Joseph Sabino Mistick: Gainey still has time to make Pittsburgh safer

Just as Pittsburgh weather comes from the west and often through Chicago, local political watchers are wondering what the defeat of first-term Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot could mean for Pittsburgh and the reelection of Mayor Ed Gainey in 2025. Lightfoot, the first incumbent Chicago mayor in 40 years not to be reelected, never got a handle on public safety, try as she might.

Lightfoot was elected as a reform candidate in 2019, but voters have different concerns now, making Chicago the third major city in two years — after New York and Los Angeles — in which a mayor’s race has turned on policing and crime. On the campaign trail, she trotted out statistics to persuade voters that murders and carjackings were beginning to recede, but voters were skeptical. For them this was about more than statistics.

For them this was about danger and the perception of danger, the brazenness of violent criminals acting in full view, the sudden eruption of gunfire in places that have always been safe. And in Pittsburgh, all of that is compounded by the neglect of basic public housekeeping that has turned some of our Downtown streets into trash dumps and toilets.

As Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams told CNN, Lightfoot’s defeat is a “warning sign for the country.” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote that the election results in Chicago “will be read by many Democrats as a warning” to produce results on crime.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, a Democrat, announced his support last week for a bill that would increase sentences for illegal gun crimes. “We’ve done it the academics’ way for the past eight years. Enough is enough,” Bates stated in a Baltimore Banner op-ed when his position was criticized by a law professor.

In Washington, D.C., President Joe Biden said that he supported a bill to block changes in the District of Columbia crimes code that would have reduced maximum sentences for robbery and carjacking among other violent crimes.

Like Lightfoot, Gainey tried to use statistics to show that things are not so bad when he met with hundreds of Downtown stakeholders in early February. Few were buying that. As one Downtown resident said after the meeting, “We live here. We’re here every day. We know that’s not true.”

Gainey promised to triple the number of police Downtown. That sounded impressive, but what is the number that is being tripled? This past week, Allegheny County Police ended their emergency Downtown patrols, leading many to believe that there will be no net gain of police coverage.

The mayor has said that he “will not criminalize homelessness.” No caring person wants him to do that. But no one wants him to decriminalize harassment, terroristic threats and assaults either.

The mayor promised a plan to clean up the streets, collecting the trash often and making more public toilets available. Until that happens, many people will keep working from home, and Downtown will continue its slide.

Gainey has time to turn it around and still has the goodwill of many Pittsburghers. But it is not a lot of time. Let’s hope he can pull it off.