Support growing for Gainey in bid for re-election

MAYOR ED GAINEY WITH LONGTIME SUPPORTER DEVON TALIAFERRO. TALIAFERRO IS A PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS BOARD DIRECTOR.

Some PPS board directors, other officials standing by Gainey

Pittsburgh School Board Director Devon Taliafer­ro has had enough of the hating.

Now in her second term on the board, she told the New Pittsburgh Courier in an exclusive interview how much of an asset she feels Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey has been to the city, but specifically, to the students enrolled in Pitts­burgh Public Schools.

She said that from Day 1, Mayor Gainey was “finding a way to make sure that the school dis­trict and the city were better well-connected. We started having reg­ular meetings between our government relations committee on the board and the administration.”

Taliaferro continued: “The mayor instituted a lot of great programming for our high school stu­dents, like the Youth Civic Leadership Academy that educates high-school-age students about local gov­ernment and how systems work, and also gives them the opportunity to shadow city employees.”

Taliaferro said Mayor Gainey partnered with the district’s successful CTE (Career and Techni­cal Education) Program, “and getting CTE stu­dents access to job shad­owing and internship op­portunities.”

Not to mention that Mayor Gainey is a proud product of Pittsburgh Public Schools, graduat­ing from Peabody High School, and being a parent of a PPS graduate as well.

With all this in mind, Taliaferro decided to host an event at the Black-owned Hysyde Lounge (California Ave., North Side) and publicly throw her full support be­hind Gainey as he seeks re-election for mayor. But it wasn’t just her—an­other PPS Board Direc­tor (board members are referred to as directors), Sylvia Wilson, came out to show her support for Gainey. As did PPS’ CTE Program Director, Angela Mike. As did another PPS employee, Ruthie Walk­er, who also doubles as Brashear High School’s girls basketball coach.

VICE PRESIDENT OF THE WILKINSBURG SCHOOL BOARD, ASHLEY
COMANS, WITH HUSBAND AND WILKINSBURG MAYOR, DONTAE COMANS.

Other supporters includ­ed Wilkinsburg Mayor Dontae Comans and his wife, Wilkinsburg School Board Vice President Ash­ley Comans. Some City of Pittsburgh employees were in attendance, too.

As the people in atten­dance clapped and shook hands with Mayor Gainey when he walked in, they waved “Re-elect Ed Gain­ey” and “Keep Pittsburgh Home—Ed Gainey for Mayor” signs, too.

Taliaferro said the event showed that despite re­ports that the Allegheny County Democratic Com­mittee voted to endorse Mayor Gainey’s opponent, Corey O’Connor, for may­or, the support for Mayor Gainey around town is vast.

“When you’re the first to do something, that always ruffles feathers,” Taliafer­ro, a current North Side resident, told the Couri­er exclusively, March 10. “Him being the first Af­rican American mayor in this city and a mayor who really tried to bring equity to the city…there are com­munities that have been getting resources and services for decades and other neighborhoods in the city that don’t, and he wanted to make sure that everyone had the oppor­tunity to get the resourc­es they needed for their neighborhoods to thrive.”

RUTHIE WALKER AND ANGELA MIKE WERE AMONG THE MANY ED GAINEY SUPPORTERS AT HYSYDE LOUNGE.

On Feb. 24, Mayor Gain­ey was endorsed by the Steel City Stonewall Dem­ocrats, the largest and most active LGBTQ+ po­litical organization in the region. He called their en­dorsement “a testament to the work my adminis­tration has done to codi­fy gender-affirming care, support Pride, and acti­vate the full power of our city government to make sure Pittsburgh is a place where everyone can thrive regardless of gender iden­tity or sexual orientation.”

The mayor also has been endorsed by the United Steelworkers District 10, which represents nearly 50,000 steelworkers in the region.

“Mayor Gainey has con­sistently delivered for the union members and working families of our city,” said USW District 10 Director Bernie Hall, in a statement obtained by the Courier, Feb. 4. “During his time in of­fice, he’s acted to protect worker safety, enforce prevailing wage law and paid sick days, negotiate fair contracts with unions, and guide young people directly into city union work and apprenticeships. USW District 10 looks forward to helping keep Mayor Gainey in office and continuing to build a city where all workers can organize, bargain collec­tively, and have a voice on the job.”

Mayor Gainey’s cam­paign website also listed SEIU (Service Employ­ees International Union) Healthcare PA, IUOE (In­ternational Union of Op­erating Engineers) Local 66, West­ern Pa. Black Political Assembly and Congress­woman Summer Lee as endorsers of Gainey.

Come May 20, the date of the Primary Election, it’s highly unlikely that Gainey or O’Connor will win the Democratic nom­ination in a landslide. Mayor Gainey has forged too many relationships with different ethnic groups that support his views and mayoral leader­ship. However, O’Connor has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Mayor Gainey for his campaign, and television commercials are already running, urging residents to support O’Connor.

When the Allegheny County Democratic Com­mittee (ACDC) announced on Sunday, March 9, that its members voted, 274-270, to support O’Connor over Mayor Gainey, the current mayor was not deterred. In fact, Mayor Gainey’s campaign called the historically close vote from the ACDC a demon­stration against “estab­lishment leadership” in the Democratic Commit­tee.

“If there’s anything the first months of the Trump administration have taught us, it’s that Demo­cratic voters want leaders who will put the needs of regular people over pow­erful corporations, bil­lionaires, union-busting CEOs, predatory land­lords and developers, and MAGA billionaires ripping Pittsburghers off,” Mayor Gainey said in a statement, March 9. “Some of our city’s Dem­ocratic leadership want to move backward to an era they were comfortable with, but I’ve spent my first term pushing us for­ward.”

Taliaferro echoed the mayor’s sentiments about how he stood up to UPMC to get them, officially la­beled as a non-profit, to “pay their fair share,” as Mayor Gainey put it. Tali­aferro also has enjoyed Mayor Gainey standing up to out-of-town real es­tate companies purchas­ing homes in the city and turning them into high-priced rentals.

“He has stood up against so many different factors and things,” Taliaferro told the Courier, “that don’t resonate with people when they have a differ­ent agenda and a different plan.”

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Rob Taylor Jr. - Courier Staff Writer

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