In his first sit-down interview since resigning from City Council on Thursday, James Kenney confirmed to PGN that he would be running for mayor this spring.
“I had been thinking about it for a number of years,” Kenney said. “I have a list of things I want to do to make Philadelphia a better city. I’ve been able to get some of them done as a councilman, but there are bigger things that only the mayor can do.”
A formal declaration is expected next week.
Initially, Kenney, 56, counted himself out of the race — discouraged by the less-than desirable pace of fundraising. But then everything changed with Ken Trujillo dropped out.
“When Trujillo bowed out, there was this apparatus in place,” said Kenney. “And his folks asked me, ‘Well what do you think?’”
To which Kenney said he thought, “If I don’t do it now, then I am never going to do it.”
And within 48 hours, Kenney prepared to resign from his position as an at-large city councilman — a post he’s held for the past 23 years.
At his last day in office Thursday, Kenney said he was struck by the level of nostalgia he felt at saying goodbye to so many people.
“My colleagues and everyone I worked with were good friends, even though we fought sometimes,” Kenney said.
Kenney said it is precisely these relationships he has forged over the past two decades that could be perhaps his biggest advantage over other mayoral candidates — and one of his greatest selling points to the people of Philadelphia as he campaigns over the next 109 days.
His rapport with City Council is invaluable when the mayor’s office is critically dependent on the governing body to implement major projects.
“Everyone in City Council, whether the media portrays them that way or not, are motivated people who want to do good,” said Kenney. “Everyone wants to move the needle forward and do better for the people.”
According to Kenney, in order to get things done, a mayor needs to know what motivates each councilman and what they want for their districts, and help them accomplish those things. Then when the time comes and the mayor’s offce wants to get a big project done — they’ll want to do the “heavy lifting” for you.
“It’s a mutually beneficial effort,” said Kenney. “You can’t do it by yourself.”
As an at-large councilman, Kenney worked in and with every Philadelphia neighborhood, unlike the district councilmembers who focus their constituent-services work on their respective areas.
In addition to his tenure in City Council, Kenney said his upbringing gave him the perspective it takes to manage the needs of a city whose residents run the diversity gamut.
“I was raised in a blue-collar, Irish-Catholic home in South Philly in the ’60s and ’70s — a time when people thought differently and spoke differently about people who are different,” Kenney said. “But my parents didn’t tolerate any of that type of behavior. Friends or family who spoke like that, whether it was racial prejudice or about someone’s sexual orientation, were openly admonished by my parents in front of me. I grew up in a household that was disconnected from that type of prejudiced thinking.”
While attending St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, Kenney said he was instilled with the Jesuit virtue of service.
“They really molded into me the idea that service to others and helping them is what makes you happy,” he said.
His desire to help others prompted him to run for council in 1991, and later compelled him to become one of LGBT Philly’s earliest proponents in municipal government.
“I will tell you that if a gay man or lesbian woman is for civil rights, that’s awesome, or if an African-American or other minority is for civil rights, that’s awesome,” Kenney said. “But when you are a white, straight, Irish-Catholic Mummer from South Philly and you’re for domestic partnerships, that really awesome.”
Kenney was a prime sponsor of domestic-partnership legislation in the mid-’90s.
He said he experienced a lot of pushback for his support, including stacks of mailings from parishioners in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and, Kenney said, he even took some flack from friends.
“The guys in my Mummers club ribbed me for that one,” he said. “They said to me, ‘What are you doing with this stuff?’ But they came around. Especially when you put a face to it; everyone knows somebody, a friends or family member, who is LGBT.”
The bill finally made it through Council in 1998. The issue came full-circle in 2013, when Kenney spearheaded an LGBT-reform bill that included enhanced protections for transgender people and several first-in-the-nation LGBT initiatives and eased restrictions on the domestic-partner registration process. It passed soundly,14-3.
Kenney said some of the provisions of that legislation, and others still needed, address the seemingly small day-to-day things that have a large impact on the LGBT community.
“I know how hard it is for, say, a same-sex couple when they need to enroll their child in school, and the application asks them to identify the ‘father’ and ‘mother,’” Kenney said. “If we can drill that stuff down, that would have a huge impact.”
Kenney also recognized the need to continue to train law enforcement in interacting with the LGBT community.
“They are doing a great job, but we can do better,” Kenney said. “Especially when it comes to things like investigating the homicides of transgender people.”
Kenney said he would continue all of Mayor Nutter’s pro-LGBT efforts, such as the creation of the Office of LGBT Affairs and the rainbow flag-raising ceremony at City Hall, started by the late Gloria Casarez.
“Those things help LGBT people feel more a part of the Philadelphia community,” he said.
Kenney also acknowledged that LGBTs live in every Philadelphia neighborhood, not just the Gayborhood, and that their concerns are equally important.
“We need to pay attention to the LGBT people throughout the city, to understand what is going on in their neighborhoods and how it affects them as members of the LGBT community.”
As the list of candidates for the mayoral race solidifies, PGN will conduct more in-depth policy-specific interviews with each candidate.