Of Parking Garages and Puppies

Jack Kelly's chief of staff was the subject of an indictment this month. What has Kelly done on Council?

by Tom Namako

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Published: Aug 13, 2008

COUNCIL INACTION: Republican Jack Kelly. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Philadelphians have a rule when it comes to electing City Council members: When in doubt, keep it in the family.

It seems unnecessary to explain this, but just in case: There's Jannie Blackwell, wife of former U.S. Rep. Lucien E. Blackwell; Bill Green, son of former Mayor Bill Green; W. Wilson Goode, son of former Mayor Wilson Goode; and Frank Rizzo, son of former Mayor Frank Rizzo.

Then there's Jack Kelly, the current at-large councilman, whose chief of staff, campaign treasurer and top donors were all named in a corruption indictment this month.

In 1985, a man named Jack Kelly died of a heart attack while jogging along Callowhill Street. This Jack Kelly was a Philadelphia legend: brother to Princess Grace Kelly, Olympic medal-winning oarsman and onetime at-large city councilman. East River Drive is named after him.

In 1987, another Jack Kelly ran for Council's Seventh District seat. This Jack Kelly was the chairman of the 53rd Ward, and a former assistant to the administrator of the Board of Revision of Taxes. At 49, he told the Inquirer, he'd never been to a City Council meeting, and was relatively unknown. He bore no relation to Princess Grace's brother.

Did Jack Kelly benefit from being Jack Kelly? Phil Kerwick, a frequent Council candidate and critic of the contemporary Jack Kelly, believes so. "There were people going to the polls, mostly all the old people, saying 'I have to vote for Grace's brother!'" Kerwick says.

That allegation made Kelly seethe. "That really irritated me," he told the Inquirer at the time. "I'm called Jack Kelly because that's my name."

Either way, Kelly, a Republican, managed to beat Patricia Hughes, the Democratic incumbent, by 1,430 votes.

Thus began Kelly's on-again, off-again career on Council, and his movement in and out of the spotlight. His latest appearance, due to the corruption indictment, involves his chief of staff, Chris Wright, who allegedly sold Kelly's office to two Northeast developers in return for a rent-free apartment and a $1,000 check. Kelly himself hasn't been accused of wrongdoing. (City Paper left two interview requests for Kelly that went unreturned.) But with this sort of thing allegedly going on in his office, it's perhaps a good time to ask: In more than eight total years on Council, what has Jack Kelly done?

In 1988, only 13 days into office, Kelly told reporters that he planned to clean up Council's grimy image. "Ask anybody, and they'll tell you it was a bunch of idiots or a circus," he told the Inquirer. "We have to create an image of professionalism."

He started strong: He was instrumental in removing newly elected Councilman James Tayoun (who would be convicted of corruption in 1991) from chairmanship of the Committee on License and Inspections, on the grounds that he had too many previous dealings with the agency.

But by the time Kelly was up for re-election in 1991, against Democratic challenger Daniel McElhatton, many were unimpressed by Kelly's efforts. "Kelly has done little to distinguish himself," read an Inquirer editorial, which also chided him for opposing tax increases while offering no ideas for reducing spending.

Kelly lost, and was appointed to be Council's liaison to Harrisburg. About 11 years later, he slipped back in, this time as an at-large member, nabbing one of the two seats reserved for the minority party.

As an at-large member, Kelly's legislative record is, frankly, lackluster. Since 2004, he's been involved in 69 bills, the second-least among the five at-large members who have been active for the same period of time. (Rizzo has been involved in about 52 bills.) On meaningful legislation, such as a re-entry program for ex-cons or red-light cameras, Kelly is usually one co-sponsor among many. In 2006, he was the sole sponsor of a bill that raised fees on dozens of parking violations.

"He's one of the weaker members of City Council," says Zack Stalberg of the Committee of Seventy. "It doesn't help that he's in the minority, but from an observer's standpoint, he doesn't seem to work real hard at it."

When Kelly had to sum up his at-large term in his 2007 re-election bid, he stumped as an animal rights advocate, appearing on billboards along I-95 cuddling with a dog. He also campaigned to ban foie gras in city restaurants, a focus that some Republican counterparts found odd in a post-industrial city in the midst of a crime wave. "I'm hoping that the next generation of Republicans will be more aggressive on economic and social issues," says Adam Lang, a GOP newcomer who will face U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah in the fall.

Even on animal issues, Kelly's effectiveness has been limited. His first foie gras bill lapsed in 2006 (another will be considered in September). Otherwise, he's mostly introduced resolutions, like a 2004 demand that public hearings be held to investigate whether the Philadelphia Animal Care and Control Association euthanized pets even as owners tried to reclaim them.

Nevertheless, Kelly beat challenger David Oh by about 122 votes in 2007.

Some of Kelly's supporters say that legislation isn't a good way to measure his value. "I think he's more focused on the constituent end of things," says Chris Vogler, the Republican leader of the 55th Ward. "He deals with quality-of-life issues, things that get overlooked. Sometimes that doesn't involve legislation."

Others say that, while he may not be a legislative leader, Kelly is still a useful presence. When several relatives of Scott Cummings, the Republican leader of the 62nd Ward, became infected with the bacteria MRSA, Kelly took action. "I explained to Jack what MRSA was, and in two weeks he had a resolution requiring the Philadelphia public schools to report the number of incidences in each school," Cummings says.

Michael Meehan, legal counsel of the Republican City Committee, observes that Kelly is valuable in close votes. "He gets to stick our two cents in on important issues of the city, often when votes are almost split, in 10-7 or 9-8 situations."

Asked to identify one of those situations, Meehan says he can't "think of one off the top of my head."

When the next Council session begins in mid-September, Kelly will likely have to decide whether to keep, suspend or fire Wright, his indicted chief of staff. He'll also have decide if he'll continue pushing a bill, currently in committee, permitting mechanical parking garages in certain areas of the city — a measure that the two developers named in the Wright indictment pushed for. "At this point," said John Cerrone, Kelly's director of legislation, earlier this month, "I haven't spoken to him about that and don't want to speculate as to what he plans on doing."

(tom.namako@citypaper.net)

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