Welcome to the Cherelle Parker hiring hall for disgraced Dems

Mayor Cherelle Parker has an odd taste in hiring — showing a preference for felons and mental cases, just as long as they are Democrats.

She has designated herself as employer of last resort for damaged Dems. Call it the Parker Picks Employment Agency.

Latest example is the Parker Picks hiring of seven-term former State Rep Kevin Boyle, 45, as a deputy director of external affairs in the managing director’s office, with a $110,000 salary. (Base salary for state reps is $106,000.)

Boyle lost his seat in an election last year in what the Inquirer described as “extraordinary circumstances, including his family publicly expressing concerns about his mental health.” This was even alluded to by his older brother, U.S. Rep Brendan Boyle.

More of the younger Boyle in a moment.

Let’s go all the way back to November, closing out her first year as Philadelphia’s 100th mayor, Parker hired not one, not two, but three felons — each a formerly elected official — to city jobs.

Naturally, all were Democrats.

Back then, when he was still talking to me, the mayor’s flack, Joe Grace, said the mayor believed in “second chances.”

So do I, but not necessarily at the expense of taxpayers whom the felons had betrayed in the first place.

The felonious trio were: former State Rep Movita Johnson-Harrell, who was found guilty of theft and perjury in stealing $500,000 from a nonprofit; former State Rep Leslie Acosta, who pleaded guilty to a money laundering conspiracy at a low-income health clinic, and the piece de resistance, former Traffic Court Judge Willie Singletary, who got kicked off the bench for sexual harassment in 2011 (for showing pictures of his penis to a female employee), then was convicted in 2014 for lying to the FBI about fixing tickets.

Johnson-Harrell, the perjurer, landed a job as a public information officer in the sheriff’s department, $75,000 a year. Perjurer, public information. Make up your own joke.

Acosta, the money-launderer, was awarded a $70,000 community outreach job in the Department of Commerce. 

But the big laugher was “wee Willy” Singleton who is now — guess where? — in the managing director’s office as a deputy director.

I wonder how Managing Director Adam Thiel feels about his department being used as a dumping ground for damaged Dems, but I’m pretty sure he won’t talk to me either.

But it’s not just me. I’m not so special.

While the city will talk to the Inquirer, it doesn’t always say much, and has been caught trying to manage the press.

Inquirer columnist Helen Ubinas had the effrontery to say, during the mayoral campaign, that Parker ducks questions she doesn’t like.

That’s a pretty sad legacy the mayor is building, and it continues today.

The Inquirer was curious (for a change) about how and why Boyle was hired, and what he would be doing to earn $110,000 a year.

“A spokesman for the Parker administration did not answer questions about his job responsibilities,” the Inquirer reported, “when he started, or whether he will supervise employees….

“Parker administrative officials did not say whether the job had been publicly advertised, or if Kevin Boyle had submitted a resume and job application.”

What it did not say is that no paperwork is required if you are running a patronage dumping ground.