The race is on: Mayoral candidate Jim Kenney is the favorite on the strength of his Democratic Party’s 7-to-1 voter registration advantage. MARIA S. YOUNG / TIMES PHOTO
Most pundits will tell you that the election is a foregone conclusion, but in less than one month, Philadelphia voters will officially determine who will be the 99th man — or perhaps the first woman — to serve as the city’s mayor, a lineage dating back to 1691, when William Penn appointed Humphrey Morrey to the colonial era post.
Former City Councilman Jim Kenney is the favorite on the strength of his Democratic party’s 7-to-1 voter registration advantage over Melissa Murray Bailey’s Republican party.
On Sept. 16, the Northeast Times sat down with Kenney to discuss a variety of trending topics, particularly those of interest to Northeast folks. Kenney spoke about public safety, prisons, schools, pensions and his own blue-collar South Philly roots.
Election Day is Nov. 3.
Northeast Times: Before the summer, the prison issue got a lot of public attention and interest. It ties into waterfront development, the dredging, which would make the waterfront more commercial friendly. Should the city buy waterfront property to build a new prison?
Jim Kenney: I think it’s always better to buy waterfront property when it’s available, not necessarily to build a prison on it, but to have it in (the city’s) portfolio of properties. When you have a prison, odds are you’re going to fill it up. My goal is to have less people incarcerated than we have now. On any given day, we have 7,000 to 8,000 people locked up on State Road … and 70-some percent of them can’t make bail. So it’s very expensive for us to pay $110 a day to hold someone who, if they had $300 to $500 to pay the bail, they’d be out.
NT: The change in enforcement in small amounts of marijuana: Have we seen any impact so far?
JK: In 2014, we had 4,200 arrests. In 2015 we have 500-something. That’s a lot less people in the criminal justice system. It’s pretty hypocritical for a state who licenses alcohol, licenses bars, sells alcohol, taxes alcohol to incarcerate people over marijuana. You could argue one is more or less as dangerous as the other. The problem is those 4,200 people locked up in 2014 cost us 1,800 eight-hour police shifts, locking people up and processing them. It also creates a situation where someone with an arrest record has a really difficult time finding a job. And if we want people to be self sufficient and taxpayers, there’s no sense in saddling them with something that’s a de minimis activity.
NT: Police coverage is a very big issue in Northeast Philadelphia as I’m sure it’s everywhere. Is it a valid perception that we’re not getting enough police coverage? Regardless whether it’s valid, how do we convince people that we’re addressing the issue?
JK: I think the police complement is probably where it should be. Probably a couple hundred more would be preferable. And we’ll look at the feasibility of paying for that. Part of the problem is that when you’re in an area that’s kind of widespread, it’s hard to see police because you live in a community where you have to drive basically to get anywhere. When you’re in South Philly, for example, you have more likelihood to see police because you’re so compacted. In this area, you’re more spread out, so it’s a larger area to police, but probably the same amount of people as are compacted in South Philly. So I think a lot of it is perception, but some of it’s reality and I think we have to make sure to use the data available to us to assign police in the best possible way to keep the community safe. I think it’s all a matter of numbers and a matter of crime statistics and patterns. You can always shift. That’s one of the good things about having data available to you.
NT: How would you characterize the relationship between the administration in recent years and the firefighters?
JK: Pretty poor. Pretty poor. Frankly as the son of a battalion chief and someone who’s been involved with and knowledgeable of fire department practices, personnel and culture, I think we’re not in a very good place when it comes to the fire department.
NT: What do you attribute that to?
JK: Animosity between the mayor and the firefighters union. Some of the things they’ve done over the years are clearly punitive: forced transfers, the whole promotion/demotion that was going on, the splitting off of paramedics from the firefighters’ normal union representation, all of those. I’ve had this conversation with the mayor and he doesn’t seem to agree with me and he doesn’t seem to be able to explain why we would be the only fire department in the nation that would force transfer veteran firefighters out of their (fire) houses. Not New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, no one does it but us. And that was done I think in a way to be punitive to our members.
NT: What has to be done to improve the relationship?
