GAINEY A NO-SHOW AT CRITICAL FUNDING MEETINGS
Mayor has 2nd-worst attendance record in group that funnels millions to regional projects
Shortly after safety concerns forced Pittsburgh to close the highly trafficked Charles Anderson Memorial Bridge this month, questions emerged about money that might have been spent earlier to shore up the 85-year-old overpass.
Former Mayor Bill Peduto had planned to spend $6 million to rehabilitate the bridge in 2023, according to his 2022 capital budget, passed just months before current Mayor Ed Gainey took office. But in Mr. Gainey’s 2023 budget, that $6 million was moved to 2024, with no money included for repairs this year.
Mr. Gainey denied delaying any funding, saying his predecessor’s budget line “was a projection and not an allocation.” And he pointed the finger at the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, a government cooperative of 10 counties and the City of Pittsburgh, which helps funnel state and federal dollars to infrastructure projects in the region.
But as mayor of Pittsburgh, Mr. Gainey is not only a member of that commission, he also helps lead the group as part of its executive committee. And Mr. Gainey appears to have used little of that influence: Through November, he attended only two executive committee sessions and two general commission meetings last year, according to a Post-Gazette review of records.
Executive committee meetings and wider commission meetings occur on the same day. There were seven of each in 2022. The city’s website still lists Mr. Peduto as representing Pittsburgh on the commission, even though he left office more than a year ago.
Following the stunning collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge last January just weeks after he took office, Mr. Gainey attended both of the February and March meetings. But he didn’t attend another Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission meeting for the next eight
months through November, according to meeting minutes. Other than one commission meeting in April, there’s no indication he sent anyone in his behalf.
Minutes for the December meeting haven’t yet been made public. The commission didn’t meet last month.
Mr. Gainey had the second-worst attendance on the executive committee, after only Beaver County Commissioner Daniel Camp III, who attended none of last year’s meetings. (Mr. Camp said they are in “direct conflict” with family activities, but that he reviews all meeting minutes to “keep up to speed.”)
Maria Montaño, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gainey, refused to comment this week or to make the mayor available for an interview.
The commission meets in a suite at Two Chatham Center, about a 10-minute walk from Mr. Gainey’s office in the City- County Building. Virtual attendance is also available for both executive committee and general commission meetings, according to commission documents. Local leaders can use the meetings to lobby the commission to fund their projects, even as they compete for a limited pool of money.
Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who is also on the executive committee and works across the street from Mr. Gainey in the County Courthouse, had perfect attendance for 2022 meetings through November, according to records.
John Brenner, executive director of the nonpartisan Pennsylvania Municipal League, said that while mayors have a lot to juggle, elected officials typically send a representative to such meetings they can’t attend themselves.
“They would have the public works director, the business administrator or other administration official, who would attend and represent the position of the administration,” Mr. Brenner said, adding that it “does hold more weight” if the mayor attends certain meetings himself.
“It lets them know the priority,” said Mr. Brenner, whose group advocates for local governments.
For the meetings from
which Mr. Gainey was absent, there were no other administration officials listed on the minutes as being present, with one exception: Lisa Frank, the city’s chief operating and administrative officer, attended the general commission meeting in April.
More than a year after the Fern Hollow collapse, not one of the dozens of bridges rated in poor condition by a report Mr. Gainey commissioned is scheduled to begin rehabilitation in 2023, according to a Post-Gazette
review of public records.
The Charles Anderson Memorial Bridge in Oakland carries the Boulevard of the Allies over Panther Hollow in Schenley Park. The closure means an estimated 21,200 vehicles have to find a new route around Panther Hollow every day. The span remains open to pedestrians and cyclists, as does the Junction Hollow Trail, which runs below the bridge.
The Charles Anderson Memorial Bridge and the Swindell Bridge, which was
closed for two months last summer after pieces of it fell onto the highway below, are among 32 city-owned bridges rated in poor condition in the report the Gainey administration released late last year.
The earliest that even bids could go out for work on any of those bridges is January.
The long-term plan at the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission is updated every four years; the implementation method for that plan is updated every two years. Only 11 of the city’s poorly rated bridges are currently scheduled to receive funding through the commission.
After The Post-Gazette reported earlier this month that the $6 million in spending Mr. Peduto planned had been pushed back a year, Mr. Gainey noted in a statement that the commission had decided in January to move back its Anderson work. The bridge will now receive funding through the commission starting in 2027, Mr. Gainey said in the statement, in which he also said he had delayed any bridge funding.
“The City’s Capital Budget is only adopted for a single year,” Mr. Gainey said. “As the annual budgets over the next five years in the Capital Improvement Plan are adopted the phasing and amounts are refined as project statuses change. There was never $6 million allocated for Charles Anderson Bridge for this year. Further major infrastructure projects are reliant on [Transportation Improvement Program] approval and funding via the Southwestern PA Commission.”
The city estimated earlier this month that the Anderson bridge will be closed for at least four months, with immediate repairs costing between $1 million and $2 million. When the bridge closure was first announced, the city said it had already been slated for a larger $48 million rehabilitation — a project officials are now trying to expedite.
More than a year after the Fern Hollow collapse, not one of the dozens of bridges rated in poor condition by a report Mayor Ed Gainey commissioned is scheduled to begin rehabilitation in 2023, according to a Post-Gazette review of public records.