‘You can’t do this alone:’ Cherelle Parker reflects on her first week as Philly’s mayor

On the second floor of City Hall, a work crew was replacing a lock on the city spokesperson’s door Friday afternoon, a row of large wooden desks was lined up outside the policy team’s room, and a senior staffer in Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s new administration pushed a chair down the hallway.

Inside the mayor’s office, Parker sat at her new desk in a room with nothing hanging on the wood-paneled walls and no other furniture except a conference table.

From building new cubicles in staff offices to appointing leaders for city agencies, the Parker administration is still very much under construction.

» READ MORE: Inside Philly Mayor Cherelle Parker’s first full day in office: Staff meetings, a news conference, and a call with the governor

Parker finished writing a note in cursive on a legal pad and handed it to an aide. She then leaned back and reflected on her first week on the job, which has already seen the city experience a measles outbreak, a killing of a man during a fight on a SEPTA platform, and a Code Blue — a freezing night for which the city must find additional shelters for people experiencing homelessness.

On the campaign trail, Parker often said she would be calling on business leaders, nonprofits, and state and federal government to help her administration achieve its goals, repeating the line, “I’m not superwoman.” On Friday, Parker said she didn’t realize how right she was.

“You get here in this office, and I was like, ‘Cherelle, you were spot-on. You can’t do this alone,’” she said in an interview with The Inquirer. “It takes a hell of a whole lot of people to do this. I don’t care who you are.”

Later that day, she held her first official cabinet meeting. When a staffer noted that it was the first in Philadelphia’s history to be led by a female mayor, the room broke into applause.

Over the next few weeks, Parker will be judged by whom she chooses to lead her administration. Over the next year, the paradigm is likely to shift to whether she delivers on her primary campaign promise: reducing crime.

But in the long run, her success will hinge on her relationship with City Council and its new president, Kenyatta Johnson, and she spent time in her first week trying to cement their bond.

Since her inauguration on Tuesday, Parker has had very few public events, a surprisingly light level of visibility for a new mayor who campaigned implicitly on being a more engaged and energetic mayor than her predecessor, Jim Kenney.

Parker said she has instead been focused on working behind the scenes to get her administration up and running — especially on interviews and meetings regarding the many unfilled leadership roles, including the commissioners of the streets, prisons, and licenses and inspections departments.

She’s also had briefings on city agencies, calls with President Joe Biden and Gov. Josh Shapiro, and has been in “constant communication” with Johnson. She dropped the puck at the Flyers game on Saturday. And she said she is doing her best to minimize the disruption to her routine with her 11-year-old son, Langston.

“Mommy does morning drop-off. That’s my time,” she said. “Langston does not expect his life to be turned upside down by any of it. We won’t allow his world to be turned upside down by any of it.”

One thing that’s no longer on Parker’s plate: being a Harrisburg lobbyist.

After resigning from Council in 2022 to run for mayor, Parker registered as a lobbyist with the Rooney Novak Isenhour Group, a firm with close ties to former Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration. Parker said that, as a single mom, she needed a job after giving up her Council salary.

» READ MORE: Mayoral candidate Cherelle Parker became a Harrisburg lobbyist days after resigning from City Council

State records show she terminated her lobbyist registration the day before she became mayor, as she had promised to do.

Parker, however, remains the chair of the Delaware River Port Authority, which manages bridges between Philadelphia and New Jersey.

On Thursday night, Parker attended a black-tie reception at the Warwick Hotel in Rittenhouse for Johnson, who was elected as Council president Tuesday. As they have been doing for weeks, both new leaders stressed that they were committed to working together and avoiding the intragovernmental animosity that has paralyzed some past mayors.

» READ MORE: Why Cherelle Parker’s relationship with Kenyatta Johnson could make or break her agenda

“It’s incumbent upon us to wrap our arms around this young lady and make sure she’s successful because where she goes, there goes the city of Philadelphia,” Johnson said.

Parker offered similar sentiments, saying that when “the City Council of Philadelphia and the executive branch are not working together … the people suffer.”

But she also hinted at a potential bonding opportunity for her and Johnson: Because both have been through high-profile controversies that drew negative press, neither is enamored with media attention, she said.

“A quote in the paper for some folks now, it’s like Vitamin C or B ― they get great energy in them,” she said. “They feel very powerful when their name is in the paper. But you and I — we know what it’s like when your name is not in the paper, and you’re like, ‘OK, I made it through a good day.’”

Johnson in 2022 was acquitted on federal bribery charges, after two trials in a case that put him under the microscope for years. Parker was arrested for driving under the influence in 2011 while she was a state representative, an experience she said helped her grow as a public servant but also made her see that not all press is good press.

With neither one of them focused on seeking attention, she said, both can be focused on working together.

“When you’re going through it on the other side, it’s not attractive to you anymore,” Parker said. “It’s not a stimulant to motivate you. You can be absolutely focused on the work and the outcome.”

Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.