City Council G-20 committee to “briefly” consider Pitt arrests

A new Pittsburgh City Council committee, approved two weeks ago, will focus on analyzing the… A new Pittsburgh City Council committee, approved two weeks ago, will focus on analyzing the costs of the G-20 Summit. It will not necessarily discuss allegations of police brutality in detail.

A city official, who asked to remain anonymous because legislation is pending, said city council’s G-20 Committee will look at the cost — in terms of money, public safety and human rights — of hosting the G-20 and archive that information for the future.

She said the committee will briefly consider Pitt students’ accounts of the events in Oakland to determine how they affected the monetary cost of the Summit. She said some council members have talked about creating an independent committee to investigate how students and officers interacted with one another during the Summit. No council members have introduced legislation for the additional committee yet.

The G-20 Committee has not met yet. Its members — some of whom have yet to be determined — will include members of the council committees on Finance and Law, Public Safety and Intergovernmental Affairs, as well as the City Controller, the Director of Public Safety and two of his appointees.

City Council members said in council documents that they created the G-20 Committee to conduct “objective fact-finding in matters associated with the decision to host the G-20, the planning and preparation for the event, the costs of the event and contributions — monetary and in-kind — from other governments, and the operational decisions made leading up to the event.”