As Pittsburgh’s mayoral primary draws near, Mayor Ed Gainey is making the case for a second term while his Democratic challenger, Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, tries to unseat him.
Gainey, 55, of Lincoln-Lemington is a former state representative who portrays his first three years in office as a success story, crowned by a reduction in homicides and efforts to build more affordable housing.
O’Connor, 40, of Point Breeze is a former city councilman and son of the late Mayor Bob O’Connor. He argues the city is in decline and needs new leadership to reverse a shrinking police force and plummeting Downtown property values.
The two largely agree that Pittsburgh needs to build more affordable housing, improve public safety and revitalize Downtown — but they differ on how to achieve those goals.
Gainey’s campaign has assailed his challenger, claiming O’Connor accepted “MAGA money” and will cater to developers who have donated to him. O’Connor, meanwhile, has cast recent upheaval in city hall as reflecting dysfunction in the Gainey administration.
The winner will run in November’s general election against either retired Pittsburgh police Officer Tony Moreno or small-business owner Thomas West, both of whom are running on the Republican ticket.
Whoever leads Pittsburgh next will contend with fiscal pressures, struggles to wrest money from the city’s major nonprofits and making sure the 2026 NFL Draft goes off without a hitch.
All four candidates recently sat for interviews with TribLive. On Sunday, we outline where the Democratic candidates stand on major issues. On Monday, we will profile the policy positions of the Republican hopefuls.
Public safety
Gainey boasts about lower violent crime rates during his tenure despite his inability to keep a police chief and accusations from O’Connor that he “cherry-picks crime stats to paint a false picture of safety.”
Last year, there were 42 homicides — the lowest number since 2019 — and 83 nonfatal shootings, down from 56 killings and 170 nonfatal shootings in 2021, the year before Gainey took office.
The mayor often credits a community-oriented policing approach with driving down violent crime, though homicide rates have declined nationally.
Pittsburgh police remain plagued with staffing shortages, and the force is still losing police officers faster than it can recruit them.
Gainey told TribLive his administration has been playing catch-up after his predecessor, Bill Peduto, paused new police classes. Gainey got the police academy up and running again less than a year after taking office.
The mayor said the administration’s strategy of putting civilians in police positions that don’t require a uniformed officer and allowing social workers to help on some 911 calls frees officers to handle violent crime and focus on community-oriented policing.
That, in turn, encourages officers to engage with the public by participating in community meetings and talking with residents and business owners, according to the mayor.
“We want to make sure the relationship between the police and the community is strong,” Gainey told TribLive.
O’Connor said the city needs to do more to recruit officers. Investing in training and stabilizing leadership, he said, would be the first steps to improving recruitment and retention.
The police bureau currently has 758 officers. Many officials have long considered 900 to be the force’s ideal size, though Gainey has cut the budgeted number to 800, reflecting the reality of recruiting limitations.
O’Connor said he also wants to focus more on retaining existing officers. Investing in a proposed $120 million training facility would signal to officers that the city is committed to their development, he said.
The Gainey administration — with City Council’s approval — shifted $1.4 million in funding for the training facility to other priorities, contending that amount wouldn’t be enough to make a dent in the total cost. O’Connor said he wants to restore the money the city has moved from the project.
O’Connor said one of his top priorities would be hiring a police chief committed to staying long-term.
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Under Gainey’s tenure, five people have run the police bureau. Two have resigned since October, with one leaving amid controversy over a deal he struck with the mayor to take on a part-time gig refereeing college basketball.
“If you’re an officer right now and you have different command staff every day, you’re getting different directions from everybody, especially when you’re on your fifth chief of police. That’s just unacceptable,” O’Connor said. “That’s not a good message to an officer who’s working overnight, leaving their families at home.”
Gainey downplayed the impact of the police bureau’s revolving door on the public, saying residents don’t ask him about the chief when he’s out in the community.
Homelessness
Homelessness has become a chronic problem. Officials have cleared camps, moved people into shelters and proposed building tiny houses.
Gainey and O’Connor agree the Office of Community Health and Safety is a key asset for helping Pittsburgh’s homeless population. Both suggested scaling up its operations.
