminds me that our council is full of people who have not been executives.
And just because you’re an executive doesn’t mean you have any kind of magic powers. We’ve had people, for example, who have run their own business, but they’ve never been in public service. They don’t know how government works. It doesn’t work like a business. Sometimes, you know, there are a lot of limitations to how government works. The politics of it is really the particular thing.
I have built and run my own small business. I have been on the boards of commercial institutions and entities, and I’ve been advisors to them, so I understand it. But as an employer, I do deal with a lot of things. And I cannot think of too many people that I know on council in my 11 years that actually did have a business to run. I’ve made payroll. I’ve had to deal with all the [human relations] issues and all the legal things and as an attorney — I advise and represent plenty of businesses. I have been trained in the military, so I know how to take orders and give orders. Being the mayor is no different than that.
SUN: So, here’s my last question. One of the things that has come up in some of the reporting that I’ve been doing on this race is the stadium that the Philadelphia 76ers want downtown. What is your view on the stadium? Have you thought about what you’re going to do about it if you become the mayor, and what are you hearing from folks in the Asian American community about this?
DO: As mayor, I would look at what’s good for the entire city. Not just a section of the city — the entire city. I’d also look at how it impacts the region, and our neighbors. I’d look at whether or not this stadium is good for the city and how this whole thing works out.
I can’t really even start to think about that, because the Sixers have not presented any architectural drawings. They’ve not presented any actual studies on traffic or parking. We don’t actually know how tall or how big or how expensive or what kind of infrastructure it needs or how it will disrupt or not disrupt communities or things like that.
So, what I can do is guess that that’s a bad location for a stadium. I can guess that if you put a stadium there, even if you had concerts, it would basically really be a night and day thing when there’s a game, or a concert or people coming in. It won’t be something that’s conducive to neighborhoods or small [musical] venues.
It’s just sucks up all the air when it’s open and it basically dampens everything down when it’s not around. And so, we’ve seen this constant change [with this project]. First, it’s a stadium.
Then, it’s a stadium with concerts, and a stadium with shopping. And then hey, on top of that we have housing. Every time something happens, they change the description and it’s not actually written down in any way that people could understand. So, I’m just going to say that I think that they have gotten far more attention than they deserve. They announced their intentions.
And then they had a reasonable amount of time to show us what they’re going to do. I would say that the fact that it changes so much is suspect.
And the fact that it is really very disruptive, because now people are on hold. They don’t know what to do. Is this stadium coming or not? And a lot of it has come down to politics. In other words, who did the who did the Building Trades back and did their candidate win? Well, now that she’s won, people are assuming we’re going to build this stadium.
They’re also pitting groups of people against each other over this imaginary entity. I’m just shocked that anyone takes the stadium seriously. It is a big thing, but I don’t think it’s a good idea there. But I’m willing to look at the plan and things like that. But I think because it’s so disruptive and because we’ve seen the Sixers actually, like, go to a distinct group of people, African Americans, and say ‘This is how you’re going to benefit.
You’re going to get the jobs and you’re going to have businesses here.’ Then, they walked over to the Asians in Chinatown and say ‘No, no, no! you’ll get everything. You’re going to get the jobs — you’re going to have business here.’ And then, when they didn’t like it, they came on over to another group and said ‘No, no, you’ll get everything.’ They’re promising Monopoly money to people, but what do they actually have?
As mayor, I have to look at the whole thing. I know that we have Jefferson University, we have a health center and a hospital there. I know we have Chinatown there. I know we have East Market Street that needs to be developed. We have residents who live not only in Chinatown, but in the surrounding areas. And so, where is this stadium in the overall plan for Philadelphia, because me personally, I’d like to see a new skyline. And once we have jobs, where do those people go? They go live in a neighborhood, and maybe that neighborhood is Market Street. Maybe what’s already there should tell you what should be there.
SUN: Thank you so much for your time, and good luck the rest of the way.
DO: Thank you.
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