What a fight over school board nominees told us about the Parker-Johnson era in City Hall

After her election last year, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker made a big deal of saying, repeatedly, that she would not allow anyone to drive a wedge between her and new City Council President Kenyatta Johnson.

It turns out she had good reason to be worried.

Their first major dispute — over Parker’s nominations to the school board — spilled out into public last week, less than four months into their tenures.

To recap: Council ended up confirming eight of Parker’s nine nominations but rejected the reappointment of board member Joyce Wilkerson, who faced opposition from charter school interests. Inquirer sources said Wilkerson’s opponents included Dawn Chavous, a major charter advocate who happens to be Johnson’s wife.

» READ MORE: City Council withdrew Joyce Wilkerson’s school board nomination. Mayor Parker asked her to serve anyway.

In a dramatic hearing Monday, Johnson announced that Wilkerson didn’t have the votes — only for Wilkerson to walk out of Council chambers and, with TV cameras rolling, read a letter from Parker asking her to continue serving because no one has been confirmed to replace her.

Clout loves political hardball, which hasn’t played out in City Hall like that in a long time.

In his second term, former Mayor Jim Kenney didn’t seem to put up a fight against anybody over anything, and former Council President Darrell L. Clarke always preferred to kill things quietly.

Times have changed. Parker testified in Council on Tuesday and said she got only “a few hours” sleep due to calls from people “trying to find a way to benefit from driving a wedge between this president, this leadership, this Council and this administration.”

“I can’t do it without you, and you can’t do it without me,” Parker said. “We’re interdependent on each other.”

There have always been reasons to believe Parker and Johnson may clash. Although they’re both Democrats, they hail from different political factions that have been on opposite sides in many elections. And Johnson was the only senior Democrat on Council who didn’t endorse Parker in last year’s mayoral primary.

But both also are motivated to show they can keep the ship steady in their first year in office. Parker has said she expects to be the subject of heightened, albeit unfair, scrutiny as the city’s first female mayor. And Johnson likely feels he has something to prove after being elected Council president about a year after he and Chavous were acquitted on federal corruption charges (in a case that involved a charter operator).

So what have we learned? For starters, Johnson isn’t afraid to buck the administration on issues that are important to him — and Parker isn’t afraid to punch back.

Before things came to a head Monday, neither wanted to give the appearance that they were picking a fight with the other. But once the dispute was out in the open, both were eager to show their branch of government had the upper hand.

“I know that Mayor Parker, who is a former member of this legislative body ... will respect the decisions of the members of this body,” Johnson said. “We withdrew [Wilkerson’s] nomination, and we expect the administration to send us a nominee to confirm.”

While the Parker-Johnson standoff stole the show, it was also interesting to see who was working behind the scenes for each side during the school board fight.

Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who lost to Johnson in last year’s Council president race, was the Parker team’s most visible ally. He tried to force a roll call vote on the motion to withdraw Wilkerson’s nomination — which would have caused discomfort for members who opposed Wilkerson but don’t want to anger the teachers’ union — but was overruled in a voice vote.

“I think that if you’re asking [Parker] to cook the meal, she should be allowed to buy the groceries,” he said.

Likely sensing he has little to gain from cozying up to his former rival in the leadership race, Jones is emerging as the chief chaos agent in Johnson’s Council, as was the case during the recent dispute over the Israel-Hamas war.

Meanwhile, Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who chairs the Education Committee, led the charge against Wilkerson. Thomas is developing a reputation for his intense interrogations during Council hearings, and he subjected the incumbent school board nominees to withering questioning over their handling of Black-led charters.

Thomas coaches basketball at Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter School, and his wife chairs the board of Philadelphia Hebrew Public Charter School. But he insisted his opposition to Wilkerson wasn’t just about that issue, and he said this week he’s ready to move on from the dustup.

“I’m all for the ‘One Philly’ thing,” Thomas said, using Parker’s catchphrase that emphasizes unity in the city. He added: “I stand by what we did and why we did it.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro is on a (bipartisan) roll. A potato roll, specifically.

He visited the Martin’s Famous Pastry Shoppe headquarters in Franklin County on Tuesday to announce an expansion of the potato roll manufacturing giant.

But it wasn’t just another vanity news conference. This was a full-circle moment for Shapiro, since members of the Martin family supported his opponent, Republican State Sen. Doug Mastriano, in the 2022 gubernatorial election, and Shapiro came to the rolls’ defense that year as his supporters called for a boycott.

Shapiro visited the Chambersburg plant in Mastriano’s home county to talk about how a $123 million expansion created 127 jobs — and the role the state played in securing it.

He appeared with company president Tony Martin. One of the other family members, Jim Martin, and his family contributed upwards of $125,000 to Mastriano’s poorly funded campaign in 2022. When Shapiro stepped in to oppose the boycott, he said Martin’s makes a “damn good potato roll” and that he doesn’t support boycotting a Pennsylvania business that employs hundreds of workers.

On Tuesday, Shapiro returned with less risqué language, repeatedly calling the product some “darn good rolls.”

“He’s done a great job cutting red tape,” Tony Martin said. “We may not agree on everything, but we agree on business, and we agree on helping Pennsylvania.”

Clout provides often irreverent news and analysis about people, power, and politics.

Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this column.