DeFazio faces first county council primary challenge
John DeFazio, D-Shaler, has been president of Allegheny County Council since the office came into existence nearly two decades ago. In his four previous reelection bids for the at-large seat, the former United Steelworkers leader had never faced a Democratic primary challenger.
In 2019, that trend is over: The 78-year-old former studio wrestler faces Bethany Hallam of Ross, a 29year-old office administrator, in the May 21 primary. Ms. Hallam’s pitch to voters is that her background as a recovering opioid addict who spent time in Allegheny County Jail after violating probation will help her offer a needed perspective on the council. Mr. DeFazio says he wants to continue the work that he says has allowed the county to grow over the past two decades.
On March 10, Mr. DeFazio won the county Democrats’ endorsement. Ms. Hallam put up a showing, winning 642 of the 1,478 votes in the race.
Ms. Hallam is highlighting air and water quality in her campaign, and her differences with Mr. DeFazio are starkest on the subject of U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works, which saw surging sulfur dioxide emissions several times after a fire in December.
“The plant should’ve be shut down months ago,” Ms. Hallam said in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
For Mr. DeFazio, the jobs at that plant cannot be so easily discounted.
“Every year, we’re getting better and better as far as making the air better. The only way you could do
better is closing the plant, and we don’t want people to lose jobs,” Mr. DeFazio told the Post-Gazette.
But their differences don’t end there. Ms. Hallam, a first-time candidate, says she is looking to the insurgent campaign of state Rep. Sara Innamorato, D-Upper Lawrenceville, who upset big-name incumbent Dom Costa in last year’s Democratic primary.
Ms. Innamorato gave Ms. Hallam her first endorsement. The challenger also won the endorsements of the Allegheny County Young Democrats and the Steel City Stonewall Democrats, the county’s LGBTQ political advocacy group.
“Who is better for this job than me, someone who is in touch with the voters?” Ms. Hallam asked.
She said she wants to change the county’s priorities, shifting money into addiction recovery and mental health treatment programs so that people hit by the opioid epidemic are able get care rather than ending up in jail, like she did.
Mr. DeFazio earned to the endorsement of the Allegheny County Labor Council as well as local bigwigs including Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and U.S. Rep Mike Doyle, DForest Hills.
Mr. DeFazio points to the same achievements of many of the other longtime county officials: The county’s bond rating is the best it has been in 35 years, the county has only raised taxes 1 mill since the new political system was installed, and unemployment has fallen.
“Recently, we’ve been doing 60 miles of road work a year, versus 20 in the past,” Mr. DeFazio said.
“Years ago, if you wanted to have decent jobs for your kids, they would have to move out of Pittsburgh. Now they’re staying. We’re creating good jobs in a lot of areas, with higher wages. A good thing happened in Allegheny County,” Mr. DeFazio told the Post-Gazette.
On some issues, Mr. DeFazio and Ms. Hallam see mostly eye to eye. In response to a Stonewall Democrats questionnaire, both said they would be willing to introduce legislation to ban gender and sexuality conversion therapy countywide. After some pressure from Ms. Hallam, Mr. DeFazio, alongside county Councilman Paul Klein, DPoint Breeze, introduced exactly such an ordinance. (It’s currently in committee.)
Ms. Hallam does not think Mr. DeFazio’s bill goes far enough, while Mr. DeFazio wants to hear more from the public and experts before they go forward. But they both want to see the practice prohibited countywide.
They both favor a countywide civilian police review board, which is currently under review by the council, and want to figure out how to spread the county’s recent growth to depressed communities in the Mon Valley, although neither had particular prescriptions for doing so.
But those cases are more the exception than the rule. On a couple of the more highprofile issues in the county over the past year, they take very different positions.
Asked about the pitch to Amazon to bring its socalled “HQ2” to Pittsburgh, Ms. Hallam gagged theatrically, and said, “How do we expect local people, local workers, local small businesses to pay taxes, and yet we offer billions of dollars to a company like Amazon?”
Mr. DeFazio thought making the bid was the right move, saying, “You’re creating a lot of jobs.”
Alongside Clairton Coke Works, Ms. Hallam also challenged Mr. DeFazio on fracking in parks. In 2014, he voted to allow drilling under Deer Lake Park. She also wants the county to do more for low-income families who can’t afford expensive filters to deal with elevated lead levels in the water.
With just over two months until the May 21 primary, the two candidates from neighboring North Hills towns have a lot of ground to cover as they campaign across the county’s 130 municipalities.
For Ms. Hallam, the hope is that the anti-establishment energy that propelled Ms. Innamorato and Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, to their surprise wins into legislative seats in 2018 remains as potent.
Mr. DeFazio will be depending on his strong union support and a long track record to carry him through the first primary challenge he has had to face.