James Kenney and Minimum Wage Issue Big Winners as Janie Blackwell and Sheriff Jewell Williams Lose In Primary
By Alex Lloyd Gross
Mayor James Kenney won in the primary for the right to face republican challenger Billy Ciancaglini in November. The turnout was very light with only about 12 percent of people who were registers actually coming out to vote. In the judges issue, Beth Grossman gets to be on the ballott in November but as a republican.
Jewell Williams lost the Sheriff race to Rachelle Bilal by a very large margin. She trounced him. 66450 votes to 43935 with over 97 percent of the vote counted. The other upset was Janie Blackwell who lost her long held seat on city council, in the western part of the city, to Jamie Gauthier. She is a political newcomer. Could the fact that Blackwell voted in favor of the soda tax and less than four years later, a Shoprite supermarket closed in her district have anything to do with her loss? She got 10290 with Gauthier receiving 13126 votes.
As for the questions on the ballot, The issue of can the city petition the state to allow them to set a different minimum wage in Philadelphia passed by an 84 percent margin. That does not mean the minimum wage goes up tomorrow. It means it is the first step to getting the state to allow the city to set their own rate, independent of the rest of the state.
Unsworn traffic officers can now be set up to direct traffic. This was vehemently opposed by the FOP. It cannot be stressed enough that the results were the result of low voter turnout. It is a primary. Mayor Kenney is not guaranteed to win in November. Lots of people thought he was unpopular but simply did not vote in this election. Lots of people may think the results of this primary should be different. If they did not vote, they have no reason to complain.