August 5–12, 1999

cover story

Katz Fishing

An unlikely angling expedition on Wissahickon Creek — and a glimpse into the family life of the Republican who would be mayor.

by Howard Altman

photographs by Sandor Welsh

It is just before six on a Saturday morning in early June, and all is quiet here on Huron Street except for the chirping of birds and the occasional rumble of a Ford Navigator passing by.

The air is thick with the scent of pine and the lush fragrance of roses that flourish in a garden by the big stone West Mount Airy manse.

A light clicks on in the upstairs bathroom. A few minutes later, Sam Katz emerges from the front door with a hint of sleep still in his eyes. Despite the hour, Katz, clad in a pink polo shirt and khaki shorts, is the picture of preppevescence as he ambles down the walkway to greet two visitors.

As a Republican who would be mayor, running against a former City Council president armed with bundles of money and the blessing of Philadelphia’s political papacy, Katz is willing to do whatever he can to raise his profile. And so, on this morning, with most normal people still ensconced happily in dreamland, Katz rises early to meet the call of duty. "Great day for fishing," I say to Katz as I walk over to shake hands. Katz pauses.

"Why don’t you come in," he says. There’s some hesitation in his voice, but he’s already made the date to fish the Wissahickon with us — and, more importantly, to let us catch a glimpse of Sam Katz at home.

Katz leads us to the kitchen table, where he offers us seats, then excuses himself, leaving me to observe his sanctum sanctorum. Casa Katz is a study in understated elegance and the precarious balance between the public and private lives of those who seek elective office. The tiled kitchen with the hardwood floor and hunter green walls is immaculate, yet in every corner, on tabletops and countertops, there are reminders that this is a very busy family caught up in the hectic pace of a mayoral campaign.

Over here is a "Sam Katz Mayor" sign. Over there is 11-year-old Ben Katz’s Hebrew school homework, and a certificate of musical excellence. There’s a clipped-out Daily News story about the Katz candidacy, sundry Hebraica, a Germantown Jewish Center financial data survey and a copy of the Wall Street Journal.

And the big dog cage.

"What kind of dog do you have?" I ask Katz when he returns to the kitchen.

"A Lab," he says. Named Jabo.

"Jabo?"

"Officially V. Jabo. Tinsky. For Vladimir Jabotinsky," says Katz. "He was the father of the Israeli Defense Forces. In the early 20th century, when Arabs attacked, he’d attack them." Speaking of attacks and counterattacks, I ask Katz whether — in the age of the semen-stained dress (and of his own attack ads on Democratic contenders Marty Weinberg and John White Jr.) — he is concerned, for himself or his family, about what might hit the fan as the race heats up.

"I’m running for mayor," says Katz, firmly. "I’m not running for President."

Katz, who first sought public office in the contentious 1991 Republican mayoral primary (running against Ron Castille and Frank Rizzo) and then again in the 1994 GOP gubernatorial primary, says any dirt on him would have been dug up a long time ago.

"I would say that most of the things that I would have not wanted to be known about me would have come out during my previous races," Katz says. "There weren’t any 30-second ads exposing, say, my college days or any of that stuff. I was a little bit more exposed in 1994, when I ran against Ridge, but nobody here paid much attention to that."

There’s another reason Katz says he’s not worried about a smear campaign engineered by the John Street camp.

"Since 1991, there hasn’t been any kind of thing I did that I would be embarrassed of. I have been married for 27 years, I have four kids and, until I started running for mayor, I didn’t go out. My taxes are in the public domain."

Still, says Katz, being a candidate means coming under fire via attack ads. And that, he says, can be rough on the family. Though the Katzes, he adds, have all developed thicker hides.

"When I was running against Tom Ridge, he ran some negative ads and the kids were watching TV and they were like, ‘Daddy! Come up here!’" But after that first shock, he says, "I think everyone started taking it with a grain of salt." Katz, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes, says his children have gotten caught up in the excitement of a mayoral campaign. "All of them pretty intensely watched the primary, which, until the end, we were more or less spectators," he says. "They had such a distant and sort of academic view of the ads that were critical of other people. And they didn’t think less of the other people."

As Katz talks, his pretty, dark-haired 13-year-old daughter Elizabeth strolls into the kitchen, kisses her father good morning and is introduced to her dad’s early morning visitors.

"Good morning," she says, cheerfully, exuding a certain sense of poise that has been honed as her father’s — and her family’s — public profile has increased. In fact, the reason Elizabeth is up this early is because she has been drafted to go fishing with her father. And not a first-round draft choice, either. Elizabeth is serving as a kind of pinch-kid for her 11-year-old brother Ben, who was originally named to the task but became unavailable for this media availability.

But rather than act like this was some onerous piece of business thrust upon her by an egomaniacal father, Elizabeth — a teenager — takes it in stride as just another goofy adventure with her dad.

Elizabeth actually seems more interested in the fishing than her father, who is clearly in no hurry to hit the Wissahickon. "Why don’t you go get some cereal," Katz tells his daughter. "Can you fix me something to drink, some orange juice or apple juice or something?" As Elizabeth putters around the kitchen, Sam Katz talks about how politics has become a family affair.

