PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — 2022 could be seen as another tough year for Mayor Jim Kenney. The city was still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, violent crime persisted, overdose deaths increased and city services continued to struggle with understaffing.
Yet Kenney says he actually had a pretty good year, returning financial stability to the city and continuing to expand his signature programs.
Kenney created one of his biggest controversies of the last year with his own words after the city’s July 4 fireworks show — though he disagrees that it was the defining moment of his year, as some have asserted.
“I hope not — because it’s not,” Kenney said in a one-on-one conversation last week.
“I make one statement in the midst of a crisis … I mean, that’s not a fair way to judge anything.”
On the Fourth of July, the magical festivities on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway were ruined by stray bullets that, fired from a mile or more away, fell back to earth and struck two police officers. A short time later, a shaken mayor uttered the words that have haunted him since.
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“I’ll be happy when I’m not here, when I’m not mayor, and I can enjoy some stuff,” he said at the time.
“I expressed the frustration of how hard this job can be,” Kenney said last week.
“I’m going to do this job to the end, but I want to be effective and successful. Just being Mr. Happy all the time doesn’t get the job done.”
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As he enters his final year as mayor, Kenney says he believes he is finishing his tenure strong.
“We’re back to the highest fund balance we’ve ever had. Our bonds have gone from junk to A. Poverty is down 3% — not anywhere near as much as we need to get it down, but getting it down 3% in a pandemic and two recessions? That’s not bad stuff,” he said.
“Streets are crowded again. Tourism numbers are pre-pandemic. Hotel numbers are pre-pandemic. We have a record number of permits for residential construction. We have businesses coming in biotech. Considering all the obstacles that we faced, everything’s hitting on all four [cylinders].”
Looking ahead, Kenney listed an ambitious agenda for city government in 2023.
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“We have to continue to fund education. We have to continue to drive down our wage and business taxes,” he explained. “We have to continue to be an attractor to business and a retainer of businesses.”
His No. 1 goal, though, is to reduce gun violence. The past year is the second consecutive year Philadelphia has had more than 500 homicides.
“Do I lay on my back at night worrying about kids getting shot?” he asked. “Yeah. It eats you.”