Mayoral candidate Delscia Grey discusses background and platform

Delscia Grey describes her mayoral marketing campaign as a “committee of 1.”

Few voters have heard of – a lot much less know something about – Grey, who will seem fourth on the poll within the Might 16 Democratic major for mayor, proper beneath former Metropolis Controller Rebecca Rhynhart.

That is her first involvement in electoral politics. She stated she labored exhausting to get the 1,000 signatures wanted to seem on the poll, and he or she primarily will get the phrase out by approaching folks in Wawa and different locations.

Grey has not raised a lot, if any, cash to fund her run, and he or she creates handmade marketing campaign indicators out of scraps of cardboard and styrofoam.

“After I come out the subsequent day, they’re all taken up,” she instructed Metro throughout an interview final month close to her childhood house. “However at the least at night time, I get that visitors using by and so they see ‘Grey for Mayor.’”

Grey requested to fulfill within the schoolyard of Harrity Elementary, throughout the road from the place she grew up, within the Cobbs Creek part of West Philadelphia. She remembered studying the best way to journey a bicycle within the schoolyard.

“That is the place it began,” she added.

Now, she lives within the Far Northeast and has three grownup sons. She works full-time as a safety officer at Einstein Medical Heart Montgomery, registering guests to the hospital.

Grey was impressed to run for mayor after a buddy was fatally shot close to her outdated house in Frankford. Then, a neighbor was killed in the identical space.

“I need to deliver stability and financial success again to Philadelphia,” she stated. “That’s my objective.”

She says she is a sufferer of gentrification. Grey had lived in Frankford for 16 years when her longtime landlord determined to promote the property. Her eviction discover got here in October. “They gave me a one-month discover to go away,” she defined.

Grey’s marketing campaign doesn’t have a web-based presence; nonetheless, an inactive Twitter account exhibits posts from 2016 wherein she seems to be lobbying then-President Donald Trump to be named his secretary of state.

One of many messages learn: “Trump I need to be your Secretary of State. I’ve the expertise.”

Grey stated that, on the time, she had just lately bought a brand new telephone and was taking part in round with it. She characterised the posts as “simply joking round.”

“I don’t care what they are saying about him,” Grey added. “I believe, for me, income-wise, I made some huge cash in the course of the years that he was in workplace.”

What would she do as mayor?

Grey’s precedence is maintaining Philadelphia’s kids protected, partly by maintaining colleges open later and boosting summer season programming.

She desires the police division to extend foot patrols, and needs legislation enforcement to be seen on SEPTA. Grey plans to switch Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw with a lieutenant at the moment assigned to the 18th District in West Philadelphia.

“He doesn’t even know I’m contemplating him,” Grey stated.

She is in opposition to stop-and-frisk, as she believes the coverage creates distance between officers and residents. A key a part of her anti-violence plan is cleansing up blight.

Grey proposes focusing College District of Philadelphia assets on constructing an enormous Okay-12 college in Heart Metropolis that may enroll a major chunk of public college college students.

She would hold the soda tax intact and believes she may totally fund town’s pension obligations inside her first time period.

Grey admitted she has been caught rushing a number of occasions by cameras on Roosevelt Boulevard, and he or she helps reducing the high quality for such violations from $100 to $65.

Her view on the plan to construct a Sixers enviornment on East Market Avenue hinges extra on Joel Embiid’s knee and James Harden’s bounce shot than on considerations concerning the impression the challenge may have on Chinatown.

“Let’s think about constructing it in the event that they win this championship,” Grey stated. “If not, it’s gonna be a waste of cash, I believe.”