Meet Mayor Cherelle Parker’s driver

As new Mayor Cherelle L. Parker gets settled into office, Philadelphians will be seeing more and more of her. And if they look closely, they’ll also be seeing more of Shawntee Willis, Parker’s special assistant and driver.

Willis owns 215B.E.A.R.S., a security company that Parker’s campaign hired last year. Apparently, he did a great job because Parker has hired him to be a city employee with a $125,000 salary.

The last two mayors, Michael A. Nutter and Jim Kenney, have been driven around the city by police officers who were part of their security details — a prestigious gig that usually ends with the cops being able to choose plum assignments when their mayors leave office. But Parker stressed that Willis, as a civilian, is not part of the detail, which works alongside him and is led by Lt. Hamilton Marshmond, a veteran of the highway and homicide units.

“He traveled with me and my family during the campaign, and he will continue in that role as a special assistant — not as a member of my police detail,” Parker said of Willis. “His role on our team is nonnegotiable, in terms of continuity and the least amount of disruption to my personal life as possible.”

Using a civilian driver isn’t unheard of. Ex-mayors John F. Street and Ed Rendell both had civilian drivers at times. (Street’s arrangement, though, seems to have not gone smoothly. The head of his detail — future former Police Commissioner Richard Ross — transferred to a different post after a dustup with the driver, 49th Ward Democratic committeeperson Marion Wimbush.)

Despite there being some precedent, some old pros think it’d be wiser to have the mayor’s chauffeur be a cop.

“You’re putting the mayor in danger,” said retired Philadelphia Police Lt. James Dambach, who led the department’s dignitary protection unit before retiring in 2017. “Every driver, for security reasons, [should] be sworn law enforcement. He has to know how to do evasive driving if they’re in a police vehicle. What if she has a heart attack and you have to drive her to the hospital? You have to be able to drive like a policeman.”

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, however, doesn’t see an issue with Willis. Parker, after all, will still be surrounded by members of the detail most of the time. And although Willis will be at the wheel, Parker’s black SUV is usually in a caravan with other police vehicles.

“Mr. Willis’ role in no way, shape, or form conflicts with the police detail,” Bethel said in a statement. “Mr. Willis is important to the mayor and her family. My primary concern is her security and her peace of mind.”

Lehigh Valley Congresswoman Susan Wild was a little too honest about how she felt when her district was expanded to include Carbon County.

Wild was on Zoom with fellow Democrats up for reelection this year, including Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Reps. Matt Cartwright and Chris Deluzio, when she reflected on acquiring the county, which voted 60% for Trump in 2020.

”After Trump came along it went from a working-class blue district to, ya know, they drank the Trump Kool-Aid,” she said. ”And it really became a red county, and so I was dismayed, frankly, when I got that as part of my district.”

Wild also said in the call that she’s since gotten to know some people in the region and learned they’d been “sorely neglected at the federal level under their last representative.”

But the Kool-Aid had already been spilled.

A clip of the Zoom sound bite made its way around, and the House GOP campaign arm wasted no time blasting it out. Wild’s seat is considered a toss-up. She won her last election by about 2 percentage points in the district.

Asked if she had any comment, Wild noted she had opened an office there shortly after the county was added to her district.

And she called representing Carbon County in Congress, “the honor of a lifetime.”

It’s been a few months since Mike Vereb resigned as Gov. Josh Shapiro’s top legislative liaison and news broke that months earlier he was accused of sexually harassing a female staffer.

Clout hears he hasn’t been seen out and about at political events much since then.

But he showed up to SEPTA board chairman Pat Deon’s retirement party, and was seen with another guy who might understand what he’s been going through.

According to photos from the event provided to Clout, the former Shapiro aide was seated next to A.J. Marsico, a Philly lobbyist who was charged in 2014 for allegedly sexually assaulting a 27-year-old woman in Center City. He later pleaded “no contest” to lesser charges.

Vereb has been one of Shapiro’s closest confidants for decades and was one of his first appointments to his cabinet once elected governor in 2022. But shortly after Shapiro took office, Vereb was accused of sexually harassing a female subordinate. She quit after less than two months on the job, and the Shapiro administration agreed to pay a $295,000 settlement to resolve her complaint.

Marsico and Vereb did not respond to requests for comment.

Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.

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