Michael Nutter is not a happy man, and doesn't care who knows it. The City Councilman's bill to cap property tax increases at 10 percent was vetoed by Mayor Street, and when Council had the opportunity last Thursday to override the mayor's veto, the vote was 10-7, two votes short of the 12 Nutter needed. In making his case in front of his fellow Council members before the vote, Nutter gave a fiery, impassioned speech where he pointed out that the lion's share of the burden of property tax increases would be borne by poor and middle income homeowners. More than 80 percent of the total tax increases will come from homeowners whose properties are assessed at less than $75,000, Nutter claimed. He also noted that inequities like these are the reason people seem to have lost faith in city government. It was a heartfelt, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington oration that ultimately went for naught.

"I knew it would be a tight vote," Nutter says of last week's defeat, "and by the time of the vote, I think I knew the outcome. But here is definitely a case where the political outcome is far less important than the issue at hand. As a public servant, you have to balance your political interests with what is the right thing to do. It came down to the mayor on one side, Nutter and a few City Council members on the other side, and politicians in this body deciding which side to come down on without considering the essential question: What is the right thing to do?"

Nutter says that while Council members have heard the recent public outcry over excessive property tax increases, some of them simply didn't want to cross a mayor famous for his vindictiveness, and others just didn't want to be on the losing side. Either way, he says, the taxpaying property owners of Philadelphia come out the real losers, not Michael Nutter.

"This vote sends the absolute wrong message," Nutter says. "At a time when everyone is trying to get people to stay and invest in Philadelphia, when we're trying to reverse the effects of years of neighborhood blight and neglect, this is counterproductive in the extreme. Like last spring's fight over lowering city wage taxes, it's politics versus right and wrong. Too often, politics wins."

Fortunately for him, Nutter is not alone in his disgust. In addition to thousands of pissed-off homeowners, some of his fellow Council members vow to fight on by his side. The most vocal of these is First District Councilman Frank DiCicco, of South Philly. The folks in DiCicco's district have been the most vehement about the property tax increases, and have been holding his feet to the fire on this issue for months. DiCicco has held forums and community meetings on the tax increases, and two weeks ago surprised his fellow Council members by dumping on his desk the mail bag full of letters he's gotten from his constituents urging him to do something, and fast. After tabling his own set of tax freeze bills in favor Nutter's bill, he voted for the override, and along with Nutter watched it go down in flames.

"I loved Nutter's bill," DiCicco says from his office this week. "Our system of tax assessment is fatally flawed, and some of us in Council like Michael and myself are willing to tackle this issue head on. Unfortunately, others in Council wanted to be on the winning side, and absolutely didn't want to be seen as butting heads with the mayor. When the bill came up, it was passed unanimously. Three weeks later, after the mayor made it clear that he's determined to kill it, seven members decided it was better to knuckle under. The failure of Council to override the mayor's veto is insensitive to the taxpaying public, and completely counter to everything we've been trying to do. Philadelphians should learn about this bill, and what its veto will mean to their pocketbooks."

DiCicco says that even though the bill is effectively dead, he's not; he's going to try to get his own bills pushed through again.

"I'm not folding my tent and going home," he quips. "I, and I bet Michael too, will keep hammering and hammering for property tax relief. The people demand it, the people deserve it, and I'm not going to rest until they get it."

And on his seven fellow Council members who changed their minds and sided with the mayor, DiCicco says he's not about to let them or the voting public forget.

"They're going to have to face their constituents every week and explain to them why they changed their vote," he vows.

Some are already willing to explain. At-large Councilman Frank Rizzo voted to sustain the mayor's veto after voting for the bill the first time around, but says it's because just before voting, the mayor assured him that he'd be willing to sign Rizzo's deferment bill, which doesn't offer to freeze or lower property taxes, but delays the date with the tax man so that homeowners pressed for cash can have more time to get the money together without significant penalty.

"Thursday morning I got a letter from the mayor approving my bill," Rizzo says, "so I voted to sustain the veto. My bill gives homeowners the chance to pay their debts without fear of losing their home or damaging their credit. Look, we're going to be closely examining all the taxes collected in Philadelphia when the Tax Reform Commission gets up and running. That's why I worked with the mayor on this one."

Rizzo says that while Nutter's bill is admirable, the problem is that state lawmakers in Harrisburg are the only ones that can give real tax relief, so it's better to take what you can get when you can get it, as opposed to fighting a losing cause.

"All along I've been encouraging people to appeal to the BRT [Board of Revision of Taxes] about their increases," says Rizzo. "There is an appeals process, and people should take advantage of it."

Third District Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell also voted to sustain the mayoral veto, and says her reasons for voting the way she did were pragmatic. If the veto were successfully overridden, she opines, competing bills would have canceled it out, causing City Council to start the whole process over from scratch.

"It took us a long time to get this far," Blackwell says, "and no one wants to have to start all over again. As far as I know, we voted for the bill knowing the mayor would veto. It was a signal that we're serious and willing to deal with the issue, and we wanted the mayor to deal with the issue. Once I heard he signed off on Rizzo's bill, I felt he had dealt with it sufficiently, and I was satisfied."

In an interesting twist, Councilman Nutter offers up a bit of city history. He provides the transcript of a City Council session where a remarkably similar bill was passed unanimously nearly 22 years ago. That bill was vetoed by then-Mayor Bill Green, and returned to Council for possible override. Council voted unanimously to override the veto, with then-Councilman John F. Street leading the charge. At the Council meeting of Jan. 22, 1981, Councilman Street had this to say about Mayor Green's veto of a bill that would freeze property tax rates for three years: "I'm getting sick and tired of the Board of Revision of Taxes, the City Solicitor and the Mayor getting together and playing games with this Council. When this Council seeks to provide citizens some relief, then people start playing games. It's not so bad if they play games with me, because I'm not a senior citizen on a fixed income and because my property is not at stake. Now if you don't want a tax freeze because you think these senior citizens should continue to finance the government in spite of the fact that it might cause them not to be able to eat or heat their homes, then say that. Come right out, be honest, and say that."

Hearing these words repeated back to her Tuesday afternoon, as well as evidence that the current property tax increases disproportionally affect low- and middle-income homeowners, mayoral spokesperson Barbara Grant defends her boss' past and present positions.

"The mayor is concerned about poor people, just as he has always been," Grant says. "When you look behind the percentages, people with less money are paying less of an increase. The average increase is about $120 per year, citywide, or just $10 per month. In the hardest pressed areas of the city, particularly North Philly, the average adjustment is a $52 decrease."

"We are taking people's money without offering real relief," Nutter grouses. "We have 15 to 20 different city taxes reaching in people's pockets right this minute, and I can't figure out why. I hope the Tax Reform Commission helps us to establish a comprehensive policy on the collection of taxes for the city. Because right now, the only tax policy we have is to keep collecting taxes."