	Katz says Rendell was privately trying to convince him to run for mayor. He "said I could win," says Katz, when asked what Rendell did to goose him back into the Democratic fold as a mayoral contender.

"One Saturday, my son was reading the Daily News out loud to my wife Connie," says Katz. "And [Democratic City Committee chairman Bob] Brady said [Katz’s last-minute attack advertising] represents the worst ‘gutter politics.’ And he turns to me and says ‘Ooooh.’"

Katz laughs at the memory of his 11-year-old’s commentary.

"The kids are, you know, very understanding of" the roles played by the media and the pols, says Katz, "and they get included in enough things so they feel part of it."

Will the Katz family change if there is a Republican victory in November?

First of all, Katz says that running for office in Philadelphia actually gives him more time with his family than when he was in the municipal finance business and on the road constantly.

"When I decided to run for mayor, everyone told Connie, ‘Oh, you’ll never see him.’ And she said, ‘Are you kidding? I have never seen him so much!’ I am home every night in my bed."

Katz says the two oldest children, Lauren, 18, and Philip, 17, will be the least affected.

Lauren leaves next month for the Boston area, where she will be a frosh at Tufts University. Philip "is going to be a junior [at Penn Charter] next year and he’s got a network of friends that are sort of a comfort zone for him — he’s going to be fine."

The two younger children — Elizabeth and Ben — would bear the full brunt of life as the city’s first family.

Ben, though the youngest, may be the Katz kid who best handles politics, says his father proudly.

"He’s so into it, let me tell you, he went to school and was excited to tell kids he met Queena Bass," says Katz. "They had no idea who Queena Bass is. He’s just into this whole thing. When we went out for Dining Out For Life, he got up and worked the room. He met [State Sen. Vincent] Fumo, Bob Brady, John Timoney, Angel Ortiz. He went from table to table."

Is there a future for Ben in this business?

"There may be," Katz kvells. "His teacher said yesterday in the parent-teacher conference that she would not be surprised. He is a real leader."

All the Katz kids have been leaders in one way or another, says the candidate, adding that all his kids served on student council. Though politics is a family pastime, Katz remains concerned about what toll the race and the job will take.

"We have a very good relationship," he says of his family. "And they are all good kids, people are always amazed. This is just one point, but I need to be around them. Some part of my day is going to be spent in the house with the kids. Ed [Rendell] needs to be out more; I’ll be out plenty. I don’t know that I will be out every night until midnight."

 

Wanting a better glimpse into how the job affects the family, Katz says he visited the mountain, meeting with Rendell in the mayor’s office in June of 1998.

Katz hoped to get some hints into balancing the obligations of the mayor’s office and the home front. But the candidate thinks that Rendell had another item on the agenda: convincing the Republican to run as a Democrat in the mayoral primary.

"When I decided to run, Ed made time available knowing what I had come to talk about," says Katz. "Rendell spread his schedule for the next two weeks on his desk. He took his schedule and said, ‘Now here, I am going to have to be home, because Jesse is doing something, so I have this on the schedule. And here, I have this at home and here Midge and I are doing this."

Why was Ed being so warm and fuzzy over family?

Katz says Rendell — who was publicly committed to supporting John Street — was privately trying to convince him to run for mayor. Rendell "said I could win," says Katz, when asked what Rendell did to try to goose him back into the Democratic fold as a mayoral contender. "I said, ‘Do I win with your support?’ And he said, ‘I am sure you can win.’ That’s when I looked at him and doubted I could get his support."

Katz, sitting at his kitchen table, insists that running as a Democrat was never really a factor anyway. The field was too crowded and he didn’t want to switch parties again.

(Rendell responds: "I didn’t urge Sam to do anything. Sam is an old friend and he asked me for my political advice. I told him that Philadelphia is a Democratic town and his best chance would be if he ran as a Democrat. I told him in no uncertain terms that I was for John Street, that John would be the best mayor.")

The bottom line, Katz says, is that the mayor addressed his concerns.

"He knew that if he was going to have any chance of persuading me to run, he was going to have to try and alert me to how you do it," says Katz, adding that Rendell’s best advice was discipline. Which is just a bit hilarious considering Rendell’s many appetites and his proclivity for arriving at least 45 minutes late to any event.

"Ed is everywhere, but is nowhere very long," says Katz. "He made that point to me. He says he has gotten to the point where he accepts everything on the terms that it fits his schedule. And that when he comes to a place, he expects to be introduced, make his remarks and leave. He said if you get bogged down into talking to people, then 8:30 turns into 10. I am not sure what the execution of that philosophy has had on his life, but I definitely think he is right."

In typical fashion, Katz segues from talking about Rendell’s advice to talking about how his already-hectic schedule interferes with family life.

"The campaign had something on the schedule on the night of Lauren’s pre-prom party," says Katz, "and Connie and I were the hosts. There were 60 kids in tuxedos and gowns and their parents.… I walked in the door as everyone was walking out. I was pretty apoplectic. It wasn’t a significant night, I mean it was a pre-prom party, but I am not going to see it again. These kids started together in kindergarten and now they all have beards and facial hair and breasts and gowns and tuxedos and now they are in my house and I missed it and I was pretty upset.

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