In summer 2020, Pittsburgh City Council approved, and former Mayor Bill Peduto signed into existence, the Commission on Racial Equity. According to the city code, the commission was meant to provide support for “reducing institutional racism and increasing racial equity in the City of Pittsburgh.”

But the commission and its members never met.

Jam Hammond, one of the appointed commission members and director of the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, said the city needs to evaluate whether it is needed or not.

“Is the racial equity commission the right vehicle to promote racial equity in the City of Pittsburgh? If it is, then we should be more active,” Hammond told PublicSource. “If it isn’t, then we should maybe be a little bit more transparent with the public and say, this looked like it was going to work, but we have some other ideas.”

The Commission on Racial Equity arose out of a landmark evaluation of the city’s disparities.

According to a 2019 gender equity report by the University of Pittsburgh, 40% of Pittsburgh’s Black adult women lived in poverty, compared to 27% of Black men and 8% for white men. 

The following year, councilmen Ricky Burgess and R. Daniel Lavelle introduced legislation creating the commission as one of two bills that also included a 10-point plan in which according to city code, the city “commits to eliminate race-based disparities.”

“I’m hoping maybe now in 2020 this is our time,” Burgess told TribLIVE.com then. “This is the time that we move forward as a city to begin to say that Black Pittsburgh matters. Four hundred years and we still have these inequities. Four hundred years and we see this pain. Now moving forward I will endeavor to take the first step toward harmony and take the first step toward reconciliation.”

PublicSource requested comment regarding the commission’s inactivity from Burgess and Lavelle, but they were not responsive. 

The commission has seven appointed members but most of them no longer meet the requirements to stay on.

The commission was meant to be filled with members meeting the following criteria:

• Chief equity officer of the city
• Two members of city council whose districts have large numbers of racial minorities 
• One Allegheny County Council member whose district has a large number of racial minorities
• One member of the state House of Representatives
• A representative of the office of the U.S. House member whose district contains the largest part of the city’s population
• Executive director of the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations.

“As it stands now, a lot of the members who were named would no longer be eligible to serve on the commission, given their new roles, since seats were fairly strictly defined,” said Maria Montaño, Mayor Ed Gainey’s press secretary.

For instance, Jake Wheatley was named to the commission as a state House member, but is now the mayor’s chief of staff.

Montaño added that the Gainey administration is considering phasing out the chief equity officer position from city government. The administration’s proposed 2023 operating budget eliminates funding for that position, though it creates a new inclusion, diversity, equity and access manager.

“Our vision from the previous administration, and their idea of equity is considerably different,” Montaño said.  “So our budget — and I think there’s been a variety of conversations around this —  it doesn’t have a specific one office, sort of one director of equity for the city.”

What happens next in Pittsburgh’s quest for equity?

Montaño said the administration had noticed that the Commission on Racial Equity was inactive and never met but added that they are still evaluating the panel’s future.

According to Montaño, the mayor’s office is hoping to improve equity in other ways, like meeting with Black mayors from across the region and forming a group of Black female leaders to address issues that Black women face in the region.

“The administration’s vision is, equity and justice work isn’t the responsibility of one person or one office but all 3,300-plus members of the city workforce. So we’re really focusing on what we need to do to make equity something citywide,” said Montaño.

Miracle Jones, 1Hood Media Academy’s director of advocacy and policy, hopes the Gainey administration will reactivate the commission but understands other issues might be involved.

“So I do think that the commission would be a good idea,” said Jones. “I understand that there’s budgets and everything, sometimes it’s difficult to have people meet. As you’re doing administration changes, people have to take time to get reacclimated to the new people who are now decision makers.”

Ladimir Garcia is a PublicSource editorial intern and he can be reached at ladimir@publicsource.org or on Twitter @TheLadimirGarci

This story was fact-checked by Terryaun Bell. 

The post <strong>Pittsburgh has a commission dedicated to racial equity – but in two years, it has never held a meeting</strong> appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Brookline’s Moore Park boasts a water spray feature on its playground, an abundance of sports courts and fields and a pool that recently underwent a $900,000 renovation. 

Just a 1.5-mile drive away in Beltzhoover, McKinley Park features deteriorating tennis courts, a football field flanked by a corroded retaining wall and a skate park that resembles a junkyard.

McKinley Park used to be the neighborhood’s hub for recreation, but deferred maintenance has caused it to “go down over the years,” according to Alicia, a frequent parkgoer who was walking her dog there on a November morning.

