Clout: Dems' 2nd Ward fight an old-time power struggle
A BATTLE is brewing in South Philly's 2nd Ward, always a bastion of fine political warfare, that reminds Clout of days gone by.
A BATTLE is brewing in South Philly's 2nd Ward, always a bastion of fine political warfare, that reminds Clout of days gone by.
Ed Nesmith took over as Democratic ward leader in October, after Tony Palmiere stepped down for personal reasons. Palmiere's support of Nesmith makes sense. Nesmith dropped out of a three-way race for the post in 2002 and helped Palmiere defeat City Councilman Frank DiCicco.
Nick Schmanek, an aide in DiCicco's office, is vowing to unseat Nesmith in a ward election in the first week of June. As with many South Philly political dust-ups, lines can be drawn directly from the combatants to two well-known camps.
DiCicco and Schmanek hail from the Vince Fumo camp, named for the former state senator now spending four-and-a-half years as a guest of the federal government in Kentucky.
Nesmith has strong ties to John Dougherty, head of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Nesmith said that he's getting calls from ward committee people, complaining that Schmanek is running his campaign out of DiCicco's City Hall office.
"I paid my dues," Nesmith told Clout. "If he feels he can do a better job he has an opportunity to run. But he shouldn't be doing any running from the councilman's office."
Schmanek calls that accusation "bogus," insisting that he's pounding the pavement after work to drum up support.
"I'm working my ass off," he added. "And I expect to win."
DiCicco says that he is staying out of the ward fight - for now.
"My plate is rather full, being a district Council person," DiCicco said. "At the end of the day, I may just stay out of it and let the committee people make the decision." Nesmith doesn't buy that.
"He never stayed out of nothing," Nesmith said of DiCicco.
Welcome home, CarlosClout is a sucker for stories of redemption. So it was nice to hear that Carlos Matos, former North Philly ward leader, is home after serving three years in federal prison for bribing three Atlantic City councilmen. And Matos has landed a job.
Enter U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, chairman of the city Democratic Committee. Brady told us that Matos has a job lined up to start in two months and needed something to tide him over.
So, Brady gave him a job helping the committee organize petitions and other paperwork for upcoming elections.
"We're busy," Brady said. "One of our guys is away for a month. So this is perfect. I couldn't say no. I'd help anybody."
Brady, who said Matos is being paid minimum wage, noted that the feds sent staffers to the committee's office for a review.
"They loved it," Brady said. "They checked it out." Matos must be really busy. He apparently didn't have time yesterday to return our calls.
Krajewski to sue paperCouncilwoman Joan Krajewski filed notice last month of her intent to sue the Northeast Times - owned by the same company as the Daily News - for editorials critical of her 2008 one-day retirement to cash out in the city's controversial Deferred Retirement Option Program.
Krajewski's attorney, James Beasley Jr., called the editorials "potshots" and a couple of other words that Clout's editor won't allow in the newspaper.
"She's been working forever there," Beasley said of Krajewski. "It's all money she put aside for her pension. That's her money. It's not the city's money."
The city solicitor in 2006 said that Council members can enter DROP, amass deferred retirement cash, retire for one day and then return to the payroll if they're re-elected.
Krajewski did just that, collecting $288,136 after she was re-elected to an eighth term.
Here's what the Northeast Times had to say about that:
_ After her October induction into the Northeast Philadelphia Hall of Fame: "Until she returns the DROP money and apologizes to the citizens of the 6th Councilmanic District and the entire city, Joan Krajewski belongs in the Hall of Shame, not the Hall of Fame."
_ A Thanksgiving editorial suggesting things that some local people should be thankful for: "Councilwoman Joan Krajewski: I'm so frickin' thankful that 99 percent of my constituents still have no idea what I did to them with my DROP scam."
_ On year-end resolutions: "Councilwoman Joan Krajewski: I resolve to look in the mirror and finally realize that the honorable thing to do is resign in disgrace for staging a fake retirement to grab $300,000 in DROP money."
Common Cause cases city
Looking to increase its visibility in Philadelphia, the citizen group Common Cause has launched a Web site to deliver information that city and state officials have been unable or unwilling to provide - easy-to-obtain lists of the top contributors to Mayor Nutter, Gov. Rendell, City Council members and state legislators. Can't identify your state rep? Ourphiladelphia.org handles that, too. Software developed by the Philadelphia firm Avencia Inc. allows users to plug in their street address and get a list of their elected officials, from City Hall to Washington.
Nutter's biggest donors, limited by the city's campaign-finance ceilings, make for light reading compared with his predecessors'. Nutter's top five are all local law firms, led by Blank Rome LLP, which gave him $53,300 from 2001 through 2008. That's small potatoes compared with Rendell, whose top contributor in the same period was the law firm Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP. Total donations to Rendell from Ballard and its lawyers: $990,768.
Quotable:
"Oh! Schmidt!"
- A wise-cracker in the city's 56th Republican Ward, envisioning a campaign bumper sticker to tout two of Philadelphia's up-and-coming GOP politicians, David Oh and Al Schmidt, in future elections.
Staff writers Bob Warner and Stu Bykofsky contributed to this report.
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