Asia Coney: A New Kind Of Public Servant
By Wyatt Earp | August 23, 2010
During the 2008 presidential election, there was a woman who said that if Barack Obama was elected, she wouldn’t have to pay for her mortgage or her bills. For her, it was all about the promise of money for nothing. Sure, we all laughed at her naivete, but the sad truth is that Ed Rendell, John Street, and Michael Nutter have been paying people for nothing for years now.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Asia Coney: Supertoad.
Asia Coney was a poor single mom and tenant leader living off welfare in the projects. Then she met Carl Greene.
In early 1998, then-Mayor Ed Rendell and then-City Council President John Street asked Coney to go to Detroit, where Greene headed the city’s housing commission to help size up if he’d be a good choice to take the helm of the Philadelphia Housing Authority. She returned a huge fan. Greene landed the job. And Coney’s life took an upswing. It was payback time.
Greene appointed Coney to run Tenant Support Services, Inc., (TSSI), a nonprofit subsidiary under contract with PHA to provide services to tenants. Since TSSI was launched in 1992 by former PHA director John White Jr., no employee, including the president, secretary and treasurer, earned a salary.
Wow, Ed Rendell and John Street involved in political corruption and graft? Say it isn’t so!
In 1999, one year after Greene became PHA’s executive director, Coney’s starting salary was $38,447. It only got better – and fast. In 2001, she earned $80,000. In 2003: $84,241. By 2007, the most-recent IRS filing available, she broke the six-figure mark at $101,170.
Meanwhile, she still lives in public housing, paying $654 a month in rent.
As a PHA resident, she serves as president of the Resident Advisory Board, an independent group that advocates for tenants. This doesn’t sit right with Greg Brinkley, 51, who lives at Abbotsford Homes in East Falls.
“How can you really represent us in an aggressive and unbiased fashion and then turn around and have a PHA contract that Carl Greene has to sign off on?” he asked.
Good question, Mr. Brinkley. I have a better question: With scandals like this becoming more and more common in this town, why do you morons keep voting Democrat?
Topics: Philly, WTF? | 14 Comments »
August 23rd, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I give you Asia Coney: Supertoad.
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In that case, I’ll see your AsiaConey Supertoad, and raise you a Basil Marceaux.com.
BTW, IMHO, he’s just a shave and a haircut and a bath away from being the next Joe Biden.
Oh yeah, and some big teeth.
August 23rd, 2010 at 1:41 pm
JT – Basil is head and shoulders above the rest – except maybe Alvin Greene.
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Yeahhhhh Philadelphia, Home of Brotherly Reach-Arounds.
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:27 pm
As a self-proclaimed expert on Bad Ideas, I’ve got to tell you, importing a public housing dude from Detroit and hoping for success is at least as bad an idea as bringing a police chief from DC… DOH!
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Maybe Philly could bring in a murder reduction expert from Baltimore? Or recruit Rod Blagojevich as an ethics consultant?
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Yikes ! 6 figures and still in public housing – whose the moron here?
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:51 pm
I’m in the wrong business.
August 23rd, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Your tax dollars at work. And we have the nerve to lecture Hamid Karzai about the corruption in his government.
August 23rd, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Randal – Your local officials are probably just as bad, but they are smart enough to not get caught.
BIG – Easily the worst police commissioner in my lifetown.
Robbie – But she has a fantastic ride!
RT – You and me both.
John D – Yeah, thank God Philly is such a subpar city. Otherwise, international types would notice.
August 23rd, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Greene in the red. Put Coney on an island. Preferably a deserted one. With a hungry school of sharks surrounding it.
August 23rd, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Basil is head and shoulders above the rest –
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Are you saying he has dandruff ?
August 23rd, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Ya know….I’m beginning to suspect that the saying “Crime doesn’t pay” was originally the answer to the question “Why did you go into politics ?”
August 23rd, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Bob – No reason to get the lawyers involved.
JT – Dandruff of the mouth.
August 24th, 2010 at 6:53 am
What the hell?!?! You folks are in dire need of a political enema up there. ( Goes back to reading about Mark Sanford/ Jake Knotts, etc, in The State newspaper). At least our toads are Republican toads!!!