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City Council scandal: Couchgate!

Plus Milton signs up for Kenney; Dems back a Republican and anopther fattah runs for office.

Councilman Ed Neilson. (courtesy photo)
Councilman Ed Neilson. (courtesy photo)Read more

COUNCILMAN Ed Neilson is no different than the rest of us. He needs to take a load off once in a while.

Perhaps that's why he snagged ex-Councilman Jim Kenney's office couch when Kenney decided to run for mayor.

Details were sketchy yesterday, but the word in City Hall is that Neilson and a staffer just walked down the hall last week to Kenney's office and made off with the pleather love seat. Bold move, guys!

"I assume it was him on one end and his staff member on the other," a source said.

This was not a particularly nice couch, we're told. Quite possibly Ikea. But Neilson must've liked it.

"I don't know if he doesn't have one or just the fact that it was there and no one was using it . . . " the source said.

We couldn't reach anyone yesterday in Council President Darrell Clarke's office, which manages Council's property, but we're pretty sure this was a break in protocol.

"He broke the rules," a second source said of Neilson. "You can't just take people's stuff. It'd be chaos."

It doesn't sound as if Clarke's people are going to take action on Couchgate though, because when all's said and done, "it's a f---ing couch," as one source put it.

Neither Neilson's office nor Kenney, whose handlers are committed to muzzling his wise-cracking self, returned requests for comment.

Boyle chase better than llamas

While the lifeless mayor's race limps forward, a little noticed Northeast Philly state rep seat is shaping up to have more twists and turns than a high-speed llama chase.

The special election to fill the 170th state House seat vacated when Brendan Boyle successfully ran for Congress last year has already seen Boyle's chosen successor, (brother state Rep. Kevin Boyle's chief of staff Seth Kaplan) rebuffed by allies of local ward leader and Lt. Gov. Mike Stack.

Stack wanted PA Turnpike employee John Del Ricci, but later settled on his wife, horse trainer Sarah Del Ricci as the official Democratic candidate, purportedly because her husband was a few years shy of collecting a state pension.

Got that? Well, the Fraternal Order of Police and a collection of union groups normally aligned with city Democrats have thrown another wrench into the works by endorsing Republican candidate Martina White for the seat.

"Martina [a financial adviser] has a strong financial background and the professional experience to hit the ground running as a new state representative and fight for local working families," said Joe Ashdale, business manager for District Council 21 of the painters and allied trades union, in a press release.

On the fringe of the city and home to a number of union halls, the 170th is one of few districts in the city with a substantial number of Republicans. Ashdale had endorsed Republican state Rep. John Perzel in the past.

Sources say that FOP president John McNesby may be miffed that the Dems supported state Rep. John Sabatina Jr. instead of him in the race to succeed Stack, whose state Senate seat became vacant when he left to serve with Gov. Wolf. Other labor groups affiliated with electricians union chief John Dougherty, who helped bankroll Boyle's congressional run and purportedly wanted Kaplan have jumped on board the GOP bandwagon.

The Republicans were quick to capitalize on the moves.

"I believe we're going to win the election, and I believe Philadelphians realized that the city needs a strong voice along with [state Rep.] John Taylor in Harrisburg," said Republican City Committee exec Joe DeFelice. "You're going to have two Philadelphia voices in Harrisburg that are friendly to labor."

Street signs for Kenney

It was really dark inside the bar at Ladder 15 last week when mayoral candidate T. Milton Street signed the nominating petition of fellow mayoral candidate Jim Kenney. That's what his son said, anyway.

That same petition, with Street's signature and printed name on the fifth line, was circulated Tuesday at a petition party geared toward millennials at the Field House and attracted a few double takes.

T. Milton Street Jr. told Clout, "It was really dark up there . . . He did it in the spirit of cooperation . . . Everybody was passing around petitions. A young man came up to my father and said he was running for City Council at-large and my father signed it. Unfortunately, it was Jim Kenney's petition."

The lesson here is to read carefully before you sign.

Kenney, still muzzled, declined to comment at press time.

Another Fattah to run?

We hear Frances Fattah - daughter of U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah and sister of Chaka Fattah Jr. - is making moves to run for Common Pleas judge.

Fattah, a 30-something graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham University Law School, has interned in the Clinton White House and worked for the law firms of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis and Wolf Block. She also has served as deputy general counsel for the Chester Upland School District.

On the other hand, Fattah also worked at Sydney Lei & Associates, the firm run by her father's former chief of staff, Greg Naylor, who pleaded guilty last year to federal campaign-finance charges. And she worked at 259 Strategies, which is at the center of the feds' bank-fraud and tax-evasion case against her brother, who is scheduled to go on trial next month.

In some places, those connections could be a political liability. In Philadelphia, however, the Fattah name still draws votes. Congressman Fattah was re-elected in November with 87.7 percent of the vote, despite an ongoing federal probe into his finances.

- Staff writers William Bender, Jenny DeHuff and The Next Mayor's Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this report.

Contact Bender at benderw@phillynews.com and 215-854-5255.