Free Republic

Democrat Ed Gainey became the first Black mayor of Pittsburgh on Tuesday. “Look at the image we are showing our children,” Gainey said to the crowd at the downtown Benedum Center for the Performing Arts. “I want our children to see a city for all of them,” The Associated Press reported. He had consistently made his campaign about equality for Black and poor residents, and accused Peduto of failing to ensure equity in policing, housing and other areas. At one point, he called Pittsburgh “a tale of two cities,” according to The Associated Press.

Picture Pittsburgh 50 years from now with these transportation changes: a terminal in a central location to handle a hyperloop system, vehicles for vertical takeoffs and landings, and high-speed trains; aerial trams linking neighborhoods; and new bridges crossing the Monongahela River at Hazelwood for motorized vehicles and at the former Wabash rail bridge piers for bikes and pedestrians. Those might sound like something from a science fiction novel, but they are among the ideas the city says it must consider in a 50-year Mobility Vision Plan released Thursday by Mayor Bill Peduto and Karina Ricks, director of the city’s Department...

The first director of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure will be leaving her job in the city for a role in President Joe Biden’s administration, Mayor Bill Peduto announced Friday. Karina Ricks, who took the reins of the newly created DOMI in February 2017, will join the Federal Transit Administration as associate administrator for research, innovation and demonstration. The Peduto administration said the department was formed to promote safety, accessibility and sustainable transit in the city. Under her leadership, DOMI developed a plan early on to improve safety on Liberty Avenue in the Strip District, which is set to...

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto conceded defeat to state Rep. Ed Gainey in a four-way Democratic primary race for mayor, positioning Gainey to become the first Black mayor in the city’s history.With 393 of the city’s 402 voting precincts reporting results around 1:15 a.m., Gainey had received about 46.2% of the votes counted, while Peduto collected 39.3%, retired Pittsburgh police officer Tony Moreno had 13.1% and math tutor and ride-hailing-service driver Michael Thompson had 1.2%, the tallies showed.Peduto had taken to Twitter about an hour earlier to congratulate Gainey.“I just called (Gainey) and congratulated him on earning the Democratic endorsement for...

WASHINGTON — The architects of a newly unveiled 10-year, $600 billion climate plan to revitalize Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley region are moving forward with a difficult task of building political willpower in Washington while gaining the trust of rural communities tied to the coal and natural gas industries, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto told a group of sustainable development advocates Tuesday. That coalition-building — a communications strategy to be forged over the next six weeks among academic institutions in Pittsburgh and seven other cities — is a critical step toward executing the plan Mr. Peduto described as both idealistic...

Dressed in black and carrying signs like “Defund the Police, Peduto is a coward,” about 150 protesters marched to Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto’s home Sunday after rallying in Mellon Park in Point Breeze. Protesters were outraged by a “low-visibility arrest” of a protester in Oakland on Saturday during a Black Lives Matter protest. The arrest of 24-year-old Matthew Cartier came several hours into the protest in Oakland. Social media video shows police officers, not in uniform, emerge from an unmarked van and pull Cartier inside. Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Ed Trapp said that Cartier was blocking an intersection unnecessarily, stepping in...

PITTSBURGH — Though they are both Democrats, John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, and Bill Peduto, this city’s mayor, have their differences on the environment. Mr. Fetterman, who toppled an incumbent Democrat in 2018 from the left, nevertheless calls Pennsylvania “the Saudi Arabia of natural gas” and sees extracting and taxing gas as critical to the state’s economy and the “union way of life.” Mr. Peduto lobbied unsuccessfully against a local petrochemical plant and is steering his once-struggling steel town to be independent of fossil fuels within 15 years. But they agree on one thing: a pledge to ban all hydraulic...

Pittsburgh has become the second U.S. city to incorporate United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into its practices, planning and policies, an initiative that will affect more than $4 billion worth of public and private projects in the region during the next 12 years. Mayor Bill Peduto announced the commitment to the 17 U.N. sustainability goals Friday, saying they identify the most important issues facing the globe -- poverty, hunger, climate change, education, gender equality and health, among them. He said the goals will help inform coordinated and collaborative programs and partnerships with universities and nonprofit, business and civic sectors, and...

For more than four hours Saturday night, Mayor Bill Peduto sent multiple messages on Twitter, warning residents and visitors that towing would start at midnight for vehicles parked along the route of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon. Problem is, towing started at 11 p.m., courtesy of the Pittsburgh police and city contractor McGann and Chester Towing & Recovery. Mr. Peduto said he was in Cappy’s Cafe on Walnut Street in Shadyside when people came in about 11:30 p.m. complaining about cars being towed from streets in the area. “People were enraged,” the mayor said Monday, when asked about the...

The mayor of Pittsburgh suggested that President Trump choose a different time to visit the city rather than the day of the first of 11 funerals for the victims of the synagogue shooting. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto (D) told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday that he tried to tell the White House they the city's priority on Tuesday will be the first funeral — not Trump’s visit. “I do believe that it would be best to put the attention on the families this week and if he were to visit choose a different time to be able to do it,”...

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto was at home with his girlfriend on New Year’s Eve when he glanced at his smartphone and saw a Facebook posting of a photograph of Police Chief Cameron McLay holding a sign reading “I resolve to challenge racism @ work. # end white silence.” “I thought, ‘What a great way to begin the new year,’ ” the mayor said, and he showed his girlfriend the photo. It had been taken by activists from What’s Up?! Pittsburgh, who approached the chief in a coffee shop during the city’s First Night festivities and asked him pose with their...

The man who Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto tapped to head his newly formed Office of Management and Budget owes the Internal Revenue Service tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes, records show. The mayor announced today that he was hiring Edward Kiely, who heads a consulting firm based in Pittsburgh, to lead the department, citing his extensive experience in helping businesses. Mr. Kiely was hired through Talent City, a foundation-backed initiative intended to take the politics out of hiring by using outside committees to cull top candidates for a position, giving the mayor the final word. Mr. Kiely owes...