Mayor Cherelle Parker taps a Kensington activist and ward leader to administration post

Marnie Aument-Loughrey stood in Philadelphia City Council chambers last week in front of large photos of people in the throes of addiction, some hunched over on the sidewalk and others with massive open wounds.

“We are letting you know what our children have to see every day,” she told lawmakers about Kensington, where she’s lived for decades.

Aument-Loughrey, a Democratic ward leader who runs a civic association in the neighborhood, has for years fought against approaches to the open-air drug market that are seen as progressive, such as supervised drug consumption sites.

Now, she’ll play a more official role.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker tapped Aument-Loughrey to be a “community coordinator” primarily in Kensington, where Parker has promised to end the drug market that’s long plagued the neighborhood.

The hire is another indication of how Parker’s posture toward Kensington represents a turn from former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration, which favored public health-driven “harm-reduction” practices and avoided criminalizing people for low-level offenses like drug possession. A change in that approach could lead to clashes with advocates who prefer strategies outside of law enforcement that are focused on preventing overdoses.

Aument-Loughrey believes the city has been far too permissive of open drug use and has ignored the pleas of neighborhood residents who are sick of seeing it. She embraces the idea of police bringing people in addiction to a “triage center,” where they can choose drug treatment or jail.

» READ MORE: Mayor Cherelle Parker taps a new top police leader to head the department’s Kensington strategy

And, in a November New Yorker article about how Parker “defies the progressive agenda,” Aument-Loughrey expressed nostalgia for the era of Frank Rizzo, the former police commissioner and mayor with a divisive legacy of police brutality.

But Aument-Loughrey says she’s focused on doing right by “both sets of residents,” referring to longtime residents and those living on the streets. She said she’ll be a liaison between them and the city, and will harness relationships she’s built over years both in the neighborhood and working in constituent services for State Sen. Sharif Street.

“We’re gonna take our neighborhood back,” she said. “For the first time in awhile, I’m hopeful.”

Her hire could also signal a burgeoning power center in Kensington. Aument-Loughrey, whose mother was also a ward leader, ran unsuccessfully for Council in 2015 and was a Democratic nominee for traffic court judge in 2013. She is married to City Councilmember Jim Harrity, and both have close ties to Street, the head of the state Democratic Party.

» READ MORE: Kensington community members wonder if increased police focus will make a difference

She is also the fourth spouse of a City Hall insider to get a job, appointment, or promotion in Parker’s nascent administration.

New city representative Jazelle Jones, a longtime city employee, is married to Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. Deputy education officer Sharon C. Ward, formerly a senior adviser at the Education Law Center, is the wife of Parker’s communications director, Joe Grace. Parker also appointed Dawn Chavous to a panel that considers candidates for school board. She is a consultant who has long worked in charter schools and who is married to Council President Kenyatta Johnson.

Tiffany W. Thurman, Parker’s chief of staff, said each of the women is “uniquely qualified to serve.”

“[Aument-Loughrey] is passionate about her community and is a resident who brings her lived life experience to the role and the team,” Thurman said. “The notion that qualified women cannot have their own careers separate from their spouses is archaic, sexist, and offensive.”

Aument-Loughrey starts her new job Monday. She said the city can start improving the neighborhood and residents’ attitudes about it quickly by making small adjustments like fixing abandoned buildings and picking up trash.

In the longer term, she envisions programs that help people get into recovery and enter housing, job training, and therapy.

“We’ve been told we’re cruel or we don’t have compassion,” she said. “At no time did we say we don’t want people to get help. It’s always been ‘yes.’ We want to help get them off the streets.”