By Nicole Contosta

Staff Reporter

Yes, Readers, the May 19th Primary Election is also for Philly’s Republican Party.

Unlike some year’s past, the party has put forth seven viable candidates in this year’s race for City Council-at large. When the results of that primary come in, five of the seven candidates will compete against five Democrats for the seven at-large seats. The 1951 Philadelphia City Charter reserved two at-large seats for minority candidates. But this year, the city’s Republicans hope more than two candidates become at-large representatives.

And when party members met for a meet, greet and debate Saturday, March 28th at the German Society of Pennsylvania, they certainly had reasons to remain optimistic. Republican Martina White recently won the special election for the vacant seat as state representative for the 170th District. It was the first time a Philadelphia Republican has won a special election in 25 years. So, in a show of solidarity, additional Republican candidates including Melissa Murray Bailey, who’s running for Mayor, Chris Sawyer who’s running for Sheriff and Kevin Strickland, who’s running for City Council in the 9th District, lent their support to the party.

That isn’t to say the city council at-large candidates congratulated and patted one another on the back throughout the debate. They are, after all, competing. So moderator Farah Jimenez, of the School Reform Commission, asked the candidates how they distinguish themselves from one another. The candidates include: City Councilman Dennis O’Brien, City Councilman David Oh, Al Taubenberger, Dan Tinney, Terry Tracy, James Williams and Matt Wolfe.

Like the topics discussed in many Democratic forums, the majority of the issues focused on pensions, inadequate funding for Philadelphia schools, growing the city’s tax base and the failed public hearing for the proposed PGW sale.

Republicans have long argued that Philadelphia’s wage and business privilege taxes chase business and jobs out of the city. Thus, Matt Wolfe and Terry Tracy stressed the need for Philadelphia to change its "irrational tax" structure.

Incumbent David Oh, cited legislation he introduced to reduce the city’s wage taxes. Oh went on to note that as the city’s minority party, it’s important for Republicans to introduce legislation that can strike compromises with the Democratic majority.

When it came to funding for education, Wolfe stressed the need to go through the city’s budget and eliminate unnecessary expenditures. "We should start with anything with the name program next to it," Wolfe said.

Incumbent O’Brien called for the expansion of resources supporting the city’s students with autism in its public, charter and parochial schools.

When it came to pensions, O’Brien and Oh said that Philadelphia had to do a better job managing pension payments for current city employees. Wolfe and Tracy advocated changing pension contributions to another system such as a 401 K.

In addition, all of the candidates advocated creating an energy hub in Philadelphia to bring in more tax revenue and living wage jobs.

The debate’s one point of contention came over the fact that City Council refused to hold a public hearing on the proposed PGW sale.

Taubenberger and Williams in particular lambasted incumbents O’Brien and Oh for not insisting on a public hearing.

Wolfe, as he has throughout his campaign, criticized City Council for not brokering the PGW sale.

Oh argued that he didn’t support a bill or a hearing because he didn’t support the sale of PGW to UIL. Oh argued that the $424 million from PGW’s sale of 1.86 billion wouldn’t have made a dent in the underfunded pension. Instead, Oh explained that he didn’t want the city to sell PGW because it could prevent the city from making a profit from Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), a $2.1 billion proposal to expand the Port Richmond plant’s capacity to export LNG to European markets. In Oh’s opinion, supporting a bill to introduce the PGW sale would be the same as supporting a bill for Mayor Nutter’s proposed nine percent property tax increase for 2016, "which I don’t support."

Oh plans to host a public hearing on this proposal in City Council on April 16th.

Overall, the debate remained civil even during its more spirited moments. However, Taubenberger took a clear shot near the end when revealing Oh publically announced his vote for President Obama.