Undoubtedly, Jim Connors loved the spotlight.
As Scranton’s mayor for a dozen years, a tenure that spanned the 1990s, Connors, who died suddenly of natural causes at age 77 at home early Wednesday morning, regularly called into radio talk shows to get out whatever message or point of view that needed getting out. He hosted regular press conferences and invited reporters to join him on snowy nights in public works plows or in police cars patrolling for crime.
That invited plenty of criticism of a man known for his friendly nature.
“Jimmy was never bothered by criticism or insults,” said former Mayor Chris Doherty, who succeeded him in the city’s top job. “He always just moved forward. And he always put his best foot forward. He was always upbeat, and friendly. And I think he represented the best of northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Critics, especially The Scranton Times editorial board and even Doherty himself, frequently ripped Connors as incompetent and a publicity hound. Connors said it wasn’t attention he sought, but a chance for people to hear straight from him, so critics didn’t have all the say.
“Jimmy possessed a shrewdness that was easily overlooked and, I think, that his critics never really came to understand,” said former Lackawanna County Commissioner Mike Washo, the city’s community development director under Connors. “But you don't get to do what he did without having that shrewdness. And he laid the foundation for the (city) economic development that followed.”
For all his shrewdness, political savvy and high public profile, Connors also undoubtedly loved the city where he grew up, friends said.
“It’s a very sad day for everybody. When you think of the mayor of Scranton, he's the first person that comes to mind," said former Mayor Wayne Evans, who credits Connors for launching his career in government. "A lot of politicians care about what they do. They care about their communities. But Jimmy Connors loved Scranton and it showed every day that he was mayor.”
A lover of people
A native of the city’s Minooka neighborhood, Connors taught homebound Scranton School District students and later oversaw the district’s remedial math, reading and preschool programs. He also once served as a city police and fire dispatcher and recreational aide.
Friends said he possessed a common touch, one Washo often saw when Connors encountered people who “never had recognition from anyone.”
“And he'd spend time with them and listen to them and make sure that their concern mattered,” Washo said. “And he would pull out a notepad and write in the notepad what they wanted and what needed to be done, and then call the department head to say, ‘Hey, oh, yeah, there's a pothole up in front of Joe Smith's house, could you get it?’”
A music lover
Connors, an East Stroudsburg University alumnus, loved music and talking about it and worked as jazz editor for Tempo magazine decades ago. That allowed him to meet jazz greats living in the Poconos like famed alto saxophonist Phil Woods. Later, Woods and others played free concerts at Nay Aug Park in Scranton that his mayoral administration organized and funded.
“I’d see him all the time at concerts at Nay Aug because he loves music,” Evans said. “That's one of his primary loves, besides Susie and his family, is music and the city.”
Connors’ wife, Susan Blum Connors, confirmed his death, but declined further comment.
Connors tried music himself. As mayor, in 1995, he joined the popular local cover band, The Poets, on a charity cassette recording that included him singing Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and “Don’t Be Cruel,” a hit for Elvis Presley. Occasionally, he sang publicly with the band, even joining them on a 1999 cruise.
Connors enjoyed telling the story about meeting former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr backstage in July 1995 when Starr performed at Harvey’s Lake in Luzerne County.
“You know Ringo, I sing a little, too,” Connors told Starr, hoping the Beatle would invite him on stage.
“Nice to meet you, mayor,” Starr replied, before dashing off.
Running for mayor
Always active in the community, Connors rose to the presidency of the Minooka Neighborhood Association and the Scranton Council of Neighborhoods before newly elected Mayor David Wenzel chose him as the city’s new community development director in 1985.
Four years later, Wenzel decided against seeking a second term. Connors, a Democrat at his core, switched parties to run for mayor as a Republican in 1989.
He won a four-candidate primary election, then shocked the local political world by defeating future Lackawanna County Commissioner Jerry Notarianni, then county register of wills.
His days as mayor
Immediately, Connors inherited two major problems.
By the early 1990s, Al Boscov’s grand plan to build a mall in downtown Scranton had stalled.
Boscov announced the plan to swallow up more than two blocks of old and deteriorating Lackawanna Avenue buildings for the mall in 1986. Years of haggling over the prices of acquiring the old buildings and land and struggles finding financing had left the project still on the drawing board.
Connors aimed to reinvigorate the project. He hired another future Lackawanna County commissioner, Mike Washo, as his community development director and point man for the mall. Washo said Connors gave him the freedom and support to get the job done.
“You couldn't have a better boss. If you made a mistake he’d take the blame,” Washo said.
Occasionally, as mall negotiations unfolded, Boscov grew angry with Washo.
“Al Boscov used to get upset with me a lot in the early days of the project because of demands that I was making on behalf of the city,” Washo said. “And he’d call Jimmy and say, ‘You better get mayor Washo under control.’ And Jimmy would support me. He'd call me on the phone and say, ‘Al’s mad at you, but I'm standing by you.’”