The courts are discolored and cracked, and the nets have come off as well.

“We use the tennis courts because no one comes down here,” said Alicia, who plays tennis and runs her dog on the courts. She asked that her last name not be published. 

Inequities among Pittsburgh’s parks often follow lines of neighborhood disadvantage, such as income and race. A Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy analysis of park conditions and neighborhood needs found, for instance, that parks in Homewood, Beltzhoover, Spring Hill and the Hill District begged for investment and served neighborhoods of high need. 

In 2019, residents voted to do something about it. A narrow 52% of Pittsburgh voters approved a parks tax on property owners of $50 for every $100,000 of assessed value. 

Collection began last year, after Pittsburgh City Council approved the tax in December 2020. The tax will raise an estimated $10.9 million next year.

The parks tax was meant for “improvement, maintenance, creation and operation of public parks; improving park safety; providing equitable funding for parks, including those in underserved neighborhoods,” according to the language added to the city charter as a result of the referendum.

Mayor Ed Gainey’s first capital budget, formally unveiled last month, would spend parks tax money on 20 physical improvements to parks, including $2.5 million for Moore and $770,000 for McKinley.

But it would also spend $1.83 million in parks tax revenue on 18 trucks, five tractors, two skid loaders and a car.

That spending has raised questions about whether the budget follows the spirit of the parks tax referendum.

“I don’t think people would have voted to tax themselves just for trucks,” said Cathy Qureshi, president and CEO of the nonprofit Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.

Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak said the planned vehicle purchase is “entirely in line with the stated uses of the parks tax,” and will not be used to supplement other functions of city government except during emergencies. Parks workers currently rely on hand-me-down vehicles once used for road maintenance or public safety, he said.

After campaigning hard for the parks tax, and touting a history of public-private collaboration, the conservancy asked for $2.8 million in parks tax funds. Gainey’s budget includes no parks tax money for the conservancy.

“Frankly, through that process, other needs scored more highly,” said Pawlak.

Request denied 

This is the city’s second year collecting the parks tax. Drawing in part from collections since 2021, the administration has proposed budgeting $13.4 million in parks tax funds for capital improvements. 

The biggest items are:

• A Manchester spray park, $2.25 million
• Renovations to Moore’s recreation building, $1.97 million
• Equipment for the Schenley Park Ice Rink, $1.3 million
• Allegheny Commons court upgrades, $857,000
• McKinley tennis court upgrades, $770,000
• Kennard basketball court upgrades, $664,000
• Moore tennis court upgrades, $519,000.

City council must approve the budget and can also amend it. Council is set to hold a public hearing on parks tax spending on Dec. 8. Council members contacted for this story declined to comment ahead of the hearing.

The Parks Conservancy hoped for funds to pursue a set of priorities including:

• Construction in Allegheny Commons and McKinley, $2 million
• Planning and design work in Baxter, McKinley, Kennard, Spring Hill and Heth’s Run, $350,000
• Conservancy operations, staffing and workforce development, $525,000.

In an agreement initiated under former Mayor Bill Peduto and implemented under Gainey’s administration, the conservancy can submit capital budget requests as though it’s a city agency. 

The Capital Projects Facilitation Committee, created by city council in 2010, scores proposals and makes recommendations to the mayor about which to include in the capital budget. The committee has representation from city departments, council and the controller’s office. 

None of the conservancy’s proposals made the final cut this year. That prompted a campaign of around 20 letters from community groups to the administration. 

“We all understand that competition for tax dollars is fierce, but suggest that it is shortsighted to shut the Parks Conservancy out of the use of this revenue stream when they have programs and projects teed up now, and are able to bring additional funding of their own to make them happen,” wrote David Hance, president of the Highland Park Community Development Corp., in one of the letters.

Qureshi said the conservancy appreciates the relationship they have with the city and the Gainey administration. “We met with representatives from the mayor’s office all year, every month, and we’re very grateful for that,” she said.

“It’s a long game,” she added. “Not only is it a long game, it’s a full game, and we support the city. They are our prime partner and we want to work well together.”

Keeping it in-house

City government careened toward fiscal disaster in early 2003 and spent the next 14 years under state oversight. 

Basic park services, like grass cutting and bench repairs, deteriorated under cost-cutting measures. From 2003 to 2004, the city about halved its spending to maintain tennis, basketball and other sport courts. 

After years of revenue surpluses under Peduto, Pawlak said the city has recovered financially.

