Where's Big Frank? City Won't Say

Since Mayor Jim Kinney ordered the toppling of the 9-foot-tall Frank Rizzo statue under cover of darkness on June 3rd, city officials have refused to divulge the condition or whereabouts of the 2,000 pound bronze monument to the Big Bambino.

So George Bochetto, a lawyer for the committee that commissioned the statue, filed an 11-page complaint in Common Pleas Court yesterday seeking an injunction to protect the statue against any further harm from an increasingly vindictive Mayor Kenney and the city.

In his motion, Bochetto said that his client, the Frank Rizzo Monument Committee, "is entitled to injunctive relief" to prevent Kenney and the city "from intentionally damaging or destroying the statue."

In an interview, Bochetto said the city has gone back on an agreement calling for due process to decide the fate of the statue that was previously agreed to in front of Common Pleas Court Judge Paula Patrick. That's why in the motion filed yesterday, Bochetto is also seeking monetary damages from the city.

"It's absolute lawlessness by the city and complete intransigence to the rights of the citizenry, and we're not going to let them get away with it," Bochetto said.

"On June 3, 2020, the statue was removed under cover of night, with no process or input from the public or approval from the Philadelphia Art Commission," as required by the city's charter, Bochetto wrote.

Mayor Kenney was able to skirt due process by declaring a public safety emergency so that the statue could be taken down by bumbling city workers at 2 a.m. But before the statue was toppled, the police were ordered to stand down so that vandals could desecrate Big Frank one more time, as the city succumbed to mob rule, a mob led by its progressive mayor.

"The Philadelphia Home Rule Charter specifically requires the Art Commission to approve the removal, relocation, or alteration of any existing work of art in the possession of the city," Bochetto wrote. "Nevertheless, the Rizzo statue was removed and possibly damaged or destroyed in the process."

In response to a letter from Bochetto inquiring about the "statue's condition and whereabouts, the city sent a vague letter" that "failed to provide . . . any substantive information about the statue."

Then Bochetto received a photo from a passerby that showed Big Frank lying in the back of a truck.

Bochetto asked the judge to enjoin the city "from intentionally damaging or destroying the statue and compel the city and Mayor Kenney to comply with the agreement" previously agreed to in court that would allow the committee that commissioned the statue to recover it.

The prior agreement stated that the city would not "intentionally damage, alter, modify or change" the statue without prior written notice.

"The Rizzo statue has been removed from public display and is now in an unknown location," Bochetto wrote. "The statue's immediate destruction is not necessary to protect the health, safety or welfare of the public . . . The city must therefore allow" the statue committee "a reasonable opportunity to recover the work."

In response to his inquiries about the statue, Bochetto wrote, the city isn't telling him anything about the whereabouts of the statue, or its. condition. The city also hasn't given Bochetto "any assurances that the statue wold not be destroyed," Bochetto wrote.

"The statue is a unique piece of part with immense sentimental value that cannot be properly compensated by money damages," Bochetto wrote. "The statute may be damaged or destroyed if the city is not enjoined," Bochetto wrote, and the statue may suffer "significant and irreversible harm due to the city's neglect."

In response, Mike Dunn, a Kenney spokesman, gave an incendiary statement to The Philadelphia Inquirer that should make a fine court exhibit if Bochetto needs to prove animus on the part of the mayor and the entire Kenney administration.

About the plaintiffs who filed the complaint, Dunn said, "They are bitter and disgruntled because we took it [the statue] down and the statue will never stand on city property again," a statement that may prejudice the supposedly independent review the Art Commission was supposed to undertake before deciding the ultimate fate of the statue.

"This 'emergency' lawsuit is a frivolous cry for public attention," Dunn added. "The city has more pressing things to worry about -- like dismantling the structural racism that the statue stood for."

Nice virtue signaling Mike. 

One of the people defending the Rizzo statue is former state Senator Vince Fumo, who during his political career was no fan of Big Frank, and was Kenney's mentor.

But when Kenney toppled the Rizzo statue in the dead of night, Fumo went on Facebook to blast his former protege as a "liar, hypocrite and pussy" because according to Fumo, Kenney had originally been an advocate for building the monument to Rizzo.

Further proof of Kenney's hypocrisy has recently surfaced in the form of a proposed City Council bill from May 9, 1996. It shows that Kenney was one of nine original cosponsors of a bill to rename the Municipal Service Building as the "Frank L. Rizzo Municipal Services Building."

The proposed bill, which was to "take effect immediately," was subsequently withdrawn because the Rizzo family thought renaming the MSB in Rizzo's honor, was overkill, and that the statue, which had just been commissioned, would be enough of a tribute.

But now the former bill stands as a monument to Kenney's hypocrisy.

There's also a popular T-shirt making the rounds in South Philly these days that depicts the Rizzo statue flipping Kenney the bird and calling him a "crumb bum.

Seems appropriate, don't you think?