Pittsburgh mayoral candidates Corey O’Connor and Tony Moreno, in a debate aired Sunday morning, agreed the city is facing challenges but laid out differing plans for how to improve public safety, city finances, and affordable housing.

Democratic candidate Corey O’Connor, a former city councilman who now serves as Allegheny County controller, and Republican candidate Tony Moreno, a former city police officer, are vying to replace incumbent Mayor Ed Gainey. Gainey lost to O’Connor in the Democratic primary in May.

O’Connor and Moreno, in the debate televised on WPXI Sunday, agreed they believe the city’s finances should be handled more responsibly.

Moreno vowed not to raise taxes.

“We don’t need to raise taxes,” he said. “The money’s there. Our government and our legacy politicians are just lying to us.”

Moreno suggested starting with a 1% trim to all city departments, outside of public safety, a policy that he has expressed throughout the campaign.

O’Connor did not directly say whether he’d consider a tax hike.

“First thing we have to do is be transparent with our budget,” O’Connor said, reiterating concerns raised by several officials that the preliminary budget proposal Gainey’s administration released does not properly account for all of the city’s expenses, including overtime pay for public safety personnel. “This year’s budget shows faulty numbers as well.”

O’Connor’s solution to addressing the city’s financial woes is to grow the tax base. He wants to attract more residents, businesses and entrepreneurs.

“We have to invest in a growth mentality right now,” O’Connor said.

Moreno said he does not believe the city needs to cut services or workers. He believes Pittsburgh has enough money to fund core city services, but that money ought to be prioritized better. He called for more transparency around the city budget.

“It would be an outrage in our regular blue-collar communities, in our working poor communities, if they knew how much money was coming through this city but not being spent where they need it,” he said.

The candidates agreed the city should not have relied on the facility usage fee — a controversial tax levied on out-of-town professional athletes and performers — in its budget. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down that tax last month.

O’Connor and Moreno sparred over public safety, with Moreno accusing his opponent of defunding the police.

Moreno said he views O’Connor’s vote in support of launching the Stop the Violence fund — which supports the city’s Office of Community Health and Safety and grants money to outside organizations dedicated to combating violence — as an effort to defund police.

O’Connor said he never defunded the police. He defended the city’s efforts to invest in community policing and violence intervention through the Stop the Violence program.

The two did agree, however, that the next mayor must prioritize hiring a police chief. Officials have raised concerns that rapid leadership changes in the police bureau in recent years have harmed morale and led to instability.

“First of all, we have to have a police chief who understands the city of Pittsburgh,” O’Connor said, explaining he wants a top cop who works in the bureau or who has in the past.

Moreno said he is uniquely qualified to choose the next police chief and support the police department as a former officer.

“I was a community police officer,” he said. “I know exactly what it takes, because I walked those beats on the North Side as a community police officer.”

The city’s next mayor will also be at the helm when the NFL Draft comes to the Steel City in April. Under Gainey’s administration, the city has agreed to pay $1 million to support the event and to provide an unspecified amount of services, like police, EMS and public works employees.

O’Connor said he would like to see the details of the city’s agreements with the football league. He also called for more clarity on how the event will benefit taxpayer residents.

“What are we going to see besides seeing people going to the North Shore and Point State Park?” O’Connor asked, explaining he hopes to encourage people to explore other city neighborhoods. The April 23-25 event is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Moreno similarly questioned how much the city will be expected to provide to make the Draft run smoothly.

“It’s not going to improve our bottom line in the budget,” he said of the event.

Both Moreno and O’Connor said the city needs to invest more in its aging vehicle fleet, particularly for public safety vehicles.

Moreno said he believes the city has the funding to afford such investments if the budget were prioritized differently. O’Connor has said he’d like to see the city’s major nonprofits chip in to pay for public safety vehicles.

On the topic of affordable housing, O’Connor said he would offer tax incentives to developers looking to build housing for low-income people. He also wants vacant properties in the city’s inventory moved to community groups that could convert them to housing and invest more in home-ownership opportunities, rather than focusing primarily on rental properties. He said he would support allowing developers to create more density.

Moreno questioned how the city measures affordability for housing developments.

“Affordable housing — I don’t think that phrase means what they think it means,” he said. “Affordable for who?”

He called for slashing red tape to make it easier for community groups to build housing.

Each candidate pitched himself as one who could bring positive change to Pittsburgh.

“Pittsburgh, we have a difficult job ahead of us,” O’Connor said. “We are going into financial crisis. We are going into a shortage of public safety. We have equipment that breaks down to and from calls.”

With more than a decade of experience in city government and three years as county controller, O’Connor said he would bring experience to Grant Street.

Moreno said his mayoral run is a continuation of a lifetime dedicated to public service, which has included serving in the military and on the city’s police force.

“I took oaths to protect property and people. We’re not seeing that right now,” he said. “Our legacy politicians have been conditioned to operate to preserve themselves. That’s what they do. I am not that. I’m here to serve you, Pittsburgh.”

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