Gov. Tom Wolf removed Pittsburgh’s designation as a financially distressed city in 2018, but the city’s roughly 160 parks remained underfunded. 

A 2019 analysis by the conservancy, aided by city workers, estimated the annual maintenance deficit at $13 million, in addition to a $400 million backlog on capital projects. 

“The task that sort of falls to this administration is to turn that financial health into restoring our own in-house ability to deliver high-quality services, first and foremost,” Pawlak said. 

The city plan to spend $1.83 million in parks tax revenue on vehicles for the Department of Public Works – which includes a Parks Maintenance Division – is part of that effort, per Pawlak.

Founded in 1996, the Parks Conservancy doesn’t handle routine parks maintenance, but acts as a fundraiser and sometimes manager for projects like the recently built Frick Environmental Center. 

For every $1 in city funding for that project, the nonprofit secured around $2 in private fundraising and grants, according to Qureshi. 

The Parks Conservancy now receives 85% of the city’s annual withdrawal from the Frick Park Trust Fund to maintain the facility, one of 48 cooperative agreements it has had with the City of Pittsburgh over more than 20 years. 

To Qureshi, the Frick Environmental Center offered a natural template for spending some of the parks tax money.

The conservancy was a strong backer of the tax. By Election Day 2019, the conservancy had spent $634,000 to directly fund ad buys, mailers and paid workers to gather petition signatures. 

Three years later, some residents are waiting for results.

Becki, a Spring Hill-City View resident who was walking her dog in Spring Hill Park on a November day, has noticed the lack of attention the city provided to that park.

She noted cosmetic issues like the overgrowth of grass and the absence of a basketball hoop that she believes has been gone since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. A staircase was halfway renovated and the lights on the baseball field had been left on consistently for nearly two and a half weeks, she said.

Becki, who asked that her last name not be published, said some residents bring their own lawn mowers to tend to the grass and some strap fencing to their backs to smooth out the baseball infield.

“It’s just been kind of neglected recently,” she said.  

Nowadays, the summer is the only time the park gets used, often by mothers who bring kids to play, but she said you won’t see much of that during the winter. 

“I’ve been here for so long, I’ve seen it up and I’ve seen it down,” Becki said. “It’s quiet, so I don’t mind.” 

Ladimir Garcia is a PublicSource editorial intern. He can be reached at ladimir@publicsource.org.

Terryaun Bell is an editorial intern with PublicSource and can be reached at terryaun@publicsource.org or on Twitter @Terryaun_Bell.

Jack Troy is a PublicSource editorial intern and can be reached at jack@publicsource.org or on Twitter @jacktroywrites.

Aavin Mangalmurti contributed.

This story was fact-checked by Abigail Nemec-Merwede.

The post Gainey budget would spend some parks tax money on trucks — and none via nonprofit conservancy appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Reported 11/3/22: The issues that loom over Pennsylvania’s upcoming elections are monumental. The next governor will have sway over state laws on abortion, voting and labor. The next U.S. senator could decide partisan control of Congress. But the late stages of the campaign take place largely on the lowest level: Door-knockers, phone bankers and organizers try to squeeze as many votes as possible out of their political base.  

As the old political saying goes: It all comes down to turnout. 

In Allegheny County, voter turnout trends mirror the disparities and inequalities present in the region. Municipalities that have whiter populations tend to have higher voter turnout, and municipalities with lower median household income tend to have lower turnout. Some of the most marginalized and challenged communities in Southwestern Pennsylvania make the least noise at the ballot box.

In 2018, the most recent midterm election, McKees Rocks had the lowest voter turnout in Allegheny County: 39% of its registered voters turned out that year, compared to 58% across the county. Its population is 41% Black, while the county is 14% Black. Its median household income — $31,130 — is less than half the county’s.

McKees Rocks Mayor David Flick said people in lower-income communities are less likely to have free time and energy to be civically engaged, which leads to lower turnout.

“If you’re living week to week, if you’re living check to check, you don’t get to spend an awful lot of time navel gazing,” Flick said. “If you’re going to be a legitimately informed voter … that requires a lot of time and due diligence.”

At the high end of 2018 turnout, at 77%, was tiny Ben Avon Heights, just northwest of the city, where 97% of 400 residents are white and the median household income is triple that of the county. All of the county’s wealthiest enclaves had above-average turnout, while the poorest ones — headlined by shrinking rivertowns Braddock, Rankin, Homestead and McKeesport — each had turnout below 45%. 

