Mayor Kenney To Address United Nations
by Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney travels to New York on Wednesday to address the United Nations.
Mayor Kenney will address IMPACT 2030, a global sustainability effort, but he'll be talking about reducing poverty, and his hopes for universal pre-K and community schools to accomplish that in Philadelphia.
"It will be a thrill for me to be able to look out from that platform and see that beautiful space and talk about things that are important to cities and important to making cities a better place to live, and making the nation a better place to live," said Kenney.
He'll follow that up with an address, the next day, at Johns Hopkins' 21st Century Cities symposium.
This is the kind of event former Mayor Michael Nutter used to relish: a high-profile location, a big audience, the spotlight on him.
Jim Kenney, though, has shown no interest in that kind of venue and, even as he prepares to go, he is characteristically unaffected.
"The U.N., I mean, to me is, you know, the Pope was there, great world leaders were there-- Nelson Mandela; I'm not even worthy to stand on that platform," said Mayor Kenney.
Nonetheless, Kenney says it will be a thrill and, maybe, help accomplish big goals.
"Continue to move poverty down and people's potential up and work collaboratively with cities around the country, and potentially around the world, to do the same thing," he said.