As election nears, Peduto says time right for city to ‘swing big’
Solutions at hand to key challenges, he says
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is more than three years into his term, but in some ways he’s just getting started. Which, depending on how you look at things, can be either a source of frustration or the most exciting thing about the city’s future.
“The stars are aligned” for the city to “swing big,” he said. “That’s the job of a mayor [and it] doesn’t go by a timeline.”
In the meantime, Mr. Peduto rattles off an election-season list of accomplishments, including more than doubling the street-paving budget to $15 million this year, and staffing the fire and police bureaus at their highest levels in more than a decade. Even some rivals — like City Controller Michael Lamb, who vied with him for mayor in 2005 and 2013 — cite signs of progress.
When Mr. Peduto took office in 2014, Mr. Lamb said, “the biggest issue we faced was pensions. He took it head on,” nursing the long-ailing fund to a condition that is healthy, if not robust.
But Mr. Peduto has yet to resolve some of the key challenges he has faced as mayor: how to attract new residents without squeezing the old ones out, or getting tax-exempt institutions to contribute financially to the city’s needs. On such issues, Mr. Lamb said, “I would have thought things would have moved more quickly.”
Mr. Peduto said that the solutions were at hand, and that they will position Pittsburgh for the 21st century just as legendary mayor David Lawrence did for the late 20th.
Lawrence “change[d] the city from an industrial giant to a corporate center,” Mr. Peduto said. “We’re at that [point of] transformation. ... Are we going to see the potential of it actually happen? Or are we just going to allow it be lost?”
The answer may be shaped by one of Mr. Peduto’s first actions as mayor: dropping a lawsuit filed by his predecessor, Luke Ravenstahl, challenging the tax-exempt status of UPMC and its facilities. Mr. Peduto also called off a March 2014 protest at UPMC’s Downtown headquarters, telling demonstrators, “Our entire city has heard
your concerns.”
But the city has heard little about UPMC since then, and even some Peduto loyalists have questioned the move, said activist and blogger Bram Reichbaum
“A lot of people wanted him to continue to sue UPMC,” Mr. Reichbaum said. And although he wasn’t one of them at the time, “We still don’t have a deal.”
Mr. Peduto argued that “people have been misled about the lawsuit,” which would have taken years while overturning tax-exemptions for only a handful of properties. “The kind of return we’d have gotten is minimal.”
Mr. Peduto said he could have negotiated multimillion-dollar “payments in lieu of taxes” from the nonprofits, as they had done in years past. “But we’re looking for something bigger” — a grand bargain in which those nonprofits contribute to funds earmarked for prekindergarten education or affordable housing.
Those two causes are at the heart of his campaign message. Pittsburgh may be growing after years of decline, he told a Hill District forum in March, but that means “we have to be able to address one of the greatest challenges that this city has: How do you make a city for all?”
One answer is give low-income kids a chance at early education in a high-tech economy.
“I’m going to be the salesman-in-chief” drumming up public and private money for the pre-K program, Mr. Peduto said.
Another approach: protecting working-class families who might otherwise be priced out of a robust housing market. But such solutions don’t come easily.
The city has created a trust fund to finance the construction of affordable housing, though it lacks funding itself. And with longtime residents in hot-ticket neighborhoods like East Liberty already being displaced, some are pressing for solutions like inclusionary zoning, which would require new developments to include affordable housing.
“Why isn't that being put forward more by his administration?” asked Molly Nichols, an activist focused on transit. “If we don’t act soon on this, it will be too late.”
Mr. Peduto said neighborhood leaders should be able to adopt such requirements. But imposing them citywide “doesn’t make sense for a city that has such a disparity between hot and cold markets,” including neighborhoods with no investment at all.
If it seemed like progress has come slowly on housing policies, he added, it was because he stressed community input. Otherwise, he said, “People would say I was just ramming this through.”
Mr. Peduto “is investing a lot of time and energy in trying to build a progressive movement,” said Barney Oursler, executive director of the progressive and laborbacked advocacy group Pittsburgh United. “It takes time to shift a housing market.” And though there is no deal with nonprofits yet, he said, UPMC had committed to offering a $15 minimum wage by 2019. “I think the mayor helped us win that.”
Trying to build a shining city on the hill while filling the potholes is a difficult balance. And Mr. Peduto faces primary challenges from two directions. The Rev. John Welch has attacked him for not doing more to advance economic justice concerns, and City Councilwoman Darlene Harris has taken up the cudgel on more conservative issues like police morale. Mr. Peduto’s first police chief, Cameron McLay, was unpopular with many officers, and stepped down after a dispute over his appearance at the Democratic National Convention.
But incumbents enjoy a decided advantage in Pittsburgh, with Mr. Peduto drawing upon a nearly $1 million campaign war chest — far more than his rivals combined. And he has not backed down.
“If I’m elected mayor,” he pledged at an April 27 debate, he’d improve oversight to reduce citizen complaints. He’d diversify the police force, and hire enough officers to begin “community policing” programs with officers assigned to given neighborhoods.
“Oh,” he said, “I already did that.”