Mayor Parker’s first year

In a private ceremony on New Year’s Day, Cherelle L. Parker takes the oath of office and is sworn in as Philadelphia's 100th mayor.

In her inaugural speech at the Met Philadelphia, Parker vows "to close the gap between the haves and the have-nots." Later that day, she holds an event to appoint Kevin Bethel as police commissioner and declares a public safety state of emergency and signs other executive orders.

Parker appoints Pedro Rosario as the city's first Latino deputy police commissioner. He will oversee the Police Department's role in Parker's efforts to end the Kensington drug market.

A stop-and-frisk in a convenience store leads to a shooting in which a man wounds a cop before being shot to death by another officer. Parker, who embraced the controversial police tactic of stop-and-frisk on the campaign trail, went to the hospital where the officer was being treated and said it was important that the city shows the police that “we have their backs.”

Touting an "innovative" approach aimed at making Philly the "cleanest, greenest" big city, Parker divides the Department of Streets & Sanitation into two agencies, with Kristin Del Rossi as streets commissioner and Crystal Jacobs Shipman as sanitation commissioner.

Library workers stage a minor rebellion against an administrative directive that all public statements must be "APPROVED IN ADVANCE BY MAYOR’S COMMUNICATIONS" by posting on social media.

Parker orders an investigation of the Office of Homeless Services, which had spent $15 million more than it was budgeted in the final years of Mayor Jim Kenney's administration.

As she did with the Department of Streets & Sanitation, Parker moves to break up the Department of Licenses & Inspections. She picks Basil L. Merenda to lead the new division on inspections and Bridget Collins-Greenwald to head the new quality-of-life division.

In a major speech to the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, Parker calls on businesses to require workers to come back to the office after years of pandemic-related remote work. She hints that she will call back city employees to in-person work.

The mayor attended President Joe Biden's speech as a guest of U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Pa.). Parker meets with Biden many times during the year and is a vocal defender of his reelection campaign before he drops out of the race.

Dozens of elected officials, law enforcement leaders, union officers, and advocates attend a closed-door meeting with the mayor following a string of shootings that left 11 students shot in a week.

In her budget address — a high-profile speech in City Council chambers — Parker details her plan to keep tax rates flat, add resources for law enforcement, and boost funding for priorities like commercial corridor cleaning. The proposal also doubles the budget for the mayor's office and cuts funding to syringe exchange services.

Public health experts criticize Parker for proposing that "not one city dollar" will go to needle exchange programs, reversing a decades-old policy.

In one of the more unusual events Parker navigated in her first year, the city and region felt a 4.8-magnitude earthquake that rattled residents but left no major property damage or injuries. "Everyone was on point," Parker says of the city's response.

The mayor marks her 100th day in office with an event in Kensington, where she unveils more details about her administration's plan to crack down on the neighborhood's open-air drug market. Many top administration positions remain unfilled as Parker is slow to make appointments. Prior to her speech, Parker takes a walking tour of Kensington Avenue.

In the most contentious showdown between Parker and Council since she took office, the mayor instructs school board member Joyce Wilkerson to continue serving despite Council declining to approve Parker's nomination of Wilkerson for a new term. Wilkerson remains in office.

Parker's administration reveals that she is dramatically scaling back her campaign promise to build "30,000 affordable units of housing" in her first term. Now, the city is hoping to achieve 30,000 units of any kind, whether affordable or market-rate, and will include homes that receive renovations, not just new construction. The administration promises to unveil a comprehensive housing plan in 2024, but it never comes out.

City crews clear an encampment on Kensington Avenue, the city's most visible show of force to date in Parker's effort to clean up Kensington. Aid workers criticize the operation for communication failures, and residents later say the clearing merely moved the drug traffic to other blocks nearby.

The mayor tried to avoid getting involved in the University of Pennsylvania's efforts to crack down on the protest. But in the end, she let Philly police assist in clearing the camp.

Amid sparse details about Parker's plans for treating people who use drugs in Kensington, the administration angers Council after news broke that the city was moving those people into a shelter in Fairmount before lawmakers were alerted. It was one of several separate episodes in the spring that strained the mayor's relationship with Council.

Parker announces an effort to clean every block in the city over the summer as part of her "clean and green" initiative. City crews are seen cleaning up throughout the city, but litter remains a major issue.

After months of anticipation, Parker details her plan to Council members for housing and treating people who use drugs in Kensington. The city will open a new, $100 million treatment facility and shelter near the jail complex on State Road.

Despite fights over school board picks and drug treatment facilities, Council approves Parker's budget after making adjustments that increase the final price tag to $6.37 billion.

