Philly Republicans, fighting a potential City Council shut-out, are also battling each other

Republicans in Philadelphia face an existential threat: potentially having no members elected this year to serve on City Council.

So the very last thing the Republican City Committee needs is a nasty intraparty donnybrook. But that’s exactly what’s playing out five weeks before the May 16 primary.

On one side is Sam Oropeza, the unsuccessful Republican nominee in a 2022 special election for a state Senate seat in Northeast Philly, who derided the local party leadership last month as a drunken “good old boys’ club” that didn’t do enough to help him last year.

“There’s a reason we continue to lose election after election after election,” Oropeza, a former mixed martial arts fighter who works in real estate, told Clout this week while campaigning for a Council at-large seat.

On the other side is local GOP chair Vince Fenerty and ward leaders who developed the plan that Oropeza hopes to upend. Fenerty cites as disqualifying an hourlong tirade Oropeza launched at party leaders on the night of his 13-point election loss last year.

“He doesn’t have the temperament to represent the Republican Party or any voters in Philadelphia,” Fenerty said.

This tussle comes as the Republicans try to hold one at-large Council seat and retake another in November’s general election.

The party made early at-large endorsements last September for Drew Murray and Jim Hasher, followed by endorsements in February for three more candidates: Frank Cristinzio, Gary Grisafi, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Oropeza didn’t ask for — and would not have received — an endorsement.

The Republicans hope their five endorsed candidates win the primary so the party can then focus only on Murray and Hasher in November.

All seven at-large seats are on the ballot, with two reserved in the city’s Home Rule Charter for members not in the majority party. Democrats outnumber Republicans 7-1. For seven decades, Democrats held five at-large seats and Republicans had two.

That changed in 2019 when Kendra Brooks won one of the set-aside seats in the general election for the Working Families Party. That progressive party is now trying to win the second seat this year.

Adding to the agita: Former Councilmember David Oh, a Republican who vacated an at-large seat to run for mayor, gave Oropeza $1,000 last month. Clout hears that GOP ward leaders, in a meeting Monday, expressed disappointment in Oh’s funding Oropeza. But they still intend to back Oh, the only Republican running for mayor this year.

Murray, the former president of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association and 15th ward leader, calls Oropeza’s claim about excessive drinking at the party’s headquarters “absolutely disgusting.”

“The Philly GOP worked our butts off for Sam Oropeza when he ran for the Senate,” Murray told Clout. “He didn’t call us drunks then. He calls us drunks now that we’re not supporting him.”

Hasher, a real estate agent who owns a bar in Mayfair, said the Republican leadership is stocked with longtime volunteers.

“They’re not drunken old men,” he said. “They’re just people who truly believe in the cause.”

Brian O’Neill, a Republican who has represented City Council’s 10th District since 1980, is seeking a 12th four-year term but faces a credible challenge in November from Democrat Gary Masino, business manager for Sheet Metal Workers Local 19.

Masino’s candidacy survived a pair of legal challenges last month but one of them bounced back this week on appeal from the state Commonwealth Court. A ruling took issue with how a Philly judge nixed challenges to some signatures on Masino’s nomination petitions and a pair of subpoenas requested in that case.

Masino’s challengers get a do-over Friday morning in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. Bumping him from the ballot would likely ensure O’Neill’s victory in November, keeping at least one Council seat in Republican hands.

Masino’s lawyer, Adam Bonin, cut short a European vacation and was winging home for the hearing. Bonin told Clout from Paris that his client is weighing options, including an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

A photo that circulated this week showed a top candidate for mayor, former Councilmember Helen Gym, outside an office building on Market Street last week.

State Rep. Amen Brown, another Democratic contender, snapped that picture and now says it was taken as Gym left a meeting with David Adelman, the 76ers co-owner who is leading the development team for a Center City arena.

Brown confronted Gym about that meeting during a televised debate Tuesday. The exchange briefly knocked Gym off her game as she first said she and Adelman “didn’t discuss anything” and then expressed skepticism about the arena plan.

If this sounds familiar, recall that Gym snapped photographs last July of Brown meeting with Mehmet Oz, then the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate.

Brown told Clout the photo was payback for Gym’s Oz snapshots. He also said Gym saw him take the picture.

“She rode right past me and smiled at me,” He said.

Brendan McPhillips, Gym’s campaign manager, had questions.

“Why did Amen Brown spend his day waiting outside a Center City office to snap a picture of Helen like the paparazzi?” he asked. “How did he know that Helen was taking a general meeting with Adelman that day? Why in the world is Amen Brown running for mayor?”

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