Former Councilmember Cherelle Parker made history on May 16 when she became the Democratic nominee to be Philadelphia’s 100th mayor. With the November election around the corner, the challenge is finishing the job.
By Denise Clay-Murray
The first thing that SUN readers need to know about this profile of Democratic mayoral candidate Cherelle Parker is that this interview was scheduled on Sept. 5 and was conducted on Monday of this week.
The reason I bring this up is because the weekend prior to the interview, Lawrence McGlynn, the co-host of the show Philadelphia Hall Monitor on PhillyCAM found himself in a group email with staffers from the Parker campaign due to a request that he had made for her to come on the show.
According to the email, the plan was to slow-walk the Hall Monitor request and to push off my request for an interview, which was a request made on behalf of the SUN. But instead, it wound up becoming a discussion on City Hall, politicians and who has access.
Parker released a statement expressing anger regarding the incident.
The statement read:
“To say that I’m pissed and angry is an understatement.
The dismissive tone of my staff is not consistent with who I am or what I expect from my team, and I have made it clear that this is entirely unacceptable. However, I understand the buck stops with me, and I take responsibility for what comes out of my campaign.
I’ve talked this evening with the president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists (PABJ), Ernest Owens, to make my position clear and reiterate my commitment to giving a seat at the table to those who have been historically excluded.
But as I’ve said countless times, judge me by my actions.”
In this two-part interview with the SUN, Parker talks about what’s changed for her since winning the May 16 primary, some of the decisions she’ll have to make as mayor should she win, the importance of authenticity, and how we can help Philadelphia’s “have nots” catch up with the “haves.”
SUN: Thank you so much for the time. I guess my first question for you is, now that the primary is over and you’re the nominee, what, if anything, has changed for you?
CP: When you come from where I come from, and you start life where I started from, and you are not accustomed to anyone giving you anything, the answer is nothing has changed during this time. I am the Democratic nominee, and I’m extremely grateful. I won’t underplay in any way, shape, or form that this was the most competitive, most expensive, and most intense mayoral primary election that has occurred in the history of our city during my lifetime. And we’ve gotten through that, and I’m super-duper grateful that Philadelphians have made the decision to choose me. But we have a general election that we have to get through. And every chance I get, I remind people that I am not the mayor elect, I am the Democratic nominee for mayor of the City of Philadelphia, and I have and will continue to act accordingly.
Now, I don’t dance the way some people are accustomed to seeing people in elected office dance, because some people function solely under the presence of a camera like someone’s watching them. Nothing about what I do is going to change. I’m going to meet with the people, the stakeholders. Sometimes it’s not going to be on social media. And sometimes it’s not going to be in front of a microphone or in front of a television camera. But that in no way shape or form is going to stop me from continuing to do what I’ve done my entire career, and that’s work extremely hard to bring the people I need to bring together to get accomplished the things that I’ve set out to get accomplished. So no, nothing changed.
SUN: What are you hearing from city residents? Is it similar to what you were hearing during the primaries? Or are you hearing about other issues from potential voters?
CP: I’m hearing the same issues because they don’t change. The great thing about my candidacy — and I just left two different constituencies today — I’ve told people that I feel very free, having gotten through the Democratic primary, and to be working towards the general election, because during my candidacy, I never proposed or offered someone other than my authentic self on the trail. So, I [don’t care] about the race, class, socio-economic status, and the zip code of the constituency that I may have been communicating with — my message didn’t change.
You know, yes, it’s true that someone like me, you know, who comes from where I come from, had the audacity to believe that we can together make Philadelphia the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in a nation that provides access to economic opportunity for all. The message is the same. Everything relates back to that platform, and nothing about that platform is going to change.
SUN: Now, one of the decisions you’re going to have to make if you become mayor, is who the next police commissioner will be. Commissioner Danielle Outlaw resigned last week, and her last day is the 22nd. Were you surprised she resigned? And if you could pick the if you had a choice of who the next police commissioner would be? What qualities would that person have?
CP: I want to say publicly that there had been no other police commissioner, at least I can say during my lifetime that has dealt with the tornado of black swan (random, unexpected, but high impact) events that Commissioner Outlaw had to deal with. I don’t care how good you thought they were or how bad you thought they were, no one dealt with what she had dealt with, at the same time. And historically, that’s a very real thing.
