Commissioners’ Race Ends Era Of Turmoil

by Tony West

NOMINEE Lisa Deeley

The City Commissioners’ Democratic primary race this spring was a rare treat for political junkies.

Historically this race goes to the two incumbents. The top dog is named chair of City Committee. Every once in a while, one challenger may bump off the bottom dog.

2011 was an odd year. All three incumbents – Democratic Chair Marge Tartaglione and her endorsed colleague Edgar Howard, as well as Republican Joe Duda – were swept out of office. The new City Commission began without any continuity.

Reformers say it was time to start from the beginning. But in its chief practical function, running the machinery of elections, City Commission crashed under the new administration led at first by Stephanie Singer, then 8^th Ward Democratic Leader, in the 2012 general election. Singer was pitched as CC chair at first, supported by her new Democratic colleague, Anthony Clark, a North Philadelphia ward leader who had moved to capture the seat held by Howard, another North Philadelphia ward leader. Al Schmidt simultaneously defeated his Republican rival Joe Duda. After Singer’s dethronement, Clark & Schmidt have run CC ever since.

CITY COMMISSION Chair Anthony Clark

Now it’s 2015. In the Democratic primary, both incumbents reaped bad press. One survived majestically; Stephanie Singer was destroyed, and can only blame herself.

At the outset, though, nobody knew how it would work out. So nine candidates set their sights on two City Commissioner jobs in 2014 – a number unprecedented in Philadelphia history. Two saw their petitions successfully challenged; a third dropped out. Still, six hopefuls vied with each other on the May 19 ballot.

In a way, it was pure politics: a game where the rules don’t count but the points do matter – at least if you like to get paid. The CC Chair earns $134,000 a year; his two colleagues earn $125,000.

Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up.

Will Mega, a social-media activist in West Philadelphia who has run for other local offices before, had 20,433 votes with 99% of the vote counted. Four of Philadelphia’s 66 wards placed him in the winners’ circle, the top two for City Commission nominees. Mega did well in Sonny Campbell’s 4^th Ward and in Steve Jones’ 52^nd Ward in West Philly; he also got along with Carlos Matos, who swings weight in the 7^th & 19^th Wards.

Omar Sabir, another long-standing candidate for public office from West Philadelphia, won 30,888 votes. Sabir is a member of the inner circle of the Laborers’ District Council. He led the pack in Marian Tasco’s redoubtable 50^th Ward and her ally Isabella Fitzgerald in the 10^th, as well as his native 34^th. Sabir ran strongly in much of North, Northwest and West Philadelphia as well. But he had no legs outside these territories.

Tracey Gordon, a flamboyant Southwest Philadelphia progressive activist, won 31.786 votes, a fourth-place finish. She placed in the winners’ circle in fewer wards than Sabir, but her appeal was more even citywide. Her social-media campaign may have delivered, bang for buck.

Leader of the losers was 27^th Ward Leader Carol Jenkins, with 37,586 votes. A progressive boosted by many good-government bodies and a strong social-media effort, her campaign was starved for dollars. Good intentions, it turns out, do not by themselves elect the candidate of their choice.

Nevertheless, Jenkins reaped good numbers from a down-ballot button. In the education- and business-oriented “read-and-think wards” of Center City, West Philly and Northwest Philly, she ran first, with huge numbers from her high-turnout base. Outside that base, though, her numbers dropped off sharply.

Onto the winners’ circle. Lisa Deeley, a scion of a distinguished Northeast Philly political family, her mother a retired Sheriff of Philadelphia, and well respected as a conscientious worker in Democratic ranks, toppled Singer in the Democratic endorsement contest. She won 47,085 votes despite a low ballot position. She led the race north of Cottman Avenue, came in second in the Lower Northeast as well as many wards in the North, Northwest and South. But she has few connections southwest of City Hall.

City Commission Chair Anthony Clark was resoundingly reelected with 74,984 votes. He ran second north of Cottman, first almost everywhere else in the city. Only in Center City’s 5^th Ward and in some Far Northwest Wards did he fall down. Expect these results to put to rest any grumblings about his chairmanship of CC for the next four years.

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