Monday saw the inauguration of Bill Peduto as the new Mayor of Pittsburgh. Although I'm not a City resident, I feel a sense of relief that the lassitude associated with the outgoing Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has been lifted.
Peduto may lean a little bit towards the policy wonk side at first glance, but what he brings is passion and a love for Pittsburgh. He's ready to jump into the position and doesn't have that deer-in-headlights aura that Ravenstahl had after taking over for the deceased Bob O'Connor.
There's also a sense of harmony and team building between not only the Mayor and County Executive Rich Fitzgerald (which didn't exist previously), but also with the Mayor and City Council (which also didn't exist previously) now that Peduto ally Bruce Kraus is President of Council. Peduto should be able to get things done with Council, as his allies (6) outnumber his enemies (3).
What Peduto has is vision. One of my favorite quotes is "Vision is seeing things not as they are, but how they can be in the future". That's what Peduto does.
Things are going to get done in Pittsburgh. Whether it's something relatively easy like loosening rules on food trucks to modernizing public transportation (probably with Bus Rapid Transit, should be Light Rail Transit) to re-developing new neighborhoods in the City, Peduto will attempt to get it done.
The Hazelwood zone has always been an area of great interest to Peduto, so we'll see how hard he pushes that right off the start. I imagine that the North Side, with the Garden Theater project soon to start, will be the next hotbed of re-development, like East Liberty and Lawrenceville before.
These are exciting times for Pittsburgh, mostly because there is once again a captain steering the ship.
So, will this guy be spending the next Snowpocalypse in a hot tub somewhere in Ligonier?
ReplyDeleteIf not, then a bunch of people threw away their vote.