Mayor O'Connor

[cellio]

(This is a test of posting by email. LJ is blocked at work.)

Pittsburgh's mayor, Bob O'Connor, has been fighting brain cancer for a couple months. (It seemed to come on suddenly.) The news is now reporting that the end is nearing. That's a real pity; he's a good person and seems to be a good mayor. I wasn't happy about him becoming mayor, figuring that he would just continue the abuses and incompetencies of his predecessor Tom Murphy (who probably belongs in jail), but his short time in office has brought pleasant surprises.

I was surprised to read that when Mayor O'Connor dies the president of city council will become mayor. We have a deputy mayor; I always assumed that was like a vice-mayor. I'm curious about how this system came about. (Also curious about how our past deputy mayors have fared. Do they ever go on to get elected mayor? Is it perhaps indicative that I can't name a single one other than the current one?)

Comments

Mayor O'Connor

[(Anonymous)]

I believe that the Mayor is required to be an elected position. The Deputy Mayor is essentially a hired staff position - he or she isn't elected like the VP of the US is. So in the event of the death of the Mayor, the office then goes to the President of City Council.

Scott (http://scottro.blogspot.com)

Mayor O'Connor

[(Anonymous)]

There is, officially, no such office as a Deputy Mayor. The order of succession is set by the City Charter and passes from the Mayor to the President of Council, as when Mayor Caliguiri died and Sophie Masloff took his place.

The reason you haven't heard of previous Deputy Mayors is because they did not exist. The current one was only put into place when O'Connor went into the hospital to ensure that there was someone to make sure the executive offices were running.

Re: Mayor O'Connor

[cellio]

Thanks! I hadn't realized this was such a recent thing; I just assumed that I'd somehow missed a second name on the tickets last year. Though now that I mention it, it would be unusual for a vice-mayor candidate to escape commentary in the press...

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I knew about Mayor O'Connor's cancer (from being up in Pittsburgh for War Practice and Pennsic); I'm sorry to hear that you're losing a good mayor. I am *not* sorry to inform you that your post by email seems to have worked.

[cellio]

Posting worked modulo some wacky formatting (now fixed). I seem to recall that there's some sort of "raw" tag to turn off auto-formatting; I'm willing to insert HTML paragraphs manually if Outlook is going to do things to the outgoing mail. (Required to use Outlook at work; not my choice.)

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Yes, someone beat me to the punch about Sophie Masloff. Have you been in Pittsburgh long enough to remember her? She would go shopping at the Gian' Iggle in Sqwirl Hill. Not such a great mayor, from what I understand.

[cellio]

Yes, I remember Sophie. She put up street signs! (Really. That was a chronic problem here, and I guess she decided that she needed to do something for the rank and file before the election.) I can't really say much more about her, though. :-)