The office has grown under Gainey’s tenure to 47 people from a dozen budgeted employees when he took office. It has partnered with Allegheny County’s Department of Human Services to take a more proactive approach to moving people from homeless camps to indoor shelters, clearing all the camps Downtown this winter.
The mayor said he wants to build on what he’s done so far during his tenure.
O’Connor criticized Gainey for moving people out of some homeless camps, arguing that some shelters are farther from transit lines and support services.
“What this administration is doing now, moving people around, is not actually solving a problem,” he said.
O’Connor said he wants to identify and fill gaps in support for homeless people — including overnight or during weekends — and ensure empty shelter beds don’t sit unused — a problem O’Connor identified in an audit on homelessness in the county.
Not everyone will accept offers for group shelter, O’Connor acknowledged, so he wants to clear red tape to build more single-occupancy transitional housing, particularly near transit lines and resource hubs.
Affordable housing
Gainey often says his administration is “laser-focused” on building more affordable housing. O’Connor, too, wants to construct more units for poor people.
The two are apart on how broadly to force developers to set aside a portion of their projects for low-income residents. Gainey wants to mandate such a policy citywide. O’Connor prefers a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach, targeting the hottest markets.
Since Gainey took office, more than 1,600 new or existing affordable housing units have been completed, started construction or closed on financing.
The city agreed to fund more affordable housing and assist low-income renters and homebuyers through the Urban Redevelopment Authority, which has helped 169 low-income homebuyers — most of them in minority- and women-led households — purchase their first homes through its Own PGH program.
The Pittsburgh Land Bank — which had not transferred ownership of any properties before Gainey’s election — has sold or helped prepare for sale about 150 formerly blighted properties throughout the city in the last three years. Some of them have been converted to affordable housing.
Pittsburgh has given tax breaks, provided funding and streamlined approval processes to encourage developers converting empty office spaces Downtown to affordable housing.
Gainey also has proposed a major reform that would expand affordable housing through inclusionary zoning citywide. The policy would require developers building 20 or more housing units anywhere in the city to set aside 10% for low-income residents.
O’Connor disagrees with extending inclusionary zoning throughout Pittsburgh. While on council, he supported a narrow use of the strategy solely for the booming Lawrenceville section.
He prefers expediting permits and offering tax breaks to encourage developers to build affordable housing.
The city, O’Connor said, should invest in neighborhood main streets and tear down blighted structures.
He criticized Gainey for paying consultants $6 million for a city master plan, which Gainey administration officials said will lead to zoning recommendations.
O’Connor said the city could’ve done that work in-house.
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City finances
Gainey has sought to quell worries expressed by some council members and the city controller about Pittsburgh’s fiscal health.
“The sky’s not falling, but we do have some difficult years ahead,” Gainey said in August.
The mayor acknowledged that a dwindling tax base and the covid-19 pandemic have caused challenges. A widespread move to remote work led property values Downtown to plummet, cutting into revenues.
But Gainey pointed out that the city has a strong bond rating.
Gainey said he would have to “evaluate where we’re at” before determining whether to increase taxes or slash city services in the coming years. He has not raised taxes during his tenure.
O’Connor questioned whether the mayor’s 2025 budget — a nearly $666 million spending plan that cut projected overtime for public works and public safety personnel — is realistic.
Before considering cutting services or hiking taxes, O’Connor said he would look for places to save money without impacting residents.
One O’Connor suggestion: trim the size of the mayor’s office, where the budget has grown under Gainey nearly fivefold to $5 million, partly because the office has absorbed positions previously housed in other departments.
O’Connor said he wants to foster growth, woo large companies and support local entrepreneurs to create jobs and increase tax revenue. As mayor, O’Connor said, he would work with existing technology and robotics companies in the city to encourage them to grow their businesses in Pittsburgh.
Nonprofits
Both candidates agree the city’s major nonprofits — including its multibillion-dollar hospitals and universities — should pay the city something. But their approaches differ.
The mayor pulled out of the OnePGH program his predecessor launched, which included about $115 million in contributions from nonprofits.
Gainey has challenged the tax-exempt status of parcels owned by nonprofits, hoping to force them to pay taxes.
The city has argued the parcels don’t fulfill charitable functions. The effort so far has brought in less than $300,000, a fraction of the $3.5 million officials had estimated they would realize if they won all their initial challenges. Some properties are still winding through the legal process.
