Traditionally, deadline day to file nominating petitions in Philadelphia involves the candidate having to negotiate the crowd packing the County Board of Elections office in City Hall and spilling outside. It also means enduring the slings and arrows of opponents and their operatives just waiting to challenge the validity of signatures or mouth off to the assembled media about how this ignorant slob has no right to run for elected office. This year was different.

This past Tuesday was this year's deadline for candidates wishing to participate in May's primary, and while the Board of Elections office in Room 142 was its usual mad flurry of activity, the mood, surprisingly, was one of civility.

Candidates who ran into each other in the hallway were unfailingly polite and pleasant to each other. First District City Council challenger Vern Anastasio of South Philly engaged in some light banter with the oldest member of Council, 88-year-old David Cohen. Cohen, unlike the Brooks Brothers-attired Anastasio, showed up in his red-and-white checkered shirt, red scarf and lucky Greek fisherman's cap and worked the room like the veteran he is. When Anastasio wished the elderly legislator good luck in the election, Cohen replied with a laugh, "I'd wish you good luck too, but incumbents are obligated to support incumbents." "Only if they deserve your support," Anastasio shot back, a thinly veiled reference to his opponent, Councilman Frank DiCicco.

In the hallway after filing his petitions, Anastasio explained why he thinks he should be the new guy in the chair.

"The neighbors are why I'm running," said Anastasio. "The people of the First District want their seat back. They want real economic development, neighborhood services and a plan to restore integrity to City Council."

Asked if there is a present lack of integrity in that body, Anastasio, true to the mood of the day, refused to throw stones.

"I'd like to introduce an Ethical Standards Pledge for Council members, but I wouldn't call any of them unethical, exactly."

"I don't think Frank is a bad man, necessarily. I think I can do better. I think the people deserve better. But I'm not going to sling mud. I want to run a clean, issues-driven campaign," said Anastasio, who made sure to mention that he's running his campaign out of his parents' South Philly garage.

One of the last to file petitions for an at-large Council seat was Democrat Juan Ramos, former director of the city's Fair Labor Standards Unit. Ramos made it to City Hall less than a half-hour before the 5 p.m. deadline and, after filing, was eager to talk to reporters about his candidacy. He's already got a campaign hook.

"I want to serve all the citizens of Philadelphia," declared Ramos, in his first unofficial speech as a candidate. "I'm proud to be a Philadelphian, and I want to serve everyone, especially those who choose to stay here rather than run to the suburbs," he laughed.

Meanwhile, up in City Council chambers on the sixth floor, there was serious business. It's time for the budget hearings again, when highly paid, respected directors of city agencies are forced to go before our city's legislative body and justify their very existence while begging for more money. While individual Council members slipped out and returned one at a time to file their nominating petitions downstairs, SEPTA chairperson Faye Moore was in the hot seat, being grilled by Council on the transit agency's budget, and on its record of minority participation in SEPTA construction contracts, specifically the massive West Philly Market-Frankford El project.

Councilman Rick Mariano demanded to know who is ultimately responsible for SEPTA's compliance with minority participation guidelines, while Michael Nutter wanted to know why SEPTA set a goal of 18-percent minority participation if more was possible. Moore explained that the 18-percent figure was met last year, and any higher goals could cause the federal government to reject the contract or even freeze some of SEPTA's revenues. That answer didn't seem to satisfy Councilman Nutter, who then asked if Moore would send Council the list of all contractors and sub-contractors working on the project, and whether those firms are based in Philadelphia. He also wanted an accounting of how many minority workers each of those firms had on the El construction project. Nutter, whose district borders Market Street in West Philly, later said that his constituents have been complaining bitterly to him about a lack of black and brown faces on the work site, as well as the general inconvenience a huge construction project has on a residential neighborhood.

"From what people are telling me, the minority participation on this project is low," Nutter said. "The evidence is so far anecdotal, and may even be somewhat mistaken, perceptions being what they are. But I'll be talking to SEPTA, and I promise I'll get some satisfactory answers. This is not going away."

He's right. It's not going away. According to SEPTA's Moore, the Market Street construction project isn't scheduled for completion until 2007. (dsgale@citypaper.net)