Now; how can a mayor of city do this without the council or someone on the council not know this. I would think there would be a rumor or two.
Seemingly everyone knew, unless they did not want to. I live about 2 miles away (as the crow flies) and it was no secret to the city council... at least it seemed.
Reed was not a dem mayor in fact. He was overwhelmingly reelected by pubs and dems. Reed is a bit weird but he did turn that city around.
It went from being one of the worst cities in the USA (by some typical lib organization) to being rated in the top 10 cities to live in (for several years).
City council loved it when he provided money for their pet walk around handouts. Where he got the money was fairly uninque. IIRC he got some grant from the Feds for an inflatable damn across the river.
The grant was one of those low pay-back rate type things. And he got it way back in the early 80’s and invested it. It was 100 or 200 million IIRC and the investments paid off big time.
He took the city from having like 5000 slum and abandoned properties, and got that number way down to like a 5th of that or so. He got the down town changed from strip joints to having the Hilton company invest in a large new hotel.
The private investors to to built 4 or 5 new large buildings and of course that brought in more development and money. He turned thee city around from a large state supported slum (which they were slowly pulling out of) to a relatively thriving small city.
Sort of a Guiliani in miniture. Then a couple of years ago city council and him lock horns and it has been downhill ever since. His party is democratic but the MSM is probably made because he was a real middle of the road type and now that Rendell is in power as gov the dems are trying to trash him.
Every governor has supported him and his successes at cleaning up the trash hole that was Hbg. Now for some reason they have been backing away.
Oh and he never built the inflateable bridge.