JK: We have to have a mayor who understands that firefighting is an avocation. It’s not just a job. It’s something people aspire to be. It’s something that people are willing to sacrifice their lives to be. Their families make great sacrifices as a result of their profession. And this is not simply working in a rank-and-file city job. And I respect those workers too, but police and firefighters are a step above when it comes to dedication and sacrifice.
NT: What’s your position on charter schools — expand, cut, maintain — and vouchers?
JK: Vouchers don’t work. Charter schools certainly have their place. I am a public school advocate. I think charter schools have their place where there’s not a good choice for a public school or a parochial school or a private school. I would like to get (state) reimbursement back. Gov. Corbett stopped reimbursing us for charter school costs. If we had that one single thing I think a lot of the tension would die down. There are some terrific charter schools and some bad ones. And there are some really good public schools and some bad ones. I think we need to have as many opportunities as possible for parents to make decisions to get their kids a quality education. However, the Commonwealth doesn’t live up to its responsibility constitutionally to fund public schools. I think there’s been an ongoing agenda of starving public schools from resources so that people will make decisions to send their kids to a charter school. I think the Gov. Corbett was clearly a charter school advocate and would’ve liked to see the whole state public school system be a private sector endeavor. And I don’t think education or corrections should be a profit-making venture. Even though I’m not a charter school opponent, I will say that clearly charter schools have basically killed the Catholic school system. Because when parents finally figured out they didn’t have to pay that five or six or seven thousand dollars a year and could send their kids to a charter school, the parochial schools withered away. There are strong parish (schools) left, large numbers of kids in some of these schools. But for the most part in the inner-city, they’ve decimated the Catholic schools. The Catholic schools did a great service. They took about 80,000 kids out of the public school system at no cost at all to the taxpayers. I think that’s a shame that’s no longer the case. In my neighborhood, our parochial schools, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and Sacred Heart, were closed in the same year. The archdiocese’s commitment to Catholic education in the inner city is not very strong.
NT: We’ve had a series of property tax increases including this past City Council session. What is the long-term solution for public school funding?
JK: It’s the state’s constitutional responsibility. If the state were to simply raise the personal income tax by a point, we could take care of all our education needs and all our infrastructure needs. And they won’t do it because they’ve signed these Grover Norquist pledges that to me are ridiculous. You’re elected to make a decision. Why would you pledge your ability to make that decision away to some guy for some ideological reason? Instead of a personal income tax increase, you wind up with gaming, which is a tax on the poor and the old. It’s not a “tax;” it’s gaming, so it’s OK. Or you wind up with these kind of crazy fees that (conservatives) can say are not taxes just so they can live up to Grover Norquist’s pledge. To me, sometimes you’ve got to pay for services. You can’t have a high level of services and continue to cut the revenue streams that supply them. That’s not (being) a tax and spend Democrat. You have to invest. If you don’t invest in education in the Commonwealth. … The Commonwealth is last in job creation. It’s third from the bottom in personal income tax. So it’s cheap from an income tax standpoint but we create no jobs as a result of it. So obviously this trickle-down tax conservatism has not helped job creation in the state. We’re dead last.
NT: Financially, what are the biggest burdens or threats to the city right now?
JK: Pension. (City employee) pension certainly is. The pension situation is where it is right now because government refused to make the payments into the pension fund. It’s not the workers. The workers did nothing to create this. This is all a government and money manager and fund investment problem. So if you don’t put enough money into your system, then it’s going to be underfunded. And if you invested badly and wind up with all these kind of crazy derivatives and the other stuff you’re involved with, and the economy goes off a cliff, that’s your fault. Pension benefits right now, as far as vested pension people, are sacrosanct. (Employees) have what they have and they’re not going to change it. When you negotiate with your workforce, you negotiate things that can improve the condition of your pension fund and at the same time you may have to give and take somewhere else, whether it’s a traditional pension (with a) defined benefit, whether it’s a defined contribution, whether it’s a variation of that, a stacked hybrid with a defined benefit for ten years — there are lots of options that we need to give our employees the options to choose, similar to what you do when you choose a healthcare plan. Do you pay more and get more benefits or do you pay less? There’s a whole range of possibilities that all of them need to be negotiated with the workforce. None of them, as Mayor Nutter found, can you dictate, nor can you litigate. It’s a negotiation.
