Fumo Rips Former Protege Kenney As A 'Liar, Hypocrite & Pussy'

Vince Fumo went on Facebook yesterday to rip Mayor Jim Kenney, his former protege who hasn't spoken to him in a dozen years, as a "liar, hypocrite and pussy" for taking down the Frank Rizzo statue in the dead of night.

"Jimmy, you worked for me for decades and yet every day you never cease to amaze me," wrote Fumo, who as a state senator for 30 years, groomed Kenney from an overweight intern known among the staff as "Baby Huey" to his chief of staff, before he got Kenney elected as a city councilman at large.

"You fought for this statue to be at that very location," Fumo wrote Kenney. "How hypocritical of you now to remove it saying that it 'represented bigotry, hatred and oppression for too many people, for too long . . ."

"Wow, did I miss something, did that just happen or were the feelings toward Rizzo the same back when YOU championed this very same statue?" Fumo wrote Kenney. "If they were why did you support it then and not now?"

Fumo, no fan of Rizzo's during his entire political career, went on to apologize to the citizens of Philadelphia for having to put up with Mayor Jim Kenney "because I am the ultimate cause of you being where you are today."

"Jimmy, you and many others knew of my opposition to Frank Rizzo and some of his policies," Fumo wrote. "In fact, I was the only South Philadelphia Italian elected official to ever oppose him so consistently and continuously." 

"However, I find what you did, under the cover of night, I might add (because you are a pussy and could not do it during the day) to be extremely reprehensible for many reasons, not the least of which is that by doing so you violated your oath of office, either when sworn in as Mayor or as a City Councilman."

"You are no longer acceptable to your South Philadelphia neighbors," Fumo wrote. "Because they, unlike you, are real people who take giving their word seriously. People may not have always agreed with them but you always knew where you stood with them."

 "Jimmy, I thought that I had raised you politically better than to be a liar and a thief in the night," Fumo wrote. "But obviously, despite everything I did for you, you betrayed the trust that I and so many other people placed in you. I have to apologize to the Citizens of Philadelphia because I am the ultimate cause of you being where you are today," Fumo wrote.

"Also, I would not have written this response had you not so boastfully posted pride in your actions. You are a liar, hypocrite and pussy. You do not deserve to be in the seat of Mayor of Philadelphia."

A spokesperson for Mayor Kenney could not immediately be reached for comment.

"The statue is a deplorable monument to racism, bigotry and police brutality for members of the black community, the LGBTQ community, and many others," Kenney wrote in announcing the predawn topping of the statute. Kenney said the statue's removal was necessary for "healing our communities."

But as a city councilman, Kenney voted in favor of the ten-foot-high bronze Rizzo statue that weighs 2,000 pounds that was first ticketed for a South Philly location, but finally wound up at Thomas Payne Plaza. As a city councilman, Kenney was also co-sponsor of a bill to rename the Municipal Service Building in Rizzo's honor.

But the family didn't support the proposal, they felt the statue was enough, and the bill wound up being tabled.

The origin of the Kenney-Fumo feud dates back to Jan. 13, 2006, when the FBI, which was investigating Fumo, brought Kenney in for an interview to ask about a $14,661 off-the-books loan that Kenney had received from Fumo's nonprofit, the Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods.

Four days later, Kenney was hauled before a federal grand jury to testify about Fumo's reaction to the loan made without Fumo's knowledge by Ruth Arnao, then executive director of the nonprofit.

Kenney came to Arnao for the loan after then Mayor John Street cut off his city council salary, during a political feud over a plan to redraw city council voting districts. When news of the loan to Kenney was leaked to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Fumo "went crazy," Kenney told FBI agents when they brought him in for questioning. 

Kenney, who described Fumo to the feds as "his friend and mentor" told Kenney that if he needed money, he "should have come to him," the feds wrote on an FBI 302 form that recorded the agents version of the meeting.

At the grand jury, Kenney testified that he asked Arnao for the loan because  he thought it was "safe politically for me. And I didn't expect to be here talking to you about it," the councilman told the prosecutor."

As recounted in Target the Senator, a 2017 book I wrote about Fumo, when he left the grand jury, Kenney was furious about getting jammed up in the Fumo investigation. He blamed his mentor for not cutting a deal with the feds, and for taking down too many people with him.

In a 2015 interview with Philadelphia magazine, Kenney, then a candidate for mayor, described Fumo's "mentorship" as "effective."

"But I haven't worked for the man in 24 years and we have not spoken in close to seven, and that's not going to change," Kenney told Philadelphia magazine. "The patching up of relationships does not include that one."

"So much for Kenney's loyalty to anybody but himself," Fumo responded at  the time. Fumo was later quoted as saying that if it wasn't for him, Jim Kenney would be selling cars for a living.

Fumo's attack on Kenney for acting like "a thief in the night" echoes the angry complaints of Kenney's South Philadelphia neighbors after they got a week's notice about a so-called safe injection site that was about to be opened in their neighborhood, at a medical center at Broad and McKean streets, near South Philadelphia High School.

The plan was canceled after furious reactions from Kenney's neighbors, who said they had been blindsided because there had been no community meetings held to unveil and discuss the plan. Kenney responded that the location of the site had been picked by Safehouse, the nonprofit that planned to operate the site before it went up in smoke.

But after Kenney refused to meet with his neighbors about the safe injection site, they went to City Hall and booed him at a budget hearing. A South Philly mom was heard through the budget hearing loudly calling Kenney "a sneak."

Here's the entire text of Fumo's Facebook post: