Kevin On the Issues: Putting Pittsburgh First
When I'm mayor, I won't just say I'm getting it done. I will get it done. I'll get it done right, and I'll get it done for everyone. And I won't stop until Pittsburgh is getting it done better than every other city in the country.I'll never put myself or my friends or my administration or my campaign contributors or anyone or anything else before the needs of the people in this city. I'm going to put you -- every single one of you, from Bloomfield to Brookline, from Hays to Homewood -- first. I'm going to put good government first. I'm going to put Pittsburgh first.
FIRST IN NEIGHBORHOODS
I'll promote and renew our greatest assets -- all 88 of them -- by: enhancing our pools, playgrounds and community centers; improving our business districts; cleaning and paving our streets, launching comprehensive new green initiatives; making our parks and trails what they should be-- the envy of every big city in the country.
FIRST IN SAFETY
As someone who comes from a family of people who've dedicated their lives to public safety, I'll make sure our police, fire, and EMS workers have the tools they need to make Pittsburgh the safest city in America.
FIRST IN JOBS
We'll grow the city for the first time in generations. We'll take care of our own, bring our people home, and put Pittsburgh back on the map as the country's leading job and business creator.
FIRST IN EDUCATION
The education of our children and the excellence of our school system are the keys to the growth and prosperity of our city. So my Promise will be to do everything I can to help make the Pittsburgh Public Schools the finest urban school district in the country.
FIRST IN LEADERSHIP
I'll give Pittsburgh the most transparent, responsive, and innovative city government in the country. I promise to be the hardest working mayor in America, striving every hour of every day to serve your needs and deserve your respect. In my administration, where integrity and diversity andinclusiveness and accountability will be more than just slogans or buzzwords, the buck will always stop WITH ME.
If you elect me as the next Mayor of the city of Pittsburgh, I'll be your tireless advocate, your uplifted voice, and your unwavering champion.
I'll make decisions based not on what's best for my administration, but on what's best for all of our neighborhoods. I'll create policies based not on what's best for a few donors and dignitaries, but what's best for all of our citizens. And I'll support legislation that helps not just the powerful and the politically connected, but the powerless and the politically forgotten.
KEVIN'S CLOSING ARGUMENT ON THE ISSUES & MAYORAL PRIORITIES
October 28, 2009
Good morning. Thank you for being here today.
Over the course of this campaign, from the beginning of June when I announced my candidacy all the way to today, with less than a week until the election, I’ve run with one idea in mind: that our neighborhoods are being neglected, and that they need a voice in the Mayor’s office.
At the same time the region’s jobless rate has hit a 23-year high, Mayor Ravenstahl is running a campaign ad entitled, “Jobs,” that touts our city’s “low” and “healthy” unemployment rate. That ad is both hurtful and offensive to the thousands of Pittsburghers who are right now looking for work. And it’s a reminder that a Mayor who listens only to corporate developers and fundraisers will always be out of touch with the struggles of the hard-working people in our city.
In this campaign, we’ve proposed a slew of innovative ideas for Pittsburgh and for hard-working Pittsburghers — ideas to reign in abandoned housing and fix BBI; to put more police on the streets and make our neighborhoods safer; to solve our pension crisis and secure the retirements of our city employees; to reduce wasteful spending and produce an alternative city budget; to refocus the URA away from corporate welfare for big-money developers and back on our neighborhoods and business districts.
We've also called out corruption where we've seen it. Now LET ME BE CLEAR – what I find objectionable about the Mayor's relationship with John Verbanac is the privileged, insider access and influence it affords. The Mayor’s powerful friends — big-time developers, lobbyists, CEOs and other corporate interests — have a direct line into his administration. But the rest of us do not.
When John Verbanac wants to take a jaunt down to Nemacolin with the Mayor, he gets it set up and on the books in one afternoon. When he wants someone hired or fired, it takes one email to the Mayor, and the change is made. If he has an opinion on an important issue before the city, he gets heard and served. But the rest of us do not.
LET ME BE CLEAR – while corporate interests like John Verbanac are sitting in the Mayor's office, calling the shots and getting their way, the doors to the Mayor's office are literally being chained shut, and slammed in the faces of Pittsburghers who want to talk with the mayor about crime, about their forgotten neighborhoods, about how big corporate developments are hurting our city. While the Mayor and John Verbanac trade emails from Grant Street to Cranberry, people in Beechview and Carrick, in Garfield and Sheraden and Homewood, are left to suffer.
These relationships of Mr. Ravenstahl’s have a wide-ranging, devastating impact on the working people of our city. While City Planning and BBI have been gutted, the URA has stepped up to hand out corporate welfare to our city's biggest developers. While the Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime took over a year to find funding, the Mayor was handing out sweetheart deals to some of his biggest campaign contributors. While rich insiders become even more powerful and politically connected, the hard-working people in our neighborhoods become ever more powerless and politically forgotten. That is the priority, and the legacy, of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.
Once more, LET ME BE CLEAR – this Mayor's priorities are hurting our city, our neighborhoods, and our working families. We need new leadership in the Mayor's office, so we can invest more in our neighborhoods, put more police on our streets, and make our communities attractive destinations for young families. These are the only ways for us to grow Pittsburgh, and to put it back where it belongs: on the side of its hard-working people.
