While there are many reasons Ed Gainey lost the Pittsburgh mayoral primary; one of them was his ridiculous decision (secretive of course) to permit police Chief Larry Scirotto to referee high-level college basketball games while still employed as chief. Referees at that level make $100,000 to $150,000 per season, including travel and expenses.
Nice job if you can get it, and still get paid well over $150,000 from the city while being away at least two days for every game (at latest 25 or so games).
When this blew up, Scirotto retired a second time after 17 months and boosted his pension approximately $40,000. Now he would have got that eventually if he stayed on (and more), but now he gets it quickly way before it should have started.
I’m sure there were many other issues that led to his loss, but this was a very bad move on Gainey’s part. The police chief job under his administration became the flavor of the month. And Scirotto’s “deal” was questionable to say the least.
So to use some basketball terminology, Gainey got a technical foul for hiding the deal. He got called for traveling when he got called on it. And eventually he just simply fouled out, and now he’s on the bench and can’t get back in the game.
Wayne Herrod
Upper St. Clair