Allegheny County’s turnout patterns are also largely correlated with race. The eight majority-minority municipalities each had below average turnout in 2018, with only one (Wilkinsburg) cracking 50%. The 10 lowest-turnout municipalities that year were home to 4% of the county’s overall population, but 14% of its Black population. 

Lack of progress and low information feeds low turnout

Leaders of local activist groups and municipal governments told PublicSource they think turnout is down in these areas because marginalized people are not seeing tangible results when they vote.

“Affluent people, most white middle-class folks, they see how their vote gets them what they want and helps their quality of life be better,” said local activist Brandi Fisher at an October rally in the Hill District aimed at getting low-income people to turn out in November. “Poor and Black and Brown people don’t see that.”

On the other hand, she pointed to recent presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, who she said won elections in 2008 and 2016, respectively, because they convinced groups of infrequent voters that their votes could actually spur change. 

Tim Stevens, leader of the Black Political Empowerment Project, said in an interview after the Hill District rally that people who lack basic services like health care or adequate food and housing “could very easily feel that nobody’s paying attention, and you could feel that you have no power in the matter.”

Dominique Davis-Sanders, the council president in Braddock, said the way people have been treated by police during protests may have discouraged them from political participation. “A lot of people thought, you know what, I’m tired of voting if it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Sometimes you just feel defeated and want to give up.”

Duquesne Mayor R. Scott Adams said a shortage of local journalism could be depressing turnout, with voters having fewer places to look for information. Newspapers like the McKeesport Daily News have closed, while others have reduced print days.

“A lot of times that information doesn’t get out because a lot of the older population here relied on the local paper for their news,” Adams said. “The older people really loved their local newspaper. … I think that means a lot to how the information isn’t getting out.”

Creating ‘generational voters’ in Pittsburgh

Community leaders said the key to increasing turnout lies at the grassroots level, not in a silver bullet policy fix (though they have some policy suggestions, too).

Maryn Formley, who leads Pittsburgh’s Voter Empowerment Education & Enrichment Movement [VEEEM], said her goal is to create “generational voters” — people who count voting as a family or community tradition.

“I always voted because my mom always voted,” Formley said. “For a while I voted because I was supposed to, but then in 2008 I felt there was some impact there. VEEEM was started to get that information to people that their vote can have impact.”

Formley said her group primarily works in northeast Pittsburgh, in Homewood and East Hills. The neighborhoods had below-average turnout in 2018, but Formley said she feels there has been progress since VEEEM’s founding in the 2017. 

Find out what turnout looked like in your Pittsburgh voting district using this map and search tool. Find your district at this site. Then type the ward or district number in the search bar.

Wilkinsburg Mayor Dontae Comans said the age-old act of door-to-door canvassing is critical to raising turnout in marginalized communities. 

“In a lot of boroughs, candidates don’t really get out there and knock doors and talk to everyone in the community, so a lot of people feel left out and feel like they don’t have a voice,” Comans said. 

Formley called for the county to revive its 2020 initiative of creating satellite voting locations at which voters cast ballots before Election Day near their homes. She said they benefited people who have issues with mobility or have time constraints on Election Day.

County Councilwoman Bethany Hallam has lobbied election officials to bring back the satellite voting centers, which haven’t been used since the 2020 presidential election. But the officials, with the backing of County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, said their cost was not justified by the relatively low number of votes cast at the locations. 

Ultimately, the perceptions of democracy’s responsiveness may have the most influence on voter participation. The people who do turn out, Comans said, “they’re the ones that make all the decisions.” 

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org or on Twitter @chwolfson.

Ladimir Garcia is a PublicSource editorial intern. He can be reached at ladimir@publicsource.org.

Amelia Winger contributed.

This story was fact-checked by Terryaun Bell.

The post Turnout data show marginalized communities often have quietest voice in Allegheny County elections appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Allegheny County’s Independent Police Review Board now has enough members to begin work, 18 months after the board’s creation. And while this begins a new phase in the quest for oversight of the county’s 100-plus police departments, questions remain over the board’s role and its members’ balance of backgrounds.

County Council appointed four members to the board in early September. On Sept. 30, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald named his four appointees to the board, meaning that eight of the board’s nine seats are filled. 

The way forward for the board is unclear, though. There’s no word on when the board will begin meeting; it’s not known how many, if any, municipalities will choose to enter the board’s jurisdiction; and the board still needs a ninth member, which must be jointly appointed by Fitzgerald and council.

