by KYW's Tony Hanson
Little more than an hour after taking office as mayor of Philadelphia on Monday, Michael Nutter made a major move in fighting crime.
Just moments after swearing in his new police commissioner, Charles Ramsey (see related story), Nutter signed his first executive order (number 1-08) declaring a "crime emergency" in the city.
Based on that declaration, Mayor Nutter is ordering Commissioner Ramsey to come up with a plan by January 30th for assessing and fighting crime in Philadelphia:
"What it means now is that I've asked -- personally asked and now I guess I have more formally asked -- Chief Ramsey to put together a comprehensive crimefighting strategy for the City of Philadelphia: do all the due diligence necessary, get every statistic and other piece of information, coordinate services. All the other city departments and agencies under this executive order are required to of course not only cooperate in the development of an anti-crime plan but to assist in its implementation."
And Chief Ramsey says he expects success. Now, he has a mere 23 days to prepare his master plan and get back to Nutter.
Mayor Nutter also swore in the rest of his new cabinet on Monday afternoon and issued several other executive orders, getting his administration going at high speed right out of the gate.
KYW's John Ostapkovich reports in addition to the "crime emergency" declaration, Mayor Nutter issued two other executive orders, one of which also has to do with crime of a sort.
It's the sort that dogged the Street Administration, what's known as "pay to play" corruption, so Mayor Nutter, with a stroke of his pen, established the office of Chief Integrity Officer. Asked a few minutes later if that was going to be a tough job, he said, probably not:
"And if you have any doubt about it, you should meet Amy Kurland or you should meet Joan Markman, both of whom have put more people in jail than anyone in Philadelphia's recent history. We're going to clean up this government and I don't care who thinks otherwise."
Nutter says restoring honor and trust in government is the reason for the public swearing in of cabinet members and department heads.
The third executive order restructures who reports to whom in city government, to enhance efficiency.
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