Street names Ramos new managing director
Jan 28, 2005
By MARK McDONALD
mcdonam@phillynews.com
Wearing his Eagles jacket and boasting of the depth of talent on his senior management team, Mayor Street pulled a "double switch" yesterday.
Coach Street tapped City Solicitor Pedro Ramos, 39, to become his new managing director, replacing Phil Goldsmith some time in early spring.
And Romulo "Romy" L. Diaz Jr., 58, a top Law Department manager, will move into Ramos' job, becoming the fourth Latino Street has appointed as city solicitor.
Street said he was looking for players "who can hit the ground running," and he challenged all comers to find a better pair.
"These are the two best-qualified people that I know to have these jobs, and I defy anybody, anywhere, at any time to come up with the names of more qualified people," Street said.
Though the administration didn't make a big deal about it, there were also a couple of firsts in the appointments. Ramos is the city's first Latino managing director, and Diaz is the city's first gay city solicitor.
Diaz joins Andrew A. Chirls, the first gay Philadelphia Bar chancellor, to mark the first time in the city's legal history that two openly gay men have simultaneously held the two prestigious legal posts.
For a year, Ramos, the brother of City Councilman Juan Ramos, has served as city solicitor, taking a pay cut to come to the city from Penn, where he was a vice president. Before that he was school board president and a partner at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll.
Diaz was recruited to the city almost three years ago by then-city solicitor Nelson Diaz, who is no relation.
Romy Diaz served in a senior management position at the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton years. Before that, he was a deputy chief of staff to the U.S. energy secretary.
Diaz, who is chair of the Law Department's commercial and regulatory law group, will see his salary rise from $105,000 to $155,429. Ramos will suffer a second pay cut, dipping from $155,429 to $154,502.
Ramos had high praise for Goldsmith, who he said has emphasized a "customer-service orientation," and he pledged to give the job "all I got."
Street described his management style as collaborative in which meetings are frequent and key decision-makers are brought together to thrash out policy options.
"We run this government different from many mayors," Street said. "There is no one person in this government who, if that person is gone, things stop," he said. Decisions aren't made by the mayor and managing director "huddling in a corner. We don't work that way."
With the budget season heating up, Street was asked when he planned to hire a finance director.
"We'll have a finance director shortly... We haven't found the person we want. It's as simple as that," Street said.
He recently named Vincent J. Jannetti as acting finance director and John Nacchiio as acting treasurer. Both men have substantial experience in their respective departments.
Street said he likes to give inside candidates a tryout in acting positions, "because we get a chance to know a little bit about them and we see them functioning."