Jeff Brown rivals slam him for ethics investigation as Philly mayor’s race heats up

The previously sleepy Philadelphia mayor’s race is getting a little more combative, with several candidates taking aim at grocer Jeff Brown.

Mayoral candidates Derek Green and Allan Domb both spoke out Thursday after The Inquirer reported on an ethics investigation into campaign finance activity related to Brown. It’s the latest in a string of direct criticism or sideswipes directed at Brown, who has spent heaps of money on TV ads (as has a super PAC backing him) that have helped him get his name and message out early, when few other candidates are on the air.

Green, a former City Council member, called on the Board of Ethics to release the results of its investigation ahead of the May 16 primary.

“There are fines that have occurred after the election, but the voters need to know whether a violation of ethics laws occurred prior to them making a decision on this very important election,” Green said at a news conference outside City Hall.

While on Council, Green proposed ambitious ethics and election reform, including public financing of elections.

The Inquirer reported Wednesday that either Brown’s campaign or a super PAC backing Brown, or both, are the target of a city ethics inquiry. The ethics board’s executive director, Shane Creamer, said he could neither confirm nor deny an investigation, as required by the board’s regulations. Brown’s campaign manager Jim Cauley told The Inquirer that the Board of Ethics instructed him to neither confirm nor deny an investigation.

Green said the city can’t go back to the “wild, wild west” time that existed before the independent Board of Ethics was created in 2006. He also criticized ads produced by a super PAC supporting Brown that featured former first lady Michelle Obama and former Gov. Tom Wolf without their consent.

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In response, Brown’s campaign said the recent attention shows he’s winning.

“Jeff is clearly the front-runner, and it’s obvious the other candidates know it,” said Kyle Anderson, a spokesperson for Brown. “It’s important to remember that this criticism comes from individuals who have presided over one of the most rapid declines in our city’s history. While they’re taking potshots at our successes to try to distract from their failures, we’ll continue to share real solutions and our message of change with the people of Philadelphia.”

Meanwhile, Domb, another former Council member, also blasted Brown in a news release from his campaign Thursday that laid out “five questions Jeff Brown must answer,” including whether he personally raised money to fund a super PAC supporting his bid for mayor and whether he would disclose the dark-money-funded group’s donors.

”Philadelphia needs honest leadership, and Jeff Brown needs to answer the serious questions about whether he’s under investigation, illegal coordination with dark money groups, and what he promised the secret donors funding his campaign for mayor,” said Domb campaign spokesperson Jared Leopold.

The super PAC, For a Better Philadelphia, is largely funded by a nonprofit that has not been required to disclose its donors. Super PACs are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, but they may not coordinate directly with campaigns.

Other candidates for mayor have also criticized Brown recently.

On Tuesday, former Councilmember Cherelle Parker hit Brown — albeit without naming him — twice when the candidates gathered at the Convention Center for a forum on tourism and hospitality.

Parker and Brown were sitting next to each other, so each time Brown spoke, Parker followed him. When the candidates were asked whether the city is prepared to host major events over the next several years, Brown said: “Right now, our condition is embarrassing,” citing crime and trash.

Parker then suggested Brown isn’t the best person to fix it.

”Ensuring that we are the safest, cleanest, and greenest big city in the nation before company comes is not like stocking supermarket shelves,” she said.

She took another veiled shot at him when addressing the delivery of city services and fighting crime, saying the city needs a “mayor who’s not afraid to p— people off.”

”There are some folks that think we are living in a time of euphoria and we can hug our way through the challenges that our city is facing,” she said.

Brown, when asked on the campaign trail what type of mayor he would be, has often said he’ll be in neighborhoods meeting residents and offering hugs.

Both times Brown shrugged and seemed to laugh off the comments.

While no independent polling has been made public, Brown’s early TV buys and the money behind him vaulted him into the top tier of the race. His background also sets him apart from his opponents, nearly all of whom have government experience or previously served on City Council. Brown, the former CEO of a grocery-store chain, has emphasized that he’s a political outsider and criticized the candidates who previously worked in government.

In a TV ad released recently by his campaign, Brown took a swipe at some of his opponents: “We all know the mayor tapped out. When the rest of them in City Hall had a chance to step in, we only saw ‘em on Zoom,” Brown says. “They were nowhere to be found.” The ad includes images of Domb and Parker, as well as mayoral candidates and former Councilmembers Helen Gym and Maria Quiñones Sánchez.

Earlier this month, Gym’s team knocked Brown for appearing on the talk radio show hosted by Dom Giordano, a conservative commentator. A news release issued by Gym’s campaign noted that candidates Brown, Parker, Domb, and former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart each appeared on the show. But a statement issued by Gym’s campaign manager, Brendan McPhillips, attacked only Brown by name.

”Someone needs to remind these other candidates that they’re running in a Democratic primary,” the statement read. “This is an example of Brown acting like any other status quo politician, flirting with someone he thinks is a power player, and if he’s elected nothing will change.”

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In late February, after Brown’s campaign released an internal poll showing he and Gym in the top two positions, McPhillips called Brown “a self-funding millionaire” running for mayor “based solely on his personal grievance about a tax that pays for thousands of our city’s children to get quality pre-k education.” (Brown has been a vocal opponent of the city’s sweetened-beverage tax and has said it hurt his grocery stores.)

Several of the mayoral candidates have previously run into the ethics board themselves. Domb was fined last year for failing to follow the city’s process of disclosing conflicts of interest. Green was fined $1,200 in 2015 for agreeing to speak at fundraisers for a political action committee while a city employee. In 2015 the Board fined the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers $1,500 for contributions to Gym in violation of the city’s campaign finance law. Quiñones Sánchez, her campaign, and a political action committee that supported her paid a total of $8,500 in fines for ethics code violations in 2016. That same year the Board fined three employees of former City Councilmember David Oh for working on Oh’s 2015 re-election campaign while on the City Council clock.

Investigations are kept private until resolved.

As for when an investigation might be completed, the ethics board has a history of publicly releasing the details of settlements both ahead of and after primaries and elections.

Staff writer Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.