Sources: http://articles.philly.com/2015-03-04/news/59730572_1_challengers-nelson-diaz-campaign http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/mayor/20150312_Mayoral_candidates_respond_to_chamber_s_questions.html#1G80DRcGkpkwFwlR.99 http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/ninetynine/78832-for-nelson-diaz-its-all-about-schools http://www.greaterphilachamber.com/download/public/gpcc-response-diaz.pdf

United States lawyer who has been a Philadelphia city solicitor, a judge on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, and General Counsel at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He was mentioned as a possible HUD Secretary in the Obama Administration,[1] before Obama announced that Shaun Donovan was his pick for the position. Diaz founded the first organization devoted to black and Hispanic law students at Temple University while he was a student there, and he has been a member of Temple's Board of Trustees since 1992. Having been the first Puerto Rican to be admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar Association in 1973

Diaz is aiming to position himself as the original progressive candidate. He has no major endorsements, but boasts a career of public and private executive experience arguably unmatched in the field.

"When I look at each one of [the challengers], I don't see anyone who has run anything - they are lobbyists, legislators, spokespersons, activists, a prosecutor," he said. "I don't see anyone that has that leadership experience, I think that's really important."

As the first Puerto Rican to run for mayor, Diaz said, he has the Latino base on lock. He thinks he can get votes from progressives and a portion of the African American community, particularly traditional public school advocates who may be against state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams' stand in favor of school vouchers.

Funding

No major endorsement, only thing I find is a $10,000 donation from the law firm where he is a partner.

Issues

Education Diaz said he supports "charters that work," and sits on the board of one in Camden, but wants a moratorium on new charters until Philadelphia's school district can climb out of its financial crisis. He also is calling for an end to the School Reform Commission, though he's unclear on whether a mayor could dismantle the state-constructed entity.

"We have to have a full funding process throughout the state," maintained Diaz, adding that he's willing to file a federal lawsuit to ensure fair state funding for education. "One of the issues is that almost 100 percent of the kids happen to be minorities: African-American and Latinos in the public school system.

"Some of the charters have ... sort of abandoned the rest of the public education process. We have to be able to educate everyone. Everyone deserves a good education, and just by siphoning out what they consider to be the prime kids and leaving everybody else behind, we're going to have to pay later for the problems that will be created as a result of not having kids with an education."

Diaz also said that he'd seek funding for universal pre-Kindergarten education.

Employment Diaz said the city needs to focus on job growth outside Center City and University City. He suggested that community colleges become partners in providing business skills to residents.

How would you assist sole proprietors to grow into small enterprises and increase employment? A: As Executive Director of the Hispanic Merchants Association back in the 1970s, I helped business owners navigate a complicated system and seek out loans for things like working capital. We provided support, expertise, and guidance to small businesses seeking to open their doors or expand. I used that experience in other neighborhoods as well, and helped establish local entities on the ground that could do real community economic development. Today, we don’t consistently do that in every neighborhood and every instance. PIDC has some models that really work, but needs to do a much better job taking its successes and turning them into scalable best practices. The redevelopment of the Navy Yard in particular provides a model that we should be looking to employ elsewhere in the city. We also do a particularly poor job leveraging our universities and educational institutions as incubators for economic development, especially in relation to some peer cities in the northeast and the rest of the country. That’s one big reason Philadelphia lags behind other cities as a center of high tech job growth. We bring in far less venture capital funding than other similar cities, and the funding we do get as a metro region overwhelming flows to the suburbs, in sharp contrast to pretty much every other big city. If we can partner with our educational institutions, that’s going to create a more vibrant job market and business climate that will be especially beneficial to companies that are looking to expand and grow.

Economy There’s a reason 48% of working Philadelphians reverse commute to the suburbs. That’s unacceptably high, and it’s a direct result of our tax and regulatory structure combined with our dysfunctional education system and public safety issues. It’s because of all those things that we’ve been the 2nd worst city in the country at creating small business jobs since the recession, with only Detroit behind us. That’s insane. We have incredible resources and amenities as a city; people and businesses want to be here. But our antiquated tax system drives them away. It’s not necessarily that we tax too much, but that we tax the wrong things and the wrong people. You know the numbers better than I do, but they’re so striking they’re worth repeating. 66% of our tax revenue comes from taxes like the Business Receipts Tax and Wage Tax; peer cities like New York and Washington get perhaps 1/3 of their revenue from similar sources. In today’s economy those sources of revenue are highly mobile, and there’s little to stop information or service sector jobs from packing up and moving to the other side of City Line Avenue to avoid those taxes. Meanwhile, just 1/6 of our revenue comes from real estate taxes, while New York and Washington get twice as much revenue as a share of their budget from real estate. The single most important thing we can do for our economic health is fundamental, soup-to-nuts tax reform. We have to fix our tax structure and make it both more equitable and more pro-growth, while increasing revenue. We know the basic outlines of how to do that and we know the issues; they’ve been highlighted in report after report, but nothing’s changed. What you have to ask is who’s going to actually get the job done and make this change happen. We'll need help in Harrisburg to achieve reform, and I know how to build coalitions and work with a Republican Legislature to achieve important goals – it’s what I did at HUD, when I worked for a Democratic President facing the New Gingrich-led House of Representative, and still managed to get a lot done. To throw our hands up and write off Harrisburg, as some in this race have done, is a non-starter. Similarly, constantly patching the holes, as some other candidates have, isn't a winning strategy. I’m going to actually get this done, and I hope I’ll have your help in that struggle.