At the same time, Gainey has continued trying to negotiate a payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, deal. He told TribLive he had an offer from UPMC to provide $125 million over 10 years, but he refused the health care giant’s proposal when UPMC said it would split the payment between the city and county.
UPMC denied such an offer existed.
Gainey told TribLive he still believes PILOT deals are within reach.
“I think there’s an appetite there to get something done,” he said. “The people want it done. Some of these nonprofits want to do it.”
O’Connor said he’d try a different tactic. Rather than asking for money to support the city’s general fund, he would request specific contributions that fall within the nonprofits’ missions.
He would ask hospitals to buy ambulances, for instance, or request snowplows from universities whose students and employees benefit from safe roads.
“Those investments will free up more of my capital dollars so I can invest in neighborhoods,” O’Connor said.
Smaller nonprofits fit into O’Connor’s plan, too. As an example, he suggested the Carnegie Science Center could support city recreation centers with free programming.
When asked about continuing Gainey’s challenges to the tax-exempt status of nonprofit-owned properties, O’Connor said he would have to look at the cases still being fought and consult with the city’s law department before making a final determination.
Infrastructure
Just weeks after he took office in January 2022, Gainey woke to news that the Fern Hollow Bridge had collapsed in Frick Park.
“I told people I would never wake up again to a bridge falling,” he said.
Gainey launched a new bridge asset management division, which allows the city to complete more basic maintenance in-house. Officials have said bridges are now getting the routine maintenance that often was lacking before the Fern Hollow disaster.
Under Gainey, the city has closed the Charles Anderson and Panther Hollow bridges in Oakland and Squirrel Hill, respectively, citing safety concerns.
O’Connor criticized Gainey for not yet reopening the Panther Hollow Bridge. Just last week, the Gainey administration said final design plans are expected in June but did not offer a timeline for reopening.
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O’Connor said he wants to lobby more aggressively for state and federal dollars to invest in bridges.
“We can’t do it all by ourselves — we know that,” he said.
O’Connor said he would take a data-driven approach to figure out where to focus on reducing traffic accidents, repairing bridges and enforcing red light violations.
Downtown
Gainey helped bring about a $600 million revitalization plan championed by Gov. Josh Shapiro to build more affordable housing, revamp public spaces and improve safety in the Golden Triangle.
The mayor envisions Downtown as a residential hub with affordable housing. Efforts to transform empty offices to apartments are underway, and the mayor consistently rejects any suggestion Downtown is unsafe.
“I want it to become a neighborhood where people want to work, they play and they live,” he said. “If we turn Downtown into a neighborhood, now all of the sudden we repopulated the neighborhood. That’s good for the restaurants and businesses. It also provides opportunity for further investments because people are going to need food down there, they’re going to need a gas station down there.”
Projects underway Downtown include a facelift of Market Square and a sprawling outdoor civic space dubbed Arts Landing. Officials want to have both finished by the 2026 NFL Draft next April, which will be hosted on the North Shore and at Point State Park.
O’Connor said he believes the housing conversions Downtown are one piece of a larger puzzle that also should include entrepreneurs, robotics hubs, clean energy companies and entertainment. He wants to motivate businesses to take up empty storefronts and buildings ill-suited for housing.
Working with the city’s parking authority to make parking cheaper would encourage people to come Downtown, he said. He also said public spaces should be brighter and better maintained.
“We get to rebuild one of America’s greatest cities,” he said. “I think everything is on the table.”
Core services
Officials have said the city’s fleet is in dire straits, with aging plows, fire trucks and ambulances prone to breaking down and requiring costly maintenance.
Gainey said he’s investing what he can, though officials have estimated the city should be earmarking millions more for new vehicles.
The mayor highlighted steps to bolster the Department of Public Works, such as increasing staffing and starting construction on a long-delayed facility in Knoxville.
City Councilman Bob Charland, D-South Hills, recently pushed for an emergency declaration from the state to better address litter and illegal garbage dumping.
“We are moving in the right direction,” Gainey said.
That’s not how O’Connor sees it.
O’Connor pointed out a third of the city’s plows were out of service as snow blanketed Pittsburgh’s streets this winter. He called for additional investment in the fleet and road maintenance budgets.
Those core services, he said, should be a priority, even when money is tight.