Cherelle Parker makes first public appearance since winning the mayoral primary: ‘We need all of Philadelphia to unify’

In her first major public appearance since winning the Democratic nomination for mayor, Cherelle Parker said Monday she was focused on working with state leaders to deliver wins for Philadelphia in Harrisburg and bringing the city together after a bruising campaign, saying “this is the unifying moment here in our city.”

“I don’t care who you voted for, I don’t care what section of the city you live in, your ZIP code, what your political philosophy or ideology is,” Parker told reporters. “Our democratic process, we worked through it, we now have the results, and we need all of Philadelphia to unify in order to move our city forward.”

Parker, a former state representative and City Council majority leader, delivered her remarks at a news conference Monday morning after meeting with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in the Center City offices of the Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young law firm.

She said she chose the Shapiro meeting as the occasion to make her first public appearance to highlight her commitment to working with Harrisburg on issues like gun violence and public education. Parker and Shapiro, who is from Montgomery County, served together in Harrisburg when they were both state representatives and overlapped in the General Assembly from 2005 to 2012.

Parker was hospitalized Tuesday night for a dental emergency and missed her own victory party. She spoke to The Inquirer on Wednesday and made a brief appearance at a media awards program Friday, but she has been otherwise recovering privately.

Parker said Monday she had largely recovered after requiring medical attention for severe tooth pain on Election Day. She learned in February that she had to have a tooth pulled due to a fractured root canal from years earlier. But she said she put off the procedure to stay on the campaign trail.

Days before the election, the pain caught up with her, she said, and she had the tooth removed in an emergency procedure the Friday before the election. But she kept campaigning through the weekend without allowing it to heal, and the pain in her jaw became immense on Election Day, she said, prompting her hospital visit.

Parker, who lives in Mount Airy, won the nomination with about a third of the vote in a crowded field of nine Democrats. Polls showed as many as five front-runners had viable paths to victory, but Parker ended up winning handily with an almost 10 percentage point lead over her nearest competitor. On Monday, she thanked her primary opponents and said she intends to meet with each of them.

She prevailed with a moderate, tough-on-crime message that appealed to many of the city’s voters of color, with Black and Latino neighborhoods delivering her the decisive win.

“Our message has taken hold across the city,” she said, “but most importantly in the neighborhoods and the communities who are closest to the pain of gun violence, neighborhood life, struggling schools, and quite frankly, a lack of opportunity. And with our win, to me, these communities they are now closest to the power.”

In November, she’ll take on Republican David Oh, who ran in the GOP primary unopposed. Parker is strongly favored to win, since Democrats outnumber Republicans in the city 7-1. A Republican hasn’t held the mayor’s office in more than 70 years.

If elected, Parker will be the first female mayor in city history. Philadelphia is one of just a few major American cities that has never elected a woman to be mayor.

Parker on Monday said she had the opportunity to break Philadelphia’s glass ceiling thanks to women who came before her, such as former City Councilmembers Marian Tasco and Augusta Clarke, who were both mentors to Parker.

“I didn’t get here alone. I’m not superwoman,” Parker said. “I stand on the shoulders of some women who generations ago, they could have been standing up as the Democratic nominee for mayor were it not for their inability to raise the funds needed to compete with, most of the time, men.”

Parker on Monday also discussed several of her policy priorities. She defended her embrace of the controversial policing technique known as “stop and frisk,” saying she would ensure that officers have the latitude to make pedestrian stops when appropriate but won’t tolerate police misconduct.

She touted a neighborhood commercial corridor cleaning effort that she championed on Council and said would be the basis for her efforts to improve sanitation across the entire city.

And she elaborated on her plan to pilot a policy that would extend school hours to better accommodate working parents and keep schools open year-round.

Parker said her plan doesn’t mean kids would be in a traditional classroom setting all day from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Instead, she would like schools to offer more opportunities for development, whether it be through the building trades or new technology, such as coding.

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. will present his five-year strategic plan on Thursday, and district officials have confirmed to The Inquirer that a year-round school pilot program will be part of that plan.

“I was happy to see the superintendent talk about a potential pilot,” Parker said, “because if you look and read my plan as it was referred to, I talked about a pilot as well, and you get a chance to see what it would look like here, in the city of Philadelphia.”

Parker is likely to become mayor after winning less than a third of the vote in a low-turnout primary. That’s not uncommon in Philadelphia elections, which have seen fewer ballots cast in recent decades and are often won by candidates who fail to take a majority of votes when there are three or more serious contenders.

Still, Parker said she will be focused on getting more Philadelphians to believe that city government can improve their lives, which will in turn improve voter participation.

“Low turnout to me equates to apathy, frustration, lack of hope, of believing in government,” Parker said. “Too many Philadelphians don’t believe that government can work for them, and we’re going to be working very hard to change that narrative.”