Also this issue: Don't Stop, Just Go A South Philly neighborhood has an uphill fight against a malt liquor shop. -Daryl Gale fineprint Less words, more story. The District -Mary F. Patel The Bell Curve City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

July 17-23, 2003

city beat

Gale Warning

Katz Scratchin' and Keel Haulin'

by Daryl Gale

Mayor Street's Thursday afternoon gabfest with the media didn't go very well last week. The mayor arrived almost 45 minutes late, apologizing as he entered. Turned out that a worker on City Hall's renovation project had an accident, and he was dutifully attending to the fallen employee.

The mayor's tardiness gave the assembled media folks a chance to work up a line of questioning, although they didn't need much prompting.

"Where's Keel?" one reporter after another asked Mark Nevins, communications director for Street's re-election campaign. Nevins, looking harried and tired, evaded the questions about his colleague as best he could, desperately bobbing and weaving as they became more pointed.

The Keel in question, of course, is Frank Keel, the campaign's pit bull of a press secretary at the center of the current media shitstorm. Keel usually dominates the room during these weekly chats, cheerfully working the reporters and laughing it up with camera operators. He was conspicuous by his absence and Nevins bore the brunt.

It seems that Keel's wife, Theresa, thought it would be a cool idea to write a couple of anti-Katz diatribes and mail them in as letters to the editor of the Daily News. Using the address of Keel's brother's bar in Fairmount rather than their comfortable Montgomery County home, Theresa signed the letters with her maiden name of Newbery. One of the letters actually made it to print before the Daily News caught on that Theresa Newbery wasn't merely a concerned citizen, and the paper publicly scolded the campaign for the deception in an editorial and several articles.

Not about to let such a golden opportunity pass by, the Katz campaign let slip the dogs of war, loudly calling on Street to give Keel the heave-ho. At a press conference in front of the new Constitution Center earlier that day, Katz tied the Keel affair to what he says is a pattern of deception, corruption and dirty tricks that have sullied the Street administration.

"The campaign certainly knew about the letters," Katz told reporters in a driving rain. "If someone on my campaign had done it, I'd know about it and they'd be out the door."

Later, Katz spokesperson Maureen Garrity put it more bluntly.

"The mayor sets the tone for his administration and his campaign, and this is not the first time we have seen unethical behavior gone unanswered," Garrity said. "An administration official makes a comment about ŒJew architects and Jew lawyers' and nothing happens. An airport official lies about her Harvard degree and nothing happens; and now, Frank Keel's wife writes letters to the editor using her maiden name, a fake address and her cell-phone number. The mayor seems content to look the other way when it comes to unethical behavior in his administration."

Back at the mayor's press conference, Nevins breathed a sigh of relief when Street finally entered the conference room. By that time, reporters had already spent more than a half hour making up funny headlines for their Keel stories (Keel Over, Keel's A Heel and my own Keel Hauled were most popular), and Nevins had endured a barrage of semi-good-natured ribbing about Keel's whereabouts. Maybe he was hiding under his desk, suggested one. More likely he was out back being horsewhipped, said another. Wherever Frank Keel was last Thursday, he never made it to the conference room.

Upon his arrival, Street delivered a 10-minute speech, essentially a point-by-point rebuttal of Katz's press conference before asking if there were any questions. As if he had to ask.

While freely admitting the Keel situation was embarrassing, the mayor stopped just short of saying his press secretary's days were numbered. "I'm very troubled by it, of course," the mayor sighed. "I'm not happy with the incident, because it makes no sense to me whatsoever for an employee of the campaign to have a spouse write something and then lie about it."

About Keel's continued employment prospects, Street said he hasn't yet decided and even if he had, he wouldn't tell us salivating media dogs first. OK, the part about the salivating dogs was mine, but that was the message. Funny thing, though: Far from the Katz camp's depiction of an administrator content with corruption, Street seemed genuinely troubled by the Keel affair. Being in the room, you got the impression that the mayor was fully aware of the black eye Theresa Newbery Keel's letters had given his campaign and that he was truly angry and embarrassed. As of this writing, though, Frank Keel remains the campaign's press secretary.

Eager to put the Keel matter behind him, the mayor closed the session by changing the subject. If Katz is such a pillar of ethical behavior, Street said, perhaps he would take a challenge. Since Katz has been blasting Street for rewarding campaign contributors in a Œpay for play' system, he'd give Katz 30 days to come up with a proposal to change the campaign finance laws in the state legislature. In other words, to put up or shut up.

I asked Maureen Garrity about the challenge. She said her boss has already taken Street up on it and the mayor should be prepared to defend himself and his administration.

Whoever said summer was a dead season for politics should spend at least part of this one in Philadelphia. It's going to get hotter.

Daryl Gale’s weekly radio show, Dialogues, with co-hosts Rotan Lee and Bill Miller, is burning up the airwaves Fridays 7-10 a.m. on WURD (900 AM) in Philadelphia.