What the L's going on? Jewel Williams foes crying foul

TAKE A WALK down the block of Broad Street just north of Susquehanna Avenue and it looks like not much has changed in the state House's 197th District.

The large green awning over the North Philly district office for state Rep. Jewell Williams still proclaims his name in big, white letters. His portrait still hangs in the window below.

Two doors down, a banner stretches across the facade above a storefront campaign office. It reads: "Vote Jewel Williams, Democrat, State Representative, 197th Legislative District."

Things are not as they seem.

Williams stepped down from his seat in January to take the post of sheriff in Philadelphia.

The campaign office is for his daughter, Jewel, 27, who spells her first name with just one "l."

Through the metal grate covering the windows, it is clear that not much of a campaign is going on there. A few campaign posters are tacked on walls. Three chairs and a ladder are the only things in the office. There are no desks or phones or computers.

It's a shell of an office for what her political foes say is a shell of a campaign.

One of her rivals, Jamil Ali, a community activist and clinical supervisor at Girard Medical Center, says that he has seen little of Jewel Williams on the campaign trail. He believes that the sheriff and his daughter are hoping that voter confusion about which Williams is on the ballot will help her win Tuesday's Democratic primary election.

"An uneducated voter will vote for Jewel Williams believing they're voting for Jewell Williams," Ali said. "It's a name game."

J.P. Miranda, another candidate, accuses Williams and his daughter of deceptive practices because she is using familiar green-and-white campaign posters that look like her father's old posters.

Miranda, who previously worked for City Councilman Darrell Clarke, state Sen. Shirley Kitchen and Mayor Nutter, calls that political "trickery."

Kenneth Walker Jr., the third candidate opposing Williams, says that he has heard from confused voters while campaigning. Some think that the sheriff is running again for his former House seat, he said.

Jewel Williams, after refusing to respond for weeks to the Daily News about her campaign, granted a brief interview Thursday.

"There's no hiding who I am," she said. "I can't help it that my name is Jewel Williams."

Williams was prevented by her campaign manager, D.A. Jones, from answering any more questions about her campaign's strategy.

"Everything that happened with the campaign, she had nothing to do with," said Jones, a longtime political operative in the city. "I did."

Jones said that he designed the campaign to "mimic" her father's previous campaigns as an attempt to capitalize on his legacy in office.

Williams is on an unpaid leave from her clerical job in the auctions department at the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

Williams said that she could not recall if her father played a role in getting her that job, just that he gave her an application to fill out.

She started as a summer intern in May 2008 and was hired for a full-time job with an annual salary of $32,567 in April 2009.

Williams completed two years at the Community College of Philadelphia and is in a non-degree sign-language program at Temple University. She hopes to return to Community College to complete her degree after that.

Williams registered to vote in 2007 from an address of a property owned by her father, but registered to run for office this year from an address of a property owned by her mother.

Jones said that she lived with her father in 2007 and now lives with her mother.

Her mother's house has unpaid property taxes for the last seven years, with city records listing $6,351 in taxes, interest and penalties due. Jones said that that debt is being paid off at $154 per month.

Her father is still leader of the 16th Ward in his old district. Three committee people in that ward attempted to clear the crowded political field for her, filing ballot challenges against four candidates in the primary.

One of the people challenged was another ward leader, Gary Williams, who was booted from the ballot by a judge.

His fellow ward leaders responded by choosing him as the candidate for a special election that also will be held Tuesday.

The winner of that special election will finish the final six months of Jewell Williams' term.

Former state Sen. T. Milton Street Sr., who spent time in federal prison for not paying his income taxes, also was challenged by the committee people.

Street, who dropped off the primary ballot and chose instead to run in the special election, accuses Williams and his daughter of running a campaign "designed to deceive."

Street says he has encountered Jewel Williams only once while campaigning this year.

"She's young," Street said. "She probably has some potential. But it hasn't been developed. I don't think she's prepared to take on that responsibility. But her father's pushing her."