Two days after her office had said Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell had no plans to update the community about the Fenton-Knox affair in Malcolm X Park at the First Thursday meeting, she showed up promptly and did just that. She went much farther, angrily baring a serious rift between Univesrsity City District and her.
She delivered petitions with 300 signatures in support of Fenton. The room at Walnut St. West Library, filled as usual with 70 people, most of them representatives from more than three dozen agencies and organizations that are active in West Philadelphia, noisily concurred and made forceful pleas to retain the popular UCD employee in his job. There was universal agreement Fenton has been a tireless supporter of the labors of all civic groups to improve their community. Blackwell charged Fenton was being offered resignation with a severance package from UCD. She said she had asked to find ways to help underwrite his work but had been rebuffed. She said she had suggested mediators for the dispute but had been rebuffed. UCD Executive Director Lewis Wendell attended the meeting. He read a previously published statement. Fenton, he reiterated, is still on paid administrative leave pending the results of an internal investigation. In addition, he said, "We are in discussions to resolve the matter." Blackwell repeated her denial that she had involved Fenton or his community service team with a political rally for Tom Knox in the park. "Everybody knows I supported Tom Knox for Mayor," she said. "A couple of weeks before the election, the other candidates began releasing their supporters to support Michael Nutter. They didn't want Knox to win because he was an outsider. Nutter had no constituency of his own." But the community service team was not involved in the Knox rally, she said. Instead, it was engaged in park cleanup and facilitation of another event, a fair that was going on in the park. In this case, the Councilwoman said, her eyes flashing, "John Fenton and UCD did what they do. I work with Penn and UCD. But somebody decided to lie on him. I'm very disappointed." Blackwell expressed her view that UCD has been slighting her in other ways for some time. Although First Thursday is not a parliamentary body, Penn's Community Relations Director Glenn Bryan ceded the floor to the Councilwoman. Community members raised three motions, all of which passed with scarcely a dissenting voice. The meeting endorsed John Fenton and asked he be retained in his position. It asked that UCD policies in general be made public. It supported a community meeting to discuss concerns with UCD, that meeting to be organized by a committee from among the attendees at the meeting, which Sharrieff Ali volunteered to coordinate. -- Tony West
