Brett Mandel | |
|---|---|
| Democratic Committeeperson | |
| Constituency | 8th Ward |
Brett Mandel is the author of two books about baseball and another about urban policy in Philadelphia. [1]
Mandel was born and raised in Philadelphia,and is an alumnus of Northeast High School. He graduated magna cum laude as a Public Policy major from Hamilton College before receiving his Master's Degree in Governmental Administration from the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. [2] [3]
He served as Director of the Financial &Policy Analysis Unit in the City Controller's office under former Controller Jonathan Saidel. [4] He is the primary author of Philadelphia:A New Urban Direction,written while working under Saidel,which won the Association of Government Auditors Special Project Award in 1999. [5]
In 2003,he was a member of the Tax Reform Commission,in addition to serving as Assistant Policy Director of the Philadelphia Independent Charter Commission. [6]
On January 23,2013,Mandel unveiled his "Bulldog Budget",a data visualization of the operating budget of the city of Philadelphia. [7] This digitized budget tool,built by Ben Garvey,shows how each department in the city spent its part of the $3.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2012. The data,collected by Mandel through a series of Right-to-Know Requests,includes individual salaries of all city employees. [8] [9] The tool was criticized by Mandel's opponent Alan Butkovitz for what he argued were inaccuracies in the data. [10]
Mandel is the former Executive Director of the National Education Technology Funding Corporation (Eddie Tech),a private,non-profit organization helping local public school districts to finance construction,renovation and modernization. [11] He was Executive Director and founder of Philadelphia Forward,a non-profit organization promoting civic engagement. [12] [13] [14]
In addition to Philadelphia:A New Urban Direction,the book co-authored by Mandel on Philadelphia government, [15] he has written two non-fiction books on baseball. Minor Players,Major Dreams tells the inside story of a minor-league baseball career,and Is This Heaven? The Magic of the Field of Dreams chronicles Mandel's pilgrimage to the set of the movie, Field of Dreams . [16] [17] [18]