Dee Adcock
In a letter to the editor in last week’s Times, a woman named “Jenn Michaelson” claimed that a campaign sign for Dee Adcock, the Republican candidate in the 13th Congressional District, fell onto Woodhaven Road and caused a four-inch-long scratch on her car.
The woman claimed she didn’t know the candidate’s first name, and didn’t know whom she’d vote for, but definitely wouldn’t vote for Adcock, who is facing Democratic state Rep. Brendan Boyle. She suggested it’s dangerous for Adcock to have volunteers placing signs on such a busy road.
In the letter, she challenged the Adcock campaign to obtain her email address and phone number from the Times to pay for the damage to her car.
The Adcock campaign asked the Times for that information. When Ryan Capone called the number — 215–275–8350 — she said a woman answered the phone, “Boyle for Congress.”
When Capone asked for Jenn Michaelson, the woman said, “Hold on a second,” then hung up.
The Adcock campaign related the information to the Times. The paper called the number three times, and each time there was a recorded Boyle for Congress message. By Saturday, the phone rang unanswered. By Sunday, the number was “not reachable.”
Meanwhile, Adcock and four campaign staffers paid a visit to Boyle’s office on Bustleton Avenue in Somerton. They asked a man if Jenn Michaelson was in the office. A videotape of the encounter appears to show the man say, “I think she’s left for the day.”
Later, two Adcock aides visited a Democratic campaign office in Jenkintown. They reported that three workers in that office said that Jenn Michaelson works in Boyle’s Philadelphia office.
Boyle said no such person is affiliated with his campaign.
“I’ve never heard of a Jenn Michaelson,” he said.
The Adcock campaign said there are eight people named Michaelson registered to vote in the district, but none have the first name of Jenn or Jennifer. None were born in 1971, which is part of the email address sent to the Times from a gmail account.
The Times emailed Michaelson after the Adcock campaign questioned the validity of her letter, asking for her name and address and to see the scratch on her car. She has not responded.
Adcock said he’d be happy to pay for any car damage. He’s upset that the letter could hurt his campaign and his swimming pool business.
Boyle said he’d rather be talking about issues such as war, Social Security and Medicare.
“I think this whole thing is silly,” he said. “This is really one of the silliest things I’ve heard in quite some time.”
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Boyle and Adcock were among those attending a candidates’ forum on Sunday morning at Congregations of Shaare Shamayim in Bustleton. Adcock addressed the controversial letter to the editor in his remarks.
Stephanie Singer, a city elections commissioner, distributed absentee ballot applications.
The forum was moderated by educator and lawyer Ruth Horwitz.
Boyle, elected a state representative in 2008, said he has opposed all of Gov. Tom Corbett’s budgets because he believes they have shortchanged public education. He was among the leaders in pushing for a bill to make Holocaust education mandatory in schools. He expressed support for an increased minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and additional scholarship money for higher education, while opposing changes to Social Security and Medicare.
“We need to preserve Social Security and Medicare exactly the way they are,” he said.
Adcock said he’d use his private sector experience to help an economy where wages are declining. He wants to build the Keystone XL Pipeline to create jobs in the oil industry. He said he wouldn’t be beholden to national Republicans, who haven’t offered much assistance in his campaign.
“I’m an independent business guy,” he said.
When Pat Parkinson, Democratic leader of the 57th Ward, asked the candidate why voters should send another Republican millionaire to Congress, Adcock told him that he will refuse to accept a salary, adding that there are just as many millionaire Democrats as Republicans.
Megan Rath, the Republican challenger to U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, called for transparency in the healthcare system and blamed Congress for general inaction.
“We’ve got to have term limits,” she said.
Rath, 34, is a Connecticut native who attended Penn State, graduating with an economics degree and playing lacrosse. She moved to Philadelphia 10 years ago.
Other speakers included state Reps. John Sabatina Jr. and Mark Cohen; Ruth Damsker, who is challenging state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf in a Montgomery County district; Marcel Groen, longtime Democratic Party boss in Montgomery County, on behalf of Tom Wolf, his party’s candidate for governor; and Mike Kates, chairman of the 58th Ward Democratic Committee, on behalf of state Sen. Mike Stack, who is running for lieutenant governor.
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City and state Republicans gathered last week outside Republican City Committee headquarters at 3525 Cottman Ave. in Mayfair to express support for Act 13, which created an impact fee for natural gas drillers.
Many Democrats want to replace the impact fee with a severance tax.
Calvin Tucker, a state committeeman and Republican leader of the 22nd Ward, said the fee has helped preserve 1,000 jobs at the Aker Shipyard.
Denise Furey, a state committeewoman and Republican leader of the 46th Ward, said its is “deeply concerning” that Tom Wolf, the Democratic candidate for governor, wants to use the severance tax for $4 billion in spending.
Armond James, who is challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, said the impact fee helps create jobs, and he doesn’t want to see proceeds from a severance tax put into the general fund.
Also in attendance was Mike Tomlinson, Republican candidate in the 173rd Legislative District.
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The Philadelphia Republican City Committee is recommending “No” votes on the three questions on the Nov. 4 ballot.
“The proposed ballot questions represent the usual poorly thought-out expansion of City Hall’s bureaucracy,” said executive director Joe DeFelice. “More bureaucrats and less transparency seem to be the recurring theme of these ballot questions.”
The first question is about making permanent the Office of Sustainability while also making permanent another high-level director.
The second question would create a new Department of Prisons and Board of Trustees, with the head of the department making $150,000 a year minimum.
The third question asks voters to allow the city to borrow more than $137 million for capital improvements.
“No money for schools, taxes go up and they still want to increase debt and hire more people. Philadelphia needs to vote ‘No’ across the board this November,” DeFelice said.
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According to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, the state’s unemployment rate has fallen to 5.7 percent.
“We are building a stronger Pennsylvania each and every day, and that is reflected in today’s jobs report,” Gov. Tom Corbett said after the numbers were released last Friday. “Over the past four years, we have laid a solid foundation for our future and have undone the previous administration’s damage that left us with a $4.2 billion deficit and an 8.1-percent unemployment rate.
“While I am extremely optimistic of the direction our state is headed under my administration’s leadership, I am equally as worried about what will happen under a Wolf administration. Tom Wolf wants to take our income tax rate from one of the lowest rates in the country to the eighth-highest rate in the country. Like the (National Federation of Independent Business), which represents over 15,000 small businesses in Pennsylvania, I am worried that Tom Wolf’s massive income tax hike will impede an employer’s ability to create private sector jobs.”
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Franklin & Marshall pollster Terry Madonna will speak on Political Polls: An Expert’s Take on the Numbers on Monday, Oct. 27, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on the third floor of Ladder 15, a bar/restaurant at 1528 Sansom St.
The Committee of Seventy is sponsoring the event.
Tickets cost $10. ••
Brendan Boyle
