Jim Kenney
| Jim Kenney | |
|---|---|
Kenney in 2009
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| 99th Mayor of Philadelphia | |
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Assumed office January 4, 2016 |
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| Preceded by | Michael Nutter |
| Member of the Philadelphia City Council from the At-Large District | |
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In office January 6, 1992 – January 29, 2015 |
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| Preceded by | George Burrell |
| Succeeded by | Helen Gym |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
James Francis Kenney August 7, 1958 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Alma mater | La Salle University |
| Website | Government website |
James Francis "Jim" Kenney (born August 7, 1958) is an American Democratic politician who is the current mayor of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a former member of the City Council. He was the Democratic nominee for mayor of Philadelphia in the 2015 election, having won the crowded primary election by a landslide on May 19, 2015. On November 3, 2015 he was elected mayor of Philadelphia, defeating his Republican rival Melissa Murray Bailey.
Kenney, who was first elected to the Philadelphia City Council in 1991, held his At-Large Council seat for 23 years from January 1992 until January 29, 2015, when he resigned from the City Council to launch his candidacy for mayor of Philadelphia.
Jim Kenney grew up the oldest of four in the Whitman neighborhood of South Philadelphia. His father was a firefighter and his mother was a homemaker. His parents both worked second jobs to put Jim and his four siblings through private Catholic schools. In high school, Kenney was a newspaper deliveryman and busboy. Kenney graduated from Saint Joseph's Preparatory School in 1976 and in 1980 received a political science bachelor's degree from La Salle University in Philadelphia. He was the first in his family to graduate from college.
Kenney was elected to his first term in 1991 when he was just 32 years old. During his time on Philadelphia's City Council, Kenney served as Chairman of the Council Committee on Labor and Civil Service. He was also Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Rules, Committee on the Environment, and Committee on Law and Government, and was a member of the Committee on Public Safety, Technology and Information Services, Public Property and Public Works, Fiscal Stability and Intergovernmental Cooperation, Public Health and Human Services, and the Legislative Oversight Committee.
In 2010, Kenney sided with the local firefighters’ union when Mayor Nutter took action to remove the collective bargaining rights of paramedics.
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Wikipedia