With plenty of funding and other help from Gov. Robert P. Casey, U.S. Rep. Joseph McDade and labor leader Jack McNulty, the Mall at Steamtown opened in October 1993. Beyond that, Boscov turned former retail stores such as Samter’s and Oppenheim’s into office and retail spaces. They remain in new forms today.
Connors had far less success with the other major problem he inherited, a severely financially distressed city. He resisted the City Council’s 1992 decision to ask the state to declare the city financially distressed. Instead, he fought unsuccessfully for his own recovery plan, which he considered less onerous than the one the council adopted.
Then, he only slowly or reluctantly implemented the adopted plan’s provisions and sometimes ignored them. In the late 1990s, a governor from his own party, Republican Tom Ridge, allowed a state agency to sanction the city for failing to abide by the plan.
The sanctions included blocking the city from receiving discretionary state funding, which among other things, delayed construction of what’s now the Hilton Scranton and Conference Center in downtown Scranton.
More electoral success
Politically, he stayed unscathed in 1993 and 1997 re-election bids. In 1993, just two weeks after the mall opened, Connors easily won re-election against county administrator Jerry Stanvitch.
In 1997, amid growing controversy about the city’s finances, he easily turned back a challenge by city Treasurer Edward Walsh, the brother of former Mayor James Walsh.
He remains tied with Doherty for second in city history in terms served as mayor. Both trail James Hanlon, who served four terms from 1946 to 1962.
Connors regularly campaigned heavily on his refusal to raise property taxes in his first two terms, a choice that frustrated officials of the city’s recovery plan manager, the Pennsylvania Economy League.
“People can’t afford higher taxes,” Connors would say.
The league believed his refusal to raise taxes or cut spending left the city relying on one-time revenue sources and recurring deficits. The city’s financial distressed status wouldn’t end until January 2022.
The failure to fix the city’s finances contributed to the election of Chris Doherty as a councilman in 1997. Doherty grew into one of Connors’ fiercest critics.
Electoral failure
Popular within city limits, Connors proved less so outside. In 1998, with McDade retiring after 36 years in office, the mayor finished a distant second in an eight-candidate field to Tunkhannock businessman Don Sherwood.
It was his first election loss, but not his last.
In 2000, he quite publicly announced his switch back to the Democrats by telling Vice President Al Gore in person as Gore arrived to campaign for president inside Shooky’s Restaurant in Scranton.
“Is this the right move politically? I don’t know,” Connors told The Scranton Times. “This is not about Jimmy Connors and his political future. It’s about who’s going to be president of the United States and who’s going to do the best job for northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Skeptics doubted that. They saw the move as designed to improve his 2001 re-election chances.
In the end, Gore lost, and, a year later, Connors did, too in a three-candidate Democratic primary election that Doherty won.
“Our differences were political and policy,” Doherty said Wednesday. “But as time went on … we became good friends. And then after I got into office, I got an appreciation for what he went through. And Jimmy was always one to turn the other cheek. He never got distracted. He believed in putting your best foot forward. He was always kind and thoughtful.”
In November 2008, Doherty had the city’s newest park in South Scranton named Connors Park.
After City Hall
Not long after leaving office, Connors became the chief local advocate for the election of Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell as governor. This was despite the presence in the Democratic race of state Auditor General Bob Casey, a Scranton native.
“Mayor Rendell is America’s mayor,” Connors said during a November 2001 Rendell campaign kickoff stop in Scranton.
After Rendell won the 2002 governor’s race, he appointed Connors deputy director of his northeast office and, eventually, its director.
In his later years, Connors remained civically and politically active. He and his wife regularly helped organize the annual Teen Symposium on the Holocaust, which attracted more than 1,800 students this year. Fearing President Donald Trump’s re-election, he vigorously campaigned for President Joe Biden’s election in 2020 and recently led a roundtable launching Seniors for Biden-Harris.
On Monday, he accompanied his wife to a rally marking the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned a woman's right to choose an abortion in every state. The Connors vehemently opposed the ruling.
He also regularly attended Scranton School Board meetings to oppose the district’s decision to eliminate preschool and to advocate for its return.
“I feel like I've seen Jimmy every week for the last five or 10 years of my life because that's just how he was, he was everywhere,” Evans said.
Recently, the Connors attended the local premiere of the movie, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die.” Their granddaughter, Quinn Hemphill MacDonald, has a major role in the film.
MacDonald reminisced about her grandfather on Facebook hours after he died.
“Many know my papa as the larger-than-life mayor, but I know him as my most gentle, kind, and first friend,” she wrote. “He would reach into his pockets and offer us whatever was inside, faithfully returned bugs to their outdoor homes, and was mine and my sisters’ biggest, brightest fan in anything we did. He taught us what it means to truly belly laugh, the great value in making other people shine, and how absolutely not to cook boxed mac and cheese. “
Her grandfather always encouraged her acting.
“When I started acting, he spent whole days with me watching tapes of Gilda Radner and Lucille Ball, telling me that I reminded him of them. He was a storyteller, chiefly because he could empathize with every person,” she wrote. “Rest In peace to the man who created fun out of thin air, and who taught me to believe in a lot (of) hard work and a little bit of magic.”
