EDITORIAL – Ravenstahl can learn lesson from election results

No surprise: Mayor Luke Ravenstahl swept Pittsburgh’s mayoral elections Tuesday – the city… No surprise: Mayor Luke Ravenstahl swept Pittsburgh’s mayoral elections Tuesday – the city hasn’t seen a Republican mayor since 1933. Surprise: Ravenstahl won by the narrowest margin since 1965. So what does this mean to Ravenstahl, the youngest mayor of a major city in U.S. history?

It means that now more than ever, a sizeable amount of Pittsburghers are asking for a change. Sure, Ravenstahl’s margin of victory was still fairly significant – he received 42,190 votes to beat Republican candidate Mark DeSantis, who received 23,173 votes – but the turnout DeSantis received was indicative that he was saying something that Pittsburghers wanted to hear.

DeSantis, who campaigned on a progressive platform of economic reform, called for a change in the city’s tax system that would encourage new businesses to come into the area and give Pittsburgh’s lagging economy a boost.

But this isn’t a piece about what DeSantis could have done. Ravenstahl won the election – a sign, to an extent, that Pittsburghers are happy with Ravenstahl’s first 14-month go round as mayor.

It’s hard to say however, whether all of the voters who came out in support of Ravenstahl Tuesday are happy with Pittsburgh’s status quo. We sure aren’t.

Our city has been struