Mayor Tom Knox Good For Philadelphia Will Do?

Like most human beings, I’m a pretty selfish person. I don’t mean it really in a bad sense, but when thinking about who I’d like to win the mayor’s race, I’d like it to be the candidate who will lead to the best scenario for me.

One might think I could use this Dwight Evans link to my blog and possibly parlay that into Evans giving me a cushy job as City Breast Inspector or something. But I doubt the city even has a breast inspector — it’s more of a federal thing — and I doubt Evans would have a plan to implement one.

In reality, all the mayoral candidates would make fine mocking targets for PWD. After all, I believe John Street is actually a zombie and I’ve still had fun with him. Who knows what they’ll do once in office? Maybe Chaka Fattah will appoint Shaft deputy mayor, maybe Michael Nutter will have a deejaying contest in Dilworth Plaza and maybe Bob Brady will maul a bear with his two hands.

But judging from this new article in Phillymag, Tom Knox might lead to the best hilarity of all. More below.

The article, titled “The Real Tom Knox,” purports to shed light on Knox’s background and the “self-made man”/”savior of the Rendell administration” picture Knox has painted for himself in commercials and awkward speeches.

(Side note: The article opens with an all-caps comment from The Next Mayor Blog. Hopefully, “Lynn” or “YT” or even “Chris” will one day get mentioned for a comment on this blog, although they’ll apparently have to use capital letters more often.

And, basically, like most all bosses, it appears Tom Knox is an take-no-prisoners, I-don’t-care asshole. Buzz Bissinger says he was nicknamed “The Obnoxion” when he worked his $1-a-year job as deputy mayor.

Or consider another story involving USAir. Seth Schofield, the company’s CEO, paid a visit to Rendell’s offices early on in the mayor’s first term and offered VIP status to high-ranking members of the administration. His offer was turned down, because Rendell and company were uncomfortable accepting the perk. Two months later, a Rendell aide remembers, an embarrassed call came into the mayor’s office from Schofield, thinking maybe this was something they needed to know: A member of the administration, saying he was acting under authorization of the mayor, had demanded VIP status in the USAir reservation system. He wanted automatic upgrades to first class for himself and his wife, and preferential boarding, and while Schofield and USAir had no problem with it …

“Who’s making this request?” Schofield was asked.

“A deputy mayor by the name of Tom Knox.”

Knox denies this, and says he’s had VIP status with his black American Express card since the 1980s. (Phillymag, which is apparently attempting to fashion itself as a more working-class version of Pravda, italicizes the word black, as if having a black American Express card was some sort of awful thing. And as if freaking Phillymag should be making this argument. But I digress.)

There’s a ton of stuff in there, some of it damning, some of it pretty ridiculous. For example:

[H]e conducted himself with the arrogance of a one-man band, as if he’d been brought in to personally redo city benefit contracts, get better rates for city office space, merge departments — in other words, to save the city from financial collapse. The wise old heads of city politics marveled at his naïveté; the realtors he clashed with over office space called their state legislators and City Council to complain, though Knox didn’t care, because their overcharging was “outrageous.” Eventually Knox had to be told that it was not his job to be the outrageous police.

Ha ha! Tom Knox was brought in to save the city money and then got in trouble because he attempted to save the city money. What a bastard! (I think the above story actually is exactly why people are voting for Knox, but, again, I digress.)

But whatever. The best anecdote from the Knox story is this one, about his “$1-a-year” job.

On the other hand, Knox appeared quite content to squeeze every last dime in perks out of his $1-a-year gig. It so happened that actually paying the dollar had the city trying to issue checks for pennies, which made no sense, plus it made [the other deputy mayor, Herb] Vederman and Knox eligible for benefits, which wasn’t exactly the point of the symbolic buck. Vederman gave up his salary, but not Knox. No, he actually wanted his dollar. Because then he could use the city health insurance it entitled him to.

When I first saw one of Knox’s early ads where it said Knox had turned around the city’s budget “18 months and a dollar and a half later,” I thought it was cute adspeak. But apparently he actually did get paid pennies per check. I’m no money manager or rich guy, but something tells me Knox could have cut at least $1.50 more from the budget when he was deputy mayor. Then again, have you seen the price of prescription drugs?

Okay, so the point is: Let’s say Tom Knox goes into City Hall, shakes things up — good or bad — and people get pissed. You know what pissed people leads to? Right: Hilarity. And you know who likes funny things happening so he doesn’t have to do any work himself? Right: Me.

The Real Tom Knox [Phillymag]