With that being said, if it’s God’s will, and the people of our great city, decide to elect me as their 100th mayor, I will be working extremely hard to hire the best and the brightest. I also want to be very straightforward. And letting you know, looking at Philadelphia talent is extremely important to me, but we’ve got to think nationally as well. So, you conduct the national search, but you don’t overlook the talent that we have here. So, we’re going to do both. And you know, long before I ever got on the campaign trail asking somebody to support me for mayor, I introduced the comprehensive neighborhood safety community policing plan during my tenure in City Council. I’m going to work hard to ensure that that holistic perspective or planning that that that is the foundation for us making Philadelphia safer. And that’s extremely important to me.
We have to have shared values and a shared vision. Philadelphians are so tired of politicians, and elected officials talking. They want to see life change in their neighborhoods. So, in trying to determine who would best fit them be a police commissioner here in the city of Philadelphia, if I’m fortunate enough to be chosen by the people to serve, I want someone who’s going to share in that vision that the public safety, okay, and health of our city is America’s number one priority. Even if you go back technically and read the charter, it’s the number one priority. And by all means, we need someone who can do that.
SUN: Now, one of the things that has kind of contributed to the crime rate, to the rate of gun violence and just about everything else that’s going wrong in the city, is the fact that we are still the poorest city of this size in America. And while that got talked about on the campaign trail a little, I don’t think it was talked about as much as the gun violence that is the result of it. So, what I like to know is how would you handle not just the symptoms, which is gun violence, but also the cause, which is poverty?
CP: You and I may agree to disagree a tad bit on what we think got talked about during the primary election, I know what I talked about. And I talked about safer, cleaner, greener, and access to economic opportunity for all. And when you pull back every layer of each of those elements of my platform, putting people on a path to economic self-sufficiency is at the heart of it all. So, when you heard me [mention] public education, that’s about preparing a first-class, world-class education that prepares people for self-sufficiency, workforce development, [and preparing] industries that are growing and thriving in the city of Philadelphia. I just left a tour of the Navy Yard — and boy, I got pumped up on this tour, because I got a chance to see the company that you heard me talk about on the campaign trail when I talked about Philadelphia’s growth in life sciences and biotech.
I saw the training at a firm called Wistar and I saw the Black lab technicians being trained for careers where they will earn $50 to $60,000 a year after their training. They will have health care. They will have a 401k and retirement security. They have stock options. That was never something that I even knew to think about or ask for when I was growing up; [and] that’s access to economic opportunity.
So, if you want to reduce gun violence in the city of Philadelphia, give a man or a woman the ability to take care of their own family. I’m a ‘teach me how to fish’ kind of girl. We’re working on the underlying causes, but I’m not superwoman, I can’t do it alone. Everybody, every elected official, the private sector, the philanthropic community has to row together to make it happen.
SUN: You just mentioned education. I just touched base with State Rep. Jordan Harris, the Appropriations chair in the House of Representatives. He’s about to go on an education funding tour to talk about school funding and the Commonwealth Court decision that says, basically, that all of the schools in the Commonwealth are underfunded. What will you as mayor do to try and get Philadelphia the funding it needs for its schools?
CP: First things first, I want to just note for the record, and I appreciate your referencing the Commonwealth Court’s decision, because when we talk about the underfunding of public education in the City of Philadelphia, the constitutional responsibility of providing a thorough and efficient public education to students in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, that is the responsibility of state government. And I have to push back a bit on your narrative about Philadelphia’s underfunding, because even during my tenure, when we fought — and I’m extremely proud of my record of standing up for public education. When we needed new recurring revenue sources that our tax base in the City of Philadelphia, quite frankly, couldn’t afford on its own, I was proud to lead that effort in Harrisburg.
I’m hoping that when our legislative branch gets back to the table to hammer out the specifics about the distribution of funding that they will take that into consideration not just equity, but to also make it needs-based. We need to do everything we can potentially do to ensure that we get the dollars that our children deserve. Right now, socio-economic status is the great divider. That’s what determines whether or not you get access to all of these after school programs that a whole lot of other parents pay for, but that our children can’t afford. That’s what this is all about. That’s how you close the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots.”
In part two of the SUN’s interview with Democratic mayoral candidate Cherelle Parker, we’ll talk about working with an almost completely new City Council, the 76 Place debate, and why it’s important not to make assumptions about mayoral debates.
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