Mayor Bill Peduto appointed 45 people to serve on 11 boards, authorities, and commissions in the City of Pittsburgh Monday. The appointments are said to represent the most diverse class in the history of the city.
Pittsburgh City Paper Editor Chris Potter says many of the new appointees are notable for the experience they bring to the city’s leadership.
He’s looked at previous mayors like Bob O’Connor, who also boasted a diverse administration, and says Mayor Peduto is matching up well. “Numerically we can say he’s doing as well or better than the O’Connor administration. And we have to remember that there are still 20 other boards, authorities and commissions out there. The review board, the ethics board, some of the really heavy-hitting ones that are about government transparency that are really near and dear to the mayor’s heart.”
Potter says the mayor should be looking at racial and ethnic diversity as well as individuals with varying political opinions, members of the LGBT community and unique regional experience. About half of the appointees are women and a quarter are African American, proportions that Potter says track very closely to the population of the city as a whole.
