On today’s episode of The Confluence:
Prominent Pittsburgh residents will advise mayor on next police chief
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Kevin Gavin, host: It's The Confluence, where the news comes together on 90.5 WESA, I'm Kevin Gavin. At the end of September, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey unveiled his preliminary city budget. Among other items, it proposes an increase in funding for public works and infrastructure. We are in Mayor Gainey's office in the City-County Building. Welcome back to the program, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Ed Gainey: Thank you again. Thanks for having me.
KG: The proposed $657 million operating budget, 7% higher than this year, does not include a tax hike. Is it being buttressed by federal dollars?
EG: With the American Rescue money? Yes.
KG: You still, I believe, will have federal money for the 2024 budget. Are you anticipating more revenues from other sources by then, or might you have to trim back for the following year, a couple of years from now?
EG: We talked about when those budget years come, that the budget would have to be skinny and we'll have to look to see where we are from the taxes that we have coming in. But we do understand that when our money runs out, the federal money, that those two years we will have a very, very skinny budget, and we have to be ready for that. But also, hopefully with some of the investments that we're making right now, we will see a better return on our taxes.
KG: Such as? Such as in terms of investments?
EG: Investments [include] the $4 million that we put out there for the winter with the snow plows and things of that sort, to make sure that we're able to deal with the winter snow when it comes. Now, some of that investment, you'll see the investment going next year, of course, in 2023. But some of it may not materialize — due to us going out and having to buy the equipment — until 2024. You also want to see $2 million in paving that we hope pays off. So, in that year, we will not have to be able to invest so much in the paving budget as well because we're doing it upfront right now. These are needs that we have to have because we have not invested in the Department of Public Works for quite some time.
KG: Your budget proposes establishing two new divisions under the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure: one for landslides, another for bridges. This proposal comes after Controller Michael Lamb, in August, noted that DOMI is chronically understaffed. Will staffing issues at this department be addressed before actually creating the two new divisions?
EG: We're gearing up for that right now. So, right now, we talked about staffing and making sure that we improve staffing in DOMI so that when this report is complete, you will already see that we're already on board of making sure that we're staffing it up to deal with the two new divisions.
KG: Pittsburgh Public Schools has tried for some years now to recover tax dollars that were diverted to the city when it was in financial distress, Act 47. Are you in talks with the district about returning those funds to the school district?
EG: We have not had those talks. We've had other talks in regards to how we partner together. I'm sure that conversation will come up, you and I know that. But right now, in the beginning, we wanted to make sure what we could agree on and partner on.
This year, in our budget, you'll find out that we'll have interns from Pittsburgh Public Schools, paid interns from Pittsburgh Public Schools, to again, create that bond. [We're] also working on a public safety plan and discussing how inside and outside the schools our children are safe. Thirdly is our "Plan to Prosper" that continues to build on how we create jobs in our city for PPS. And you'll see with Pittsburgh Police Department that if you come out of PPS, that there'll be certain points that you receive as well. Those are the things we're working on to build a healthy relationship with PPS.
KG: Mayor, the city needs a new police chief after Scott Schubert left in early July to take a job with the FBI. What's the status of that search?
EG: Well, we just finished up the Request for Proposals (RFP) from last week. We will be reviewing to select an organization that will go out and begin to recruit and interview different people that want to be chief of police. We also put together a committee so that we can have a robust community engagement process. This is the first we've talked about it. We're looking to do four public community engagement meetings with the community. One will be virtual. We also have a survey that will be going out to get more input from the community.
KG: Will these individuals actually be part of the search committee or advising? So, in other words, will they have a say, once you've narrowed down choices?
EG: They'll help us narrow down the choices. And then the final decision will be with the administration.
KG: You mentioned a RFP for a firm to help in the search to locate interested individuals. But with that, and with community input from names you just mentioned, does that sort of delay the process?
EG: No, not at all. I don't think it delays the process, I think it makes it more robust. I think that we get a universal opinion in regards to what both sides are looking for. We find out what they have in common, what they want. And I believe that will help us get to the type of police chief that we want to have.
KG: Well, what is the type of police chief you want to have? For instance, is it safe to say that Scott Schubert was not your choice to continue on in that post?
EG: Well, I think Chief Schubert did a remarkable job. I think his career speaks volumes of his love for the city and the position that he held. So, no, not at all. I think for us, though, when we talk about, right policing and what we want, we want one that shares the values that we put forth. We want, we want community policing, and you've seen that. We have been able to pick up that in several areas. Some of the crimes are down in Homewood, some of the crimes are down on the South Side. When we talk about homicides, we still got a way to go, absolutely. But understanding that there was no plan when we came in here. Here's the plans that we put together, when we talk about a plan for peace. And we're operating and we're executing that. Things are changing. Are they going to change overnight? No. And if you look at, if you look at our record in terms of getting violent criminals off the street, these last couple of months have been a tremendous success.
