The best part of American government and politics is that the people get a do-over every two to four years.
The voters of Pittsburgh will have that chance in the upcoming election for mayor. Their rejection of Mayor Bill Peduto’s administration in 2021 was historic — the first ousting of an incumbent mayor since 1933.
Mayor Ed Gainey, who beat Peduto in the 2021 primary, now faces an electorate that expected him to turn Pittsburgh around. But instead of a break with the past, the problems the city faced under Peduto have either not changed or gotten worse.
And now Gainey is in the same spot that Peduto was in four years ago. Back then, Washington & Jefferson College political science professor Joe DiSarro told TribLive, “Bill Peduto didn’t offer any new ideas or any new solutions to present-day problems.”
Gainey continues to struggle to come up with new ideas and find solutions to the city’s worsening financial position, flagging city services and the nagging feeling that Downtown Pittsburgh — the region’s economic engine — is unsafe and dirty.
Affordable housing — Gainey’s hallmark issue — has been especially lacking for new ideas. Gainey incorrectly claims to have created 2,000 new units. The nonprofit group Pro-Housing Pittsburgh puts the real number at around 300. That’s not much for the $100 million that Gainey has had to spend on the problem.
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, a state representative in 2021, praised Gainey and criticized Peduto back then, saying that Gainey’s message about everyone having a seat at the table resonated. “Whether you’re agreeing or not, as an elected leader, you’re supposed to listen to folks,” she said.
But Gainey only listens to those Pittsburghers who agree with him, bashing or ignoring those who disagree. He famously refuses to deal with UPMC — the region’s largest employer — because it is at odds with his major campaign contributor.
He refuses to talk to reporters from one of the city’s two major newspapers, because of a labor dispute at the paper. And he has frozen out the developers that will be needed if we are to revitalize the city.
In 2021, when Gainey was running against Peduto in the Democratic primary, he called for more action and fewer words in the mayor’s office. He said that if Peduto hadn’t accomplished what he wanted during his time in office, he didn’t deserve another term.
Gainey inherited the failures of the Peduto administration, but none of them have gotten better during his term as mayor.
Snow removal and street maintenance confounded Peduto, despite his highly touted computer models. The shrinking of the police force began with Peduto’s failure to recruit new academy classes.
Traffic planning and parking management were delegated to an unelected team composed of the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) and the bike-lane lobby, without consideration of the real needs of the city’s residents and businesses.
And it became clear during Gainey’s first month in office, when the Fern Hollow bridge collapsed, that Peduto’s administration had forgotten about our bridges — in the city of bridges.
As much as this race is about Gainey’s record over the last four years, it is also — and still — about the change that the voters sought in 2021 but never got.