Kenney challenged by fellow candidates at Next Mayor Debate

Sparks flew at times during the Next Mayor project's own mayoral debate, hosted at Temple University Monday night, as several candidates took aim at perceived frontrunner and former Councilman Jim Kenney.

There were other quirks for what has been a largely tepid race thus far — including a oddly warm rapport between Kenney and Doug Oliver, details on the candidates "guilty pleasures" and some tense exchanges between moderator Dave Davies and Milton Street over his criminal history.

State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams drew connections between Kenney's opposition on Council to the Office of the Inspector General, City Hall's internal government watchdog. Williams suggested Kenney's reluctance to support the office was related to his simultaneous roles on the board of Independence Blue Cross and at development firm Vitetta where he works as a consultant.

Williams called the former councilman's work with those organizations a conflict of interest and that Kenney didn't want work with either group examined.

Kenney said his work with both companies had been vetted by city lawyers, and that Vitetta hasn't had a contract with the city in 25 years.

"You can make the connection, but connections are false," Kenney said.

Earlier, Diaz had also questioned Kenney accepting the endorsement of Latinos United for Political Empowerment, a group of politicians that had endorsed Manny Morales, a political challenger of Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez who has been pilloried for alleged racist posts on social media.

Kenney shot back that Diaz was just upset that he had lost the groups support.

Finally, former District Attorney Lynne Abraham took Kenney to task for taking millions for what she called "Dark money," sometimes untraceable donations from special interests groups. In Kenney's case, the teacher's unions and the city's building trades.

"Tell us you're not going to take this money and you're going to reject it because it has appearance of trying to buy Mayor's office," Abraham said.

Kenney said the dark money was not secretive because it had been "Reported on constantly."