KG: Would you have liked Scott Schubert to continue on?
EG: I think that was his decision. If he wanted to continue on, that's a conversation I was willing to have. Him and I had had some conversations, but I respect his decision.
KG: All that said, do you have a timeline to have a chief in place?
EG: Absolutely. By the end of the year.
KG: By the end of the year. Do you think you can get all this done in the next couple of months?
EG: We're hoping. We're hoping. I mean, we've all you know, like I said, a lot of things we've already put in place. But the second thing is, we're looking at the end of year, we have to have a timetable we can walk back. If things occur where we have to move it back, we'll come back and we'll talk to the public about it. But we're going to continue, we're going to continue to look at the end of the year.
KG: Mayor, we spoke last time in August. You told us the city was conducting a police staffing study. You said, 'We should have the report back in a month, month and a half.' Is the study finished?
EG: It's close, it's close to being finished.
KG: You have a timeline when that will be released?
EG: We're hoping the end of this month.
KG: What have you learned so far from it, from this study that will sort of inform you going forward?
EG: You know, there's a couple of things. We have a lot of officers today, if they wanted to retire, they could. Why is that a concern? Because we will be down a number of officers. And if we look at it from a diverse standpoint, we will be somewhere between 5% and 6% of African-Americans left on the job. We want a police force that's reflective of our city and has our values, and that is something that we're working towards. So those are the things that we learn and we look forward to making sure that we do what's necessary to have the right staffing numbers.
KG: Your budget for 2023 calls for 900 officers. I believe the latest staffing level is closer to 800, due to about five dozen retirements and resignations this year. You're looking to bring in officers from other municipalities. Has that class started yet?
EG: No, we're looking forward to it. We will start recruiting actively other police officers, police officers from other municipalities. I think that we should be able to bring in like 12 or something like that, through that. And then they have to do 12 weeks, obviously, in the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police. And then we're looking at doing a bigger class and we're hoping to get 40 in. But both of them will occur in mid-spring of 2023.
KG: Over the summer, you announced your "Plan for Peace." You've alluded to it in our conversation today. Can this plan to address violence and implement community policing get started if the department has staffing issues?
EG: Yes, absolutely. I think that we want to start it before we bring in new officers. And the reason being, because it's also a cultural situation and the fact that, how do you improve the culture of Pittsburgh Bureau of Police? So, if you can start that right now, so that every officer that's coming in, they can follow it to the standards that you want to set. We can set the standard. And so when those officers come in, they understand the model that we want and the type of policing we're looking for.
KG: You mentioned you can start it. Has it started or what stage is it at?
EG: Yeah, we started when we came in Day One, doing the things that was necessary that we had to do to improve the culture of policing. That's why I went around to every, every zone in this city to talk to the police, to hear their concerns. And we've heard it over and over again. They thought that staffing was the issue. What did we do? We addressed that. We're bringing in two classes to be able to address the staffing shortage. We would have changed overtime rules if it would've been agree to in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the FOP.
We also talked about increasing pay in the CBA, so that we can make sure that we're competitive with our neighboring municipalities. Because one of the other issues that we heard was that it's hard to compete when municipalities outside the city offer more pay. In our contract, you can see both of those.
Thirdly is the accountability of the CBA when we talk about the disciplinary matrix. We thought that was important. The Pennsylvania state troopers has accepted a disciplinary matrix. So has Philadelphia. We don't want nobody that's a police officer that's involved with terrorist organizations. We don't want nobody that is stealing taxpayer's money, and we don't want nobody that they're abusing their partners. We don't want that. So, we thought it was a fair deal. We listen to the community and we listen to the police. And that's what we put in our CBA.
KG: You're in arbitration now, right?
EG: Exactly.
KG: What do you think is the main difference? I mean, you mentioned over time and talking to some officers, they weren't interested in the overtime if they had to lose personal days. What do you think is the main sticking point?
EG: I mean, I think it depends on what officers you talk to, right? Any officer you talk to, you're gonna get a difference of opinion. The reality is, I thought we put a fair contract, one of the best ones they've had in years in regards to improving salary and in terms of streamlining discipline. So people understand the clear picture of discipline from termination to lesser disciplinary actions that could happen. We were laser-focused on that. I can't really answer what they believe the reason for it was. What I will say: We had a lot of police officers to vote for it.
