Pupils test the candidates

MAYORAL CANDIDATE Doug Oliver did it again with the young'uns, rocking the world of fourth- and fifth-graders in the Philadelphia School District yesterday during a youth mayoral forum.

The students - from Julia de Burgos, Avery D. Harrington, John Wister, William Dick and Edwin M. Stanton elementary schools - swarmed Oliver just to chat and see him up close after the forum. It was held in the district headquarters auditorium and hosted by the Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement.

The candidate had received a similar response last month from Central High School students at a mayoral panel there.

Stanton fifth-grader Tamya Wyche said that "Doug inspired me by pushing" her to try harder in school. "He does stuff that makes people push, and that's why I like him."

The 11-year-old was one of many kids who sat through the forum to hear questions from pupils and responses by mayoral candidates, who also included former City Councilman Jim Kenney, state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, former District Attorney Lynne Abraham and former Common Pleas Judge Nelson Diaz. Milton Street did not attend.

William Dick student Tahair Thomas-Carr asked the panel: "Why do you want to become mayor?"

Williams answered: "I want to make sure you can actually have a job or a car that you can enjoy in Philadelphia. That's why I'm running for mayor."

De Burgos student Armani Sanders asked the candidates: "How are you going to enforce consequences for police brutality?"

Kenney talked about hiring more police officers who are women and of different ethnicities. The police force "needs to look like the neighborhood it protects," he said.

Abraham said she'd make sure that police were working with the community and not against it.

Diaz said that he personally had been a victim of stop-and-frisk growing up in the New York community of Harlem.

Oliver's answer touched off perhaps the most poignant moment of the event. He asked the students, "How many think the police is not your friend?" Most of the pupils' hands went up.

Afterward, former Gov. Ed Rendell, who introduced the event, said the answer "shows that we have a lot of work to do."

Rendell commended the students for respectful behavior, which he said demonstrated that if issues are presented to young people, "they'll listen, they'll learn and they'll become involved citizens."

Online: ph.ly/DNEducation