Of the board’s eight members, four are Pittsburgh residents, three are former law enforcement and one is younger than 55. The board members have terms that vary from one to four years.

Fitzgerald’s four appointees:

• Stacey Hawthorne, a Pittsburgh resident and former Pittsburgh police detective 
• Coleman McDonough, a Bethel Park resident and former county police superintendent
• Robert Meinert, Neville resident and former municipal and county police officer
• Regina Ragin-Dykes, a Pittsburgh resident, pastor and vice president of the Pittsburgh NAACP

Hawthorne told PublicSource in an interview that the board’s charge is to “make the people feel comfortable about police and policing.”

Two of Fitzgerald’s appointees are Black, as are two of council’s picks.

Amie Downs, the executive’s spokesperson, said Fitzgerald felt it was important to have minority representation on the board because of the high number of police-civilian interactions that involve people of color. 

McDonough, who was given the longest term at four years, said it’s helpful for a review board to have inside expertise.

“If you are going to examine actions and motives of people in a profession, then it is helpful to have someone with experience in that profession to illuminate that,” McDonough said. “I think if people on the board keep an open mind, we will be able to establish credibility.”

Some on county council, including at least two members who have taken stands against Fitzgerald’s policies over the years, were critical of the executive’s inclusion of three people with police backgrounds.

While Hawthorne said the board will benefit the public by giving them a neutral arbiter for complaints, critics like County Councilor Bethany Hallam say police presence on the board negates much of its neutrality. 

“I’m skeptical that any actual oversight will come from a board with this significant number of police officers,” Hallam said.

Downs responded to criticism of the choices, saying that selecting people “who have an understanding and knowledge of law enforcement provides balance in the board’s role.”

Council President Pat Catena, who has steadily sharpened his council into a stronger check on Fitzgerald, said, “I would have hoped there would have been a more balanced approach” to the executive’s selections.

Hallam voted along with most of council to approve the law that created the board in April 2021, but only after a version of the legislation she preferred was passed over. She said this week that a previous version of the bill would have barred current a police from the board and limited the number of former police to two. 

“This board was supposed to be something different, to provide different checks and balances,” Hallam said. “It’s frustrating that this legislation has even less oversight than we could have imagined.”

Ragin-Dykes said she hopes the board leads to “bridging the gap between the community and law enforcement.”

Councilman Paul Klein, who led the appointment process in council, said he acknowledged that some police departments would be skeptical of a board with no police experience. He also said council picked four non-police members in part because he expected Fitzgerald to appoint former police officials. 

“The skepticism that so many bring to this process is: If you don’t have someone with that experience then, gee, they don’t really get what’s going on,” Klein said. “Generally there was an effort to strike a balance.”

Scaling up?

A major hurdle facing the new board — getting municipalities to opt into oversight — is also generating mixed opinions from appointees and council members. Under the 2021 law, the board has jurisdiction only over the county police force until any of the county’s 130 municipalities proactively opt in.

Hallam told PublicSource previously that she has been talking to numerous municipalities to urge them to opt in, and she is telling residents that the best way to ensure oversight is for them to lobby their local elected officials to opt in. Catena said in June that it would be an “all hands” effort to get municipalities on board.

Hawthorne and Ragin-Dykes echoed that sentiment, with Hawthorne saying “the more, the better.” But McDonough said he is “definitely neutral” on whether municipalities should opt in. 

“I don’t think [recruiting] is part of our charter,” he said. “I would tell them that that’s their decision entirely. Ideally, police officers should be held accountable by their respective political officials.” 

Klein said he expects smaller, more financially challenged municipalities to be naturally drawn to the board, which can provide a service that they can’t provide themselves. “Some municipalities that are much more vulnerable … might say maybe we need some kind of assist here,” he said.

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org or on Twitter @chwolfson.

Ladimir Garcia is a PublicSource editorial intern. He can be reached at ladimir@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Aavin Mangalmurti.

The post Expertise or bias? Fitzgerald names three ex-police to oversight board appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Update (10/3/22): Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald has announced four appointments to the Independent Police Review Board, meaning eight of the board’s nine seats have named appointees. Fitzgerald’s appointees are: former Pittsburgh police Detective Stacey Hawthorne, former county police Superintendent Coleman McDonough, former county police officer and private investigator Robert Meinert and Pittsburgh NAACP Vice President Regina Ragin-Dykes. The ninth and final seat must be filled jointly by County Council and Fitzgerald, and the executive in his Friday announcement said the two sides are in talks.