KG: We've talked many times about bolstering, making sure that the police force is more representative of the community at large. At a community meeting in Homewood, you announced police recruit classes won't be required to come in with 60 college credits. Does City Council have to sign off? Does the union have to sign off on that?
EG: No, we do. We can, we create that.
KG: All right. So this new policy would take effect next spring, is that correct?
EG: Yes.
KG: No doubt that this could open up the pool of interested candidates. However, these candidates, I believe, would still have to go up against others. Oftentimes in police forces, they are former military, often white, who receive civil service points toward their application. Do you see that as a potential stumbling block toward your initiative to make the police force more diverse?
EG: We want to be intentional on diversity. So, we're reaching out and we're going to be reaching out in multiple ways. We're talking about putting a recruitment committee together. We'll talk about what we need to do to go out to recruit more, more minority candidates.
KG: Would this be a temporary measure or do you see this going forward as being a permanent policy, at least while you're mayor?
EG: We have to have it as a permanent policy. If we want to get to the numbers that we want to get to and make sure that the police force is diverse, then it has to be intentionality.
KG: Last time we spoke with you, it was after your administration severed ties with OnePGH, an initiative launched by your predecessor, former Mayor Peduto, that looked to address local nonprofits' tax-exempt status. When asked if a lawsuit challenging these entities tax-exempt status was still on the table. You responded to me, 'We haven't removed anything from the table. We've continued to talk in good faith.' Where are these talks now?
EG: We still haven't removed anything from the table, but we are still in good conversation. Not with just the one nonprofit that we discussed, UPMC, but with all nonprofits. We've met with Pitt, we met with CMU. We plan on meeting with the others. And then, what we're trying to do is make sure that we're reaching out with an olive branch to everybody. Listen, we're telling everybody, in order for us to be the greatest city it can be, everybody has to be in. We need everybody and we need people. When we got roads, we got bridges. We got infrastructure concerns that we need help with. This is not a situation where we're just doing it for the sake of doing it. We're doing it because for us to be the best city we can be, we need those investments.
KG: What's the selling point for them to get involved, if there's no stick at the end? What's the carrot?
EG: No, I never said, I said nothing is off the table. We didn't remove anything from being off the table. What we said is, at first, we want to enter into some dialogue so that we're doing our due diligence to say, let's conversate first.
KG: Finally, Mr. Mayor, over the weekend, longtime Pennsylvania state representative, a former colleague of yours in Harrisburg, Rep. Tony DeLuca, passed away. What legacy does he leave behind, in your opinion, having worked with this man for many years?
EG: Penn Hills loved him, his district loved him. And I think that speaks volumes of the work he's done with people. You know, the way he represented Penn Hills, he's going to go down as being one of the greatest representatives, state representatives from the Penn Hills District. So, again, my condolences to his family. He was a phenomenal friend, one who actually started in Larimer Avenue. You know, it's funny, sometimes when we were at the state, I'd have to remind him, you know, you represent from Penn Hills, you represent Penn Hills, but you're from Larimer Avenue. So, let's make sure we understand that. But Tony was a great man. Funny. He was always pleasant. He was a great man.
KG: We've been speaking to Pittsburgh’s Mayor Ed Gainey. Mayor Gainey, thanks so much for your time.
EG: I appreciate it. Thank you.
KG: The nine members from the community named to be advisers for the selection of the next police chief of the city of Pittsburgh are Erin Dalton, the Department of Human Services Director for the County; Pitt law professor David Harris; Eric Holmes, the police chief of Duquesne University; Chrisarah Johnson from Neighborhood Services of the City of Pittsburgh; Miracle Jones, an attorney and with 1Hood; Rev. Cornell Jones; Michelle McMurray from the Pittsburgh Foundation; Monica Ruiz from Casa San Jose; and Jake Voelker, owner of Voodoo Brewery and a veteran.
Pennsylvania’s first space museum to open this weekend on the Northside
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The Moonshot Museum, Pennsylvania’s first museum dedicated to space, is set to open this weekend. Located in the North Side, the museum will highlight career readiness for the modern space industry.
Visitors will be able to peruse exhibits while also watching spacecrafts be built in real time. Sam Moore, the executive director of the museum, says the goal is inspiring young people to find their place in the future of space exploration.
“Space needs tons of engineers, it needs technology experts and it needs folks who can build software. But it also needs speakers and designers. It needs policy makers, lawyers,” he says.
The museum opens this Saturday.
The Confluence, where the news comes together, is 90.5 WESA’s daily news program. Tune in Monday to Thursday at 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. to hear newsmakers and innovators take an in-depth look at stories important to the Pittsburgh region. Find more episodes of The Confluence here or wherever you get your podcasts.
