Pittsburgh Mayor-elect Ed Gainey announces transition team details

Pittsburgh Mayor-elect Ed Gainey on Monday introduced new members to his transition committee as he prepares to take office next month.

The announcement came virtually after he said he tested positive for covid-19 Monday morning.

“This is a robust group of people that came together here,” Gainey said of his transition team, who he has tasked with helping him “make this a city for all.”

Gainey in November announced his transition team would be led by transition chair Angel Gober, a community organizer who serves as the Western Pennsylvania director for One Pennsylvania, a statewide social justice organization. Gainey appointed Silas Russell — vice president and political director of the labor union SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania — as the transition co-chair.

Jake Pawlak, who served as senior advisor to Gainey’s mayoral campaign, was named transition director last month. Pawlak has held posts at the Urban Redevelopment Authority and Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority.

Formerly Gainey’s campaign chare in the mayoral race, Lisa Frank — who serves as the executive vice president of strategic campaigns for SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania — is serving as the team’s transition advisor.

During Monday’s announcement, he also named the individuals who would serve on four transition committees dedicated to helping him find actionable solutions to several key issues he hopes to tackle as mayor.

The Equitable Development Committee is co-chaired by Monica Ruiz, the executive director at local nonprofit Casa San Jose, and Bob Damewood, a staff attorney with Regional Housing Legal Services.

The Education and Workforce Development Committee will be co-chaired by Regina Holley, former director of the Pittsburgh Public School District board, and Darrin Kelly, president of the Allegheny Fayette Labor Council.

Jim Bey, president and founder of the think tank UrbanKind Institute, and Christine Mondor, who serves on Pittsburgh’s planning commission, will co-chair the Infrastructure and Environment Committee.

The Community Health and Safety Committee will be led by Kathi Elliott, who serves as CEO of the nonprofit Gwen’s Girls, and Wasi Mohamed, senior policy officer at The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Those committees will lead a public process to create reports that will outline concrete ways the Gainey administration can aim to fulfill key policy goals, Gober said. The reports will be publicly released in April, she said.

“We are charged with bringing forward an actionable set of recommendations to take on some of Pittsburgh’s most pressing challenges,” including public safety reforms, education, transportation and affordable housing, Russell said.

The committees will begin meeting biweekly in January and will hold public town halls before releasing their reports.

“It’s an honor and a great responsibility I do not take lightly,” Ruiz said of her spot on the transition team. “I want Pittsburgh to be a more welcoming city for everyone, including our new residents, our immigrant residents.”

Everyone on the committees is a Pittsburgh resident and fully vaccinated, Russell said.

“This is such an amazing time in Pittsburgh, sort of like a renaissance,” Elliott said. “I’m so hopeful and excited about what is about to happen in our region — community and government truly coming together, working together for the greater good of all.”

Making Pittsburgh a city for all wasn’t just a campaign promise, but a mission Gainey said he will continue to focus on throughout his transition and time in office.

“A new seed has been planted and it will grow to build a city that is inclusive of all of us, that we all have a seat at the table,” he said.

Additional information about members of the transition team and the transition process are posted on Gainey’s transition website.

Also assisting in the transition process is New Orleans-based Thomas Consulting Group, who is gathering information about the city’s departments, bureaus, authorities, commissions and other offices to compile into a guidebook that will be publicly available in January.

The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments offered the service to Gainey or his Republican challenger Tony Moreno after the May primary election, said Lisa Schroeder, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Foundation. The consulting group is coordinating with Mayor Bill Peduto’s administration to gather data that will showcase descriptions of the functions of each city office, as well as the challenges and opportunities that exist there.

The information is scheduled to be published on the Pittsburgh Foundation’s website in late January, as well as the city’s site later, Schroeder said.

“This entire project is about providing critical information that will help us become a city that is inclusive of everybody, where everybody feels they can make it here, a city where no one is left behind,” she said.

Gainey has previously said his transition is progressing slower than expected. During a November public question and answer session hosted by the Downtown Community Development Corporation, Gainey said that facing a general election challenger put his team behind in the transition process.

Monday he said they’ve since made “great process.”

“To be where we are today and ready to work and ready to present a report to the people of Pittsburgh by April, I’m very happy with that and I’m excited about it,” he said.

But Gainey declined to offer specific answers to several questions, including how many Peduto appointees will remain on the city’s staff after his inauguration, whether there will be personnel changes in the Department of Public Safety as part of his efforts to reform policing and what plans he had for the city’s Housing Authority and relationships with the school district.

Many of those questions, he said, would be addressed soon.

Details regarding his upcoming inauguration have also yet to be finalized, Gober said.

“At this time, we will do assessment as we get a little closer because we are prioritizing the health and safety of folks on this team and also participants that would want to come to the inauguration,” she said, saying that details about the plans — including whether the event would be held virtually — would be released in the coming days.

Gainey has previously confirmed that Pawlak and State Rep. Jake Wheatley will also have posts in his administration.