Parker names Jeffrey W. Thompson as the new fire commissioner. Like most of Parker's picks to fill key posts in her administration, Thompson is a veteran of Philadelphia city government.

The mayor orders all city workers to return to full-time in-person work, making Philly the first large U.S. city to bring employees back five days a week and angering many city workers. One union sues to stop the policy, but Parker wins in court.

A global tech outage affecting computers using the Microsoft operating system wreaks havoc in Philadelphia, grounding scores of flights and bringing city operations to a halt. Parker hosts a news conference to assure residents "no one is resting" until IT systems are back online.

In an odd moment, Parker causes a minor uproar in the Democratic veepstakes by posting a video in which she appears to reveal that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro will be Kamala Harris' running mate. Harris names Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her pick for vice president days later.

During Harris' speech accepting the Democratic nomination, Parker is invited to sit in the VIP box with Harris' family and celebrities. The mayor does not get a speaking slot on the main DNC stage in Chicago, but she speaks at other events and attends a forum on housing policy.

The beginning of the school year marks the launch of a pilot program for Parker's year-round schooling initiative.

The city releases a series of reports studying the potential impacts of the 76ers’ proposed arena in Center City. The Parker administration had delayed the publication of the studies for months. The release signals the beginning of a four-month blitz by Parker to get the project approved by Council by the end of the year.

Parker suspends a veteran City Hall lobbyist who had been working part-time as the spokesperson for her campaign after discovering that he had been accused of domestic violence by his wife. Weeks later, his wife drops her request for a restraining order against him. The episode is part of a string of shake-ups and odd choices related to Parker's mostly-dormant political operation during her first year in office.

Philadelphia Police Officer Jaime Roman dies 12 weeks after he was shot while carrying out a traffic stop in Kensington. Parker spent the night at Temple Hospital alongside 150 members of the police force, holding hands and praying.

As expected, Parker officially throws her weight behind the 76ers' proposal to build a new arena in Center City, a $1.3 billion project with the potential to revitalize East Market Street and displace Chinatown. The project is supported by the building trades unions, which were critical to her victory in the 2023 mayor's race.

Parker launches a new program to train community college students for city jobs, a workforce initiative that she has referred to as her “baby” and was a top priority for her first year in office.

Chief Deputy Mayor Aren Platt, a veteran political strategist who was an architect of Parker's historic mayoral campaign, resigns abruptly from her administration. Parker and Platt remain on good terms, with Platt resuming work for Parker's campaign committee, but his departure from city government points to potential discord within the top level of Parker's administration.

News reports about discord between Philadelphia Democrats and Kamala Harris' presidential campaign include questions about why Parker hasn't been featured more prominently as a surrogate for the Democratic nominee. In the final weeks of the campaign, Parker holds a news conference clearing the air, participates in get-out-the-vote efforts, and speaks at several Harris rallies.

Days after President-elect Donald Trump won the election, Parker holds a press conference previewing her posture toward the Trump administration. She says she's focused on her own administration and says the election is "in the rearview mirror."

Parker averts a strike by reaching a contract with the largest union for city workers, AFSCME D.C. 33. Earlier in the year, Parker had asked all four major municipal unions to agree to one-year extensions of their old contracts instead of negotiating multi-year deals like most new mayors. Three agreed, but D.C. 33 held out. Its members worked without a contract for almost five months until the union agreed to a one-year deal in exchange for a historic 5% raise.

The city launches a pilot program to collect trash twice per week for residents in Center City and South Philadelphia, another plank in Parker's "clean and green" plan.

Parker wades into the politically dangerous issue of school closures, saying the city will be involved in the school district's "right-sizing" efforts in the coming years.

Parker appoints Palak Raval-Nelson to lead the Department of Public Health. The pick is applauded but the fact that it came almost a year after Parker took office underscores how slow the mayor has been to fill out her administration.

After pro-immigration demonstrators call on her to take a preemptive stand against Trump, Parker declines to affirmatively state that Philadelphia will remain a sanctuary city. Administration officials have said Parker wants to focus on her own priorities, not responding to Trump.

In a major legislative win for the mayor, Council votes to approve the 76ers' Center City arena proposal. The vote comes a week after members gave preliminary approval to the arena legislation, signaling its passage was all but guaranteed. Parker personally lobbies members in the final days of negotiations to get the $1.3 billion project over the line.

Parker delivers Philadelphia’s first “State of the City” address, marking the end of her first year in office by touting her administration's successes and outlining her priorities moving forward. She announced the Riverview drug treatment facility will open in its first phase early next year.