Mr. Jim Kenney, a third-generation Irish immigrant and father of two, will be Philadelphia’s 99th Mayor.
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Several members of the local news media, myself included, in early January were cramped into the office of then Philadelphia At-Large City Councilman, Mr. Jim Kenney, now Mayor-elect, for a press conference where he was announcing that, in a couple of days, he would officially resign from the City’s 17-member governing body.
Mr. Kenney, a third-generation Irish immigrant who for more than a decade of his twenty-three years in City Council worked in business development for an architecture engineering firm, was evasive to the press as to what his future would be after Thursday morning, though most in the room knew of his Mayoral ambitions, and he admitted he wasn’t going to be immediately looking for work in the private sector.
Prior to this January moment where a celebrated Councilman was preparing to give up his chair on the fourth floor of City Hall, Mr. Kenney was raising money for his re-election bid, hoping to solidify a seventh term.
“‘Kenney 2015’ is generic enough to move from one campaign to the other,” he said, still omitting his actual political intent.
However, there was a hint given, not that it was needed.
“When you’re in Council and there are certain things you want to do and accomplish, unless you’re the Mayor, it’s hard to really get that done.”
Mr. Jim Kenney in early January held a press conference in his City Hall office to announce he was resigning from the job he held for more than a decade. Photo Credit: C. Norris – ©2015
Among those accomplishments, Mr. Kenney—who describes the role of Mayor as being a “point guard” who can run offense while dishing off assists to other players in order to score big—would like to see, at least by the end of his first term, universal pre-K for 4 and 5 year olds—“If I can get the next generation reading early, the misery index decreases”—a huge dent made in lowering the poverty rate—“everybody needs a job if we’re to tackle poverty” – and a noticeably improved relationship between the police and black and brown communities, which, according to Mayor-elect Kenney, requires the elimination of stop-and-frisk, among other things.
“I’m not a big fan of stop-and-frisk. It further degrades the relationship between minority communities and police,” he said in January, and repeated, with various phrasing, multiple times on the campaign trail, including at ‘Transparency Now: The Philadelphia Mayoral Forum on Police and Criminal Justice Reform,’ co-organized by Techbook Online.
Separated with two kids in their 20s, Mr. Kenney last night pulled off the largest victory spread in modern Philadelphia history. His historic win was, to a degree, foreshadowed in late January by his confidence and public rejection of the “racial mathematics of elections.”
From the onset of his campaign, Mr. Kenney touted both his connection to, and understanding of, all neighborhoods in this city and said he wasn’t afraid to traverse into any section of the city or debate anyone who also sought to be Philadelphia’s chief executive.
“You’d be surprised at his wealth of information about all aspects of our City,” Mr. Curtis Jones, who was re-elected last night to his post as 4th District City Councilman, told me after Mr. Kenney officially resigned on a Thursday morning during council’s session.
Mr. Kenney had been thinking about running for Mayor for the last few races. He cited the exit of Mr. Ken Trujillo, a former City Solicitor, from the race as an “important factor.” But the biggest push for Mr. Kenney was his own conviction.
“I didn’t want to be old and sitting in the porch thinking about what if,” he said in late January, surrounded by mementos he had collected throughout his more than two decades of public service.
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