There is no question that Mr. Butkovitz takes his job very seriously. Nor has there been very much dispute about the quality of work that he has done over his first term in office. In fact . . . . the only reoccurring criticism of him from the media, seems to have been that the Controller may have been quote unquote “too energetic.”

Beyond doing the basic blocking and tackling of his responsibilities, he also made time to reach into new areas that were in sore need of review and public discussion. Some thought that kind of initiative constituted more than was normally expected from a City Controller.

In September for example one local newspaper criticized the Controller for having a news conference to encourage people in the city to support efforts related to the issue of breast cancer.

To them, such a topic was outside the Controller’s normal area of involvement. To me and to others, it was a sign, that our Controller – elected on a city wide basis – also had concerns on a very human level about the citizens of Philadelphia.

Even in its criticism however, that same newspaper, described the Controller as another quote “energetic and a committed public servant.”

In the context of all of that, what has impressed me most about Mr. Butkovitz’s first term, is his recognition that the city’s economy cannot be successfully maintained unless small and minority businesses receive the same level of support and service from the city that large mainstream businesses have always expected from that office.

Mr. Butkovitz as the City’s Controller can obviously count. He knows full well that 58.6% of the City of Philadelphia’s 66,000 businesses are owned by Black, Hispanic, Asian and white females. Butkovitz recognizes that unless those businesses receive support, the city’s economy absolutely  cannot flourish nor be competitive.

In that regard, he convened a groundbreaking series of public hearings to identify the impediments facing those businesses and to uncover ways in which the city’s infrastructure can be more supportive of this important segment of our economy.

There may be other reasons that people may be supporting Alan Butkovitz having a second term as City Controller, but for me, his energetic, committed, sensitive to small and minority businesses, and courageous enough to pave his office into non-traditional public service areas -- is good enough for me.

Especially in a severely weaken economy, when we need to watch every penny, the city of Philadelphia needs to re-elect Alan Butkovitz.

Mr. A. Bruce Crawley is president and principal owner of Millennium 3 Management, Inc. He served as chairman of the board of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau for five years. He was a co-founder of the Convention Bureau's Multicultural Affairs Congress and a founding member of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation. In 1993, Crawley founded Philadelphia's African-American Chamber of Commerce and served as that organization's chairman for 13 years.