NT: In crafting a budget, where do we need to funnel more funding?
JK: We need to take care of our infrastructure. We need to take care of the property we own. We need to improve our parks, our libraries, our ballfields, our playgrounds and rec centers. Those are things that people care about, that touch people’s lives directly every day and we need to make sure we have tip top conditions in those facilities. In my discussions with the financing agencies and the ratings agencies, they’re very much in favor of continuing to improve our infrastructure. I also think that the riverfront is underutilized in Northeast Philadelphia. I believe there’s an opportunity for really serious, sustainable and interesting development along the waterfront. It’s a resource we’ve not taken advantage of.
NT: Would that be city development or city-supported private?
JK: It could be a combination. I’m a big fan of open public space. And generally when you create open public space, private development comes as a result of it.
NT: There’s been a prevailing sentiment in the Northeast. Folks think they’re sort of an afterthought because they’re geographically detached from Center City.
JK: I don’t think they’re an afterthought at all. I respect the Northeast. I think they’re an integral part of our community. Certainly it’s more spread out and more of a travel issue to get here. But I think there are very strong neighborhoods, parishes, organizations, civics, very much involved and engaged in city life. I hear from them and talk to them often. They’re not at all an afterthought for me. It’s a very important part of our city.
NT: You recently Tweeted a message complementing (City Council at-large candidate) Al Taubenberger.
JK: Al’s a good guy. I think Al represents, as do some of the other Republicans who are running, what the Republican party used to be in this nation. It’s not Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. It’s not Scott Walker. Our Republican party in Philadelphia was always a very moderate, thoughtful, hard-working group of people, guys like John Taylor, who we could not do without. Thank God we have him. And some of the other folks who represented the Northeast over the years were moderate Republicans. They were not idealogues. They had different philosophical views on government and how you govern and how you tax and things of that nature. But they were decent people and Al reminds me of that Eisenhower era Republican that I could vote for or someone else could vote for.
NT: Are you endorsing anyone on the Republican side (for City Council)?
JK: No. That’s not my party. I don’t think it’s my place to pick and choose Republicans in their own election battles. I just happen to like Al as a person. I happen to like Dan Tinney. Tracey’s a good guy. David Oh’s a good guy. Denny O’Brien’s a good guy. It’s hard, you can only pick two. They’re all good people and I know them all. So I have respect for them. And since there’s two seats set aside in Council for Republicans, any one of them in that group would do a good job.
NT: There’s been a lot of rumors around that Councilman Henon is interested in the majority leader’s seat.
JK: He’s an ambitious young man.
NT: Yes. Do you have any opinions on that?
JK: Certainly Bob Henon has been a great supporter of mine in my mayoral election and in the past in the time I’ve sat with him on Council. He works very hard. He cares tremendously about his district. He is very active in his district. He is doing Joan Krajewski well, her memory. He certainly has ambition and I think that’s a great thing to try to move up in leadership.
NT: That (majority leader) position, does it really impact constituents in a particular district?
JK: It’s certainly not like being the majority leader in the United States Senate or the House of Representatives. But you’re in the room with the Council president. You’re in the room when decisions are made. I think for someone in Council, that’s a decent spot to have.
NT: Why would you appeal to Northeast voters as a candidate?
JK: I think my blue-collar roots. My fire department family history. That fact that I’ve gone through the parochial school system. I was educated by Jesuits in high school. I have a great public service ethic. And I think I’m as normal a person as anybody who lives in Northeast Philly and can understand their concerns and issues. I grew up in a very tight rowhouse neighborhood that a lot of folks who live in Northeast Philly experienced when they lived in Mayfair or Frankford or other parts and they moved up to get better housing or more room, more yard space and a driveway. But I think they still have the same experiences and history that I have growing up in Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in South Philly. So I think I can identify with them and they can identify with me. ••
