Philly Clout: Soda dough flows to Oh

COUNCILMAN DAVID OH had a "re-election victory" celebration this month at 1925, the Center City lounge and bottle-service club.

The celebration - six months after he was re-elected last fall - doubled as a "retire-the-debt" fund-raiser with recommended contribution levels of $100, $250, $500, $1,000. Top-shelf open bar included.

Our invitation must've gotten lost in the mail, but guess who showed up with a fat check? Soda mogul Harold Honickman.

The timing of Oh's soiree couldn't have been better for the soda industry, with City Council currently debating Mayor Kenney's proposed 3-cents-an-ounce sugary-drinks tax.

Campaign cash is like a bottle of shaken-up soda: It goes everywhere.

"I won re-election in another hard-fought, nasty campaign and I was just busy," Oh said of the delayed victory celebration. "I never stopped working. By the time I actually got around to doing a fund-raiser to pay off some of my debt, it was pretty late."

Council members won't have to report these contributions until the next filing deadline, in January 2017, but Oh was kind enough to voluntarily disclose the dollar figures when Clout came calling.

Transparency!

Oh, a Republican who generally opposes by-item taxes, said Honickman donated $2,500 to his campaign. He said Teamsters Local 830, which has been pressuring Council to kill the soda tax, contributed $1,000, and the Liberty Bell Beverage PAC contributed $1,000. Oh said he did not see representatives from the Teamsters or the PAC at the party. They just sent money.

Oh said he would prefer a broad-based tax to a soda tax as a new funding mechanism. Just what Big Soda likes to hear, baby!

But we give Oh credit for being transparent about the money that the soda industry is throwing his way. We'll be questioning other Council members throughout the year on this.

Chaka Fattah can't catch a break these days. Apparently, he can't catch a cab, either.

After a day of testimony in his corruption trial, the lame-duck congressman left the federal courthouse on Wednesday and waited for a taxi to pick him up on Market Street . . . and waited . . . and waited.

In fact, Fattah waited so long that the bros swigging IPAs and playing baggo at the Independence Beer Garden across the street starting yelling for him to "Get an Uber!"

(Not a good look for the taxi industry, btw, as it fights statewide ride-share legislation that could legalize UberX in Philadelphia.)

Although Fattah's son, Chaka "Chip" Fattah Jr., was savvy enough to get an Uber to whisk him away from the courthouse last year for an "exclusive" post-conviction interview with NBC10, Chip subsequently was whisked away to a federal correctional institution in Milan (Michigan, not Italy) after he was sentenced to five years in prison on fraud charges.

So, no clear transportation takeaway there.

The elder Fattah's lawyers sheepishly put their best spin on the matter Wednesday afternoon, claiming that the photographers surrounding Fattah were scaring off all the cabs.

Sure, blame the media. It's always our fault.

We hear that Frank Keel, Philadelphia's own Faceless Man, is lining up a city contract with at-large Councilman Al Taubenberger.

Keel, who worked on Taubenberger's successful 2015 campaign, represents Teamsters Local 830, which is vigorously fighting the soda tax. Keel also has represented Firefighters and Paramedics Local 22. And International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, led by John Dougherty.

Keel's work to defeat the soda tax on behalf of the Teamsters strikes us - and some City Hall insiders - as particularly interesting. Can a special-interest representative also work for the legislative body the special interest is seeking to influence?

This gives us a headache.

Clout reached out to Keel, who said: "I was proud to represent Al during his victorious Council campaign. I'd be honored to represent him now as councilman. But I have no contract."

That sounds like a nondenial denial! Do you mean no contract yet?

We also reached out to Taubenberger, but didn't hear back by deadline Thursday.

- Staff writer William Bender and photographer David Maialetti

contributed to this column.

benderw@phillynews.com

215-854-5255 @wbender99