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A Safe City for All
Pittsburgh has long struggled with police and community relations. All residents deserve to feel safe and secure in their homes and in public; all police officers deserve to be protected and fully supported. As the head chaplain of the Pittsburgh Police Department for 8 years, I know well the delicate and critical task of building a Pittsburgh Police Department that looks like and is accountable to the people of Pittsburgh as well as the stress our officers carry daily. I will work to ensure:
- Police officer compensation is comparable to other surrounding municipalities so that we can retain those we recruit and train.
- Provide sufficient funding and support for the work of the Citizen Police Review Board, to promote robust and fair civilian oversight of police activity, sustaining community trust.
- Develop respectable levels of ethnic diversity within police, fire and EMS through recruitment and promotions.
- Continue to improve relations between law enforcement and the community.
- Ensure that Pittsburgh is a leader in providing inclusivity to all, regardless of race, gender and sexual orientation, building on my work supporting equal rights in Pittsburgh and across the country.
- Ensure full enforcement of existing city and state legislation forbidding contractors from discriminating against individuals based on their race, gender and sexual orientation. Proactively identify contractors that are backsliding in their commitments to equality under the new administration.
- Devote resources to outreach to and placement of at-risk homeless adults and youth of any race, gender and sexual orientation, in affordable housing.
- Attract businesses and residents by marketing Pittsburgh as an inclusive and tolerant city, highlighting our affordable housing stock as a particular asset often lacking in other inclusive cities.
Building Fair, Equitable and Green Communities
To truly build one Pittsburgh, forced displacement of residents for developments must stop. We must greatly expand our affordable housing stock, along with protecting the affordable housing we already have. We need to make sure that all residents of Pittsburgh who have lived through the old times, through the hard times, are able to benefit from the good times by:
- Working to pass a mandatory inclusionary zoning policy that requires truly affordable housing in new developments, as recommended by the Affordable Housing Task Force, Homes for All Pittsburgh, and others.
- Strict “Build-First” requirements for development that destroys existing affordable housing.
- Protect against speculating through land banking and community land trusts ensuring community control and affordable housing in perpetuity.
- Work to include rent stabilization measures.
World-Class Public Schools for All
Our system of public education should not deepen existing patterns of segregation. School districts make a city, not the other way around. With world class institutions of higher education in our city, we can build a world-class public education system, right here in Pittsburgh. To make this happen, we need to:
- Work with district leadership and support the development of community schools.
- Restore community assets for child development such as recreation centers and parks in distressed neighborhoods.
- Maintain safe communities around our Pittsburgh schools.
- Foster and strengthen collaboratives between the city, the school district and institutions of higher education to create a pipeline from pre-K to full employment.
Responsible Economic Development
A century ago, Pittsburgh’s labor movement took the brutal conditions created by the industrial revolution and, through decades of struggle, turned those conditions into well-paying manufacturing jobs that paved the way for many to move into the middle class through the safeguards of unionization. As we have transformed into a region of high technology, world class educational institutions and healthcare systems, we need to ensure that the accompanying economic divide is mitigated. Pittsburgh needs a new economy, an economy that everyone can comfortably participate in and benefit from. To help foster this government should:
- Help the labor movement in addressing all entities that obstruct the right of all workers to form a union.
- Address past discriminatory practices of labor unions toward minorities in their recruitment, promotions, and protections.
- Refrain as a city from assigning new business to contractors paying under $15/hr. and stipulate contract renewals contingent upon wage increases.
- Foster a “Pittsburgh First” culture, the source hiring of Pittsburgh high school, trade school and college graduates by corporations and other businesses.
- Promote ethnically and culturally diverse businesses, particularly minority- and women-owned businesses, and provide contractual oversight of MBE/WBE participation.[2][3]
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Bill Peduto Incumbent
