With his final year in office underway, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney says the top priority for his administration will be working with police to fight gun violence while also making improvements and increasing opportunities in the city’s communities.
During an exclusive interview with NBC10’s Miguel Martinez-Valle on Wednesday, Kenney shared a message for Philadelphians.
“Thank you for being so resilient and for doing what we had to do to get through the worst period, probably in the city’s history,” Kenney said.
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Kenney reflected on the major challenges his office faced the past seven years, including gun violence and the COVID pandemic.
“We have COVID under control,” Kenney said. “We don’t have the violence under control yet.”
Kenney said enhancing public safety will be his administration’s number one priority for 2023.
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“We have a long way to go and our real big, outstanding problem is the violence and the availability of guns,” Kenney said.
On Monday, 100 additional police officers moved to four districts in the city dealing with the highest number of shootings under Operation Pinpoint. The city also committed to adding at least 150 new officers to the police department this year, including recruits outside of Philadelphia.
Kenney said his other areas of focus for the year include helping the city’s neighborhoods thrive. Kenney told NBC10 his administration has been able to fund the Rebuild Program – which looks to renovate parks and rec centers – through the soda tax. Kenney said the program is crucial for the development of Philadelphia’s children.
“To show those kids in the struggling neighborhoods that they matter,” Kenney said. “That their facilities, grade A facilities, should be top notch. Not just the kids in the suburbs. I think that’ll make another psychological impact on young people’s minds about their neighborhood, themselves and whether or not people care about them.”
Kenney said he hopes the investment in the city’s younger generations through efforts like Universal Pre-K continues.
The program helped enroll 13,000 children to head start programs, according to Kenney. He hopes to increase that number to 15,000 this year and believes it will help set children up for success as well as keep them away from gun violence.
“It makes me feel good to be able to go into neighborhoods that had no real access to Pre-K and that we have kids that, three or four years of age, who are on a different trajectory now,” Kenney said.
Kenney also spoke about his plans to tackle the city’s opioid crisis, homelessness and other major issues impacting Philadelphia. Watch the full interview here or in the video embedded below.
