How two of Mayor Parker’s top aides got city-issued Mustangs

We here at Clout like to fancy ourselves an observant bunch. So when we started noticing two shiny, matching electric Mustangs repeatedly parked at City Hall this year, we naturally had some questions.

1. Are they city-owned? 2. Who’s driving ‘em around? 3. And why do they get a car that’s so much cooler than other city cars like the Chevy Tahoes and Ford Escapes?

Turns out it’s Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s top aides — chief deputy mayors Aren Platt and Sinceré Harris — who drive the 2023 gray Mustang Mach-Es. They’re $56,400 and owned by taxpayers.

City spokesperson Joe Grace, whom Clout has not recently seen in a sports car, said the small SUVs were bought last year at the tail-end of former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration, but he couldn’t say what month they were purchased. Grace said that last year they were assigned as “pool cars” in the Managing Director’s Office, meaning they could be shared by staffers.

Now they’re pool cars in the “executive suite,” with Platt and Harris getting take-home privileges, Grace said, adding: “These electric vehicles replaced old, gas-powered vehicles, aligning with the mayor’s clean and green agenda.”

And he added that they might get help from Washington to pay for them. The city has applied for a rebate under the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides up to $7,500 to defray the costs of EVs purchased last year. No word yet if Uncle Sam has kicked in.

We should note: It’s not out of the ordinary for top staff in the Mayor’s Office to have city-issued cars, especially those who might have to respond to the call of duty at odd hours of the day, night, and weekend.

And cars issued to city politicians and administration staff members have caused kerfuffles in City Hall before. In 2009, when former Mayor Michael A. Nutter was tightening the city’s belt during the recession, he asked City Council members, who get a city vehicle if they want one, to consider turning in their keys. That didn’t go over well!

“When we’re the last 13 to take our cars home, then he can have my car,” Councilmember Brian J. O’Neill said at the time.

And it was in 1982 when Council members first ordered the city to spend more than $130,000 on cars for 14 members (hey, things were cheaper back then). The late Council President Joseph E. Coleman said they just wanted what then-Mayor W. Wilson Goode Sr. and his top deputies already had.

Maybe this Council will insist on 17 new Mustangs?

Clout’s like anybody else. We just want to be heard. So we appreciated it when “Jake with Metro Research” shot us a text Tuesday night to see how we felt about Parker.

Jake sent us a link to a poll that included detailed questions about Parker’s performance and her city budget proposal, which was unveiled last week. It asked about our enthusiasm for her plans to “close the open-air drug market in Kensington,” “expand the use of security cameras in major public areas,” “begin sending residents suffering from drug addiction and mental illness to treatment centers rather than releasing them back on the streets,” and others.

We asked around about how Jake got our number, and it turns out he’s working for a new nonprofit organization called One Philly, which is one of Parker’s slogans. The new group is led by Jeff Sheridan, the political operative who helmed the super PAC that supported Parker’s winning mayoral campaign last year.

He said it’s an issue advocacy group that will promote Parker’s agenda, not a political group that will help her in the next election. Similar organizations have popped up to support former Gov. Tom Wolf’s agenda, and a single-issue group was formed to promote former Mayor Jim Kenney’s tax on sweetened beverages, or the “soda tax.”

Sheridan said the group is very new and will release more details about its operations in the future, such as the amount of money it hopes to raise and the size of its staff. But he said the goal is not to help shape policy proposals, but to boost Parker’s agenda through ads, social media, or in-person organizing.

As a 501(c)4 organization, the group isn’t required to disclose all of its donors, and Sheridan said it has no plans to go beyond the legal requirements. That sounds to Clout like an opportunity for donors to get on the mayor’s good side by laying down some big bucks while keeping their names secret.

Sheridan laughed that one off.

”I am not the person that they should go through to curry favor with the mayor,” he said. “But in all seriousness, there is a shared interest from a lot of people who are potential stakeholders. These are people who care about the future of the city, and Cherelle L. Parker is the mayor.”

We believe strongly that Philly beats out New York in many ways, our favorite being cost of living. Their restaurants, rowhouses, and real estate are just too expensive.

And that shows in how much money people make, with average annual wages in the New York metro area nearly $15,000 higher per year than in Philly (it’s $78,560 compared to $64,500, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for you data nerds.)

But we know of one group of people in Philly who buck the trend: City Council members.

Philadelphia’s Council members make an average of $158,949 a year — $10,000 higher than the average legislator makes in New York, according to a recent survey conducted by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia research and policy initiative.

Out of 15 large American cities, Philly Council members’ average compensation — which includes base salary and additional pay for leadership positions — came in fourth.

The highest paid local lawmakers work in D.C. ($167,292), San Diego ($173,381), and Los Angeles ($231,802!!), according to Pew.

Are there any open seats in L.A.? Clout thinks we may be in the wrong line of work.

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