Reported 9/13/22: Allegheny County’s new Independent Police Review Board could be a “real force for good” in the county, said freshly appointed board member Justin Leavitt Pearl, but any action must wait until all of its seats are filled.

“This board exists so that people can have their voices heard,” said Pearl, one of the four initial appointees. “If that’s happening, I think this board is a success.”

But the nine-member panel, which was created by council’s vote more than 16 months ago, cannot officially begin oversight until County Executive Rich Fitzgerald makes his own four appointments, and it’s unclear when he will do that. (Council and the executive must agree on a ninth member.) 

The board’s effectiveness will also depend on whether or not individual municipalities agree to submit to its oversight.

County Council on Aug. 30 formally appointed four people to the panel, which will be empowered to investigate complaints about police officers under its jurisdiction and make disciplinary recommendations. They are: 

• Pearl, a 35-year-old Pittsburgh resident who directs Carlow University’s Atkins Center for Ethics
• Keith Murphy, 60, of McKeesport and founder of the Healthy Village Learning Institute
• Lynn Banaszak, a 55-year-old Pittsburgher and a diversity, equity and inclusion executive at Amazon
• Richard Garland, 69, of South Park, who was formerly incarcerated and now heads the Violence Prevention Project at the University of Pittsburgh.

These appointees are the product of a monthslong selection process that council initiated in March. In addition to the four, council recommended another candidate, David Mayernick, for Fitzgerald to consider for the joint appointee. 

Fitzgerald’s spokesperson, Amie Downs, said the executive expects to announce his picks for the board “in the coming weeks.” She said in June he was waiting until after council made its appointments.

Two council picks said they hoped the panel could, at the very least, send a positive message.

“Me being a former gang member, me being from Philadelphia, me being incarcerated, for them to pick me for this board says a whole lot to the community and to other formerly incarcerated folks who didn’t think that they could be part of society and have something to do with making change,” Garland said in an interview.

Garland was the top choice of the council’s special committee that finalized the selections.

Pearl said he learned about the board through the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, which he helps to organize.

“What I would like is a situation in which the members of the community of this county are able to have a voice when they feel like they have been mistreated,” Pearl said. He said the board likely does not have the power to “radically reform policing” in the county.

Council’s vote to create the board in April 2021 concluded a legislative process that lasted three years, but signified only the start of the work. It took 14 months for council to narrow its list of candidates, and two more months to appoint the initial four.

That process will continue long after the full board is seated: It presently only has jurisdiction over the county police, and municipalities must formally opt in for their police to be subject to board reviews. Allegheny County has more than 100 police departments.

Council President Patrick Catena said in June that it will be an “all hands” effort on council to lobby municipalities to participate. Council member Bethany Hallam, though, said in a recent interview it will be incumbent on residents to urge their municipal officials to submit to the board’s oversight.

“I sure hope I’m not having to rely on the 15 members of council to do outreach,” she said.

Councilman Tom Duerr, who cosponsored the bill that created the board, said in a recent interview that a successful first year for the board would include hiring a quality executive director and getting between five and 10 municipalities signed on.

“If we could get one of the larger ones to opt in, I think that would be a real strong show of confidence in the board and there could be a cascading effect where we got a lot more municipalities to opt in,” Duerr said. 

Pearl said he suspects there will be initial hesitancy among municipalities, but he hopes that as the board begins its work it will build a positive reputation and gain momentum. Both Pearl and Garland said credibility will come through the board’s work hearing cases.

“I’m gonna call a spade a spade,” Garland said of how he will assess cases that come before the board. “I don’t care which side it’s on.”

Three of the four appointees received unanimous support on council’s final vote, but Pearl received ‘no’ votes from Hallam, Duerr and DeWitt Walton. 

Hallam and Duerr said they opposed his nomination because he was the second appointee who lives in Pittsburgh, and they wanted to see more geographic diversity on the board. Pittsburgh, they each pointed out, already has its own Citizen Police Review Board. 

“There are so many police departments to oversee in this county, and I do think [geographic diversity] can increase the chance of getting municipalities to participate,” Hallam said. “I do think if there’s a board member from Monroeville, the Monroeville police department may be more likely to opt in.”

Duerr said he thought the seat would have been “better served by someone outside city limits with more knowledge of other areas.”

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org or on Twitter @chwolfson.

Ladimir Garcia is a PublicSource editorial intern. He can be reached at ladimir@publicsource.org.

The post Updated: Allegheny County’s police review board receives Fitzgerald’s picks appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.