Corey O’Connor pledged Thursday that if elected Pittsburgh mayor he would oversee a range of public safety improvements.
They would include bettering recruiting and retention of public safety workers, opening resource centers throughout the city and asking Pittsburgh’s hospitals to pay for new ambulances.
O’Connor, who is Allegheny County’s controller and a former city councilman, is working to distance himself from Mayor Ed Gainey, his rival in May’s Democratic primary. Gainey’s administration has struggled with ambulance and paramedic shortages and been dogged by criticism about turnover at police chief.
“It’s unacceptable that we don’t have enough officers or ambulances when people need them,” O’Connor said during a press conference at a campaign office in the city’s East Liberty neighborhood.
Joining O’Connor was Jon Atkinson, who heads the city’s Emergency Medical Services union, which has endorsed O’Connor.
Atkinson said the shortage of paramedics — the city was down about 30 positions as of December — forces people to work mandatory overtime. That in turn leads to burnout, early retirements and people leaving the bureau to find less-demanding jobs, according to Atkinson.
It’s not uncommon for ambulances to go out of service, Atkinson said, echoing reports that some have broken down while transporting patients to hospitals.
“All of these things negatively impact our ability to serve the citizens and visitors of Pittsburgh and make it hard for us to do our work,” Atkinson said.
Problems involving public safety staffing and the city’s aging vehicle fleet have plagued Gainey since he took office in 2022.
The mayor told TribLive Thursday those problems have been passed on from prior administrations, and he is working to fix them.
“When we came in, this is what we inherited,” Gainey said, adding O’Connor had been a councilman when the city underinvested in its fleet and paused police recruiting.
Chasing ambulances
O’Connor said as mayor he would prioritize finding steady leadership for the city’s police bureau, which has seen five different chiefs or acting chiefs since Gainey took office.
He also said he would expand outreach to local schools and organizations where the city could recruit public safety personnel.
The challenger proposed investing in a public safety training center — which has stalled and seen its funding reallocated — as a signal to current and prospective police officers that the city cares about their development.
Gainey, too, has sought to address staffing challenges by restarting police recruit classes after his predecessor had paused them and removing a requirement that new police recruits must have at least 60 college credits to join the academy. The city has launched a new, no-cost training academy for EMTs.
The EMS union is eyeing a legal challenge — which the city does not intend to fight — to lift residency requirements for paramedics and EMTs so they can recruit people beyond Pittsburgh’s borders.
O’Connor Thursday pitched the idea of asking the city’s hospitals to pay for new ambulances, arguing such a purchase falls within their missions.
But the city has long struggled to get its nonprofits to provide payments in lieu of taxes or other financial support to the city.
In addition to ongoing efforts to strike such a deal, Gainey also has challenged the tax-exempt status of properties throughout the city owned by nonprofits. That effort has brought in almost $300,000 for the city so far, according to Olga George, a spokeswoman for the mayor.
‘People want to feel safe’
O’Connor’s vision for the city’s public safety plan also includes further expanding the city’s Office of Community Health & Safety, which includes initiatives where social workers support the city’s homeless population and respond to some calls alongside other first responders.
Gainey has grown the office throughout his term and said he would continue those efforts if reelected. Social workers, he said, help free up police to handle violent crime.
The mayor also pointed to his efforts to put civilians in positions that don’t require uniformed officers as an example of more efficiently using personnel.
O’Connor said he would open six public safety resource hubs throughout the city, where people could get crisis support, homelessness resources and emergency aid.
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He said he would pare down the telephone reporting unit that now replaces having officers respond in-person to some less serious crimes.
“People, when they make a call, want to see somebody,” O’Connor said.
Gainey defended his administration’s efforts on public safety, pointing to reductions in homicides and nonfatal shootings as evidence the city is safe.
“People want to feel safe,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’ve done a lot to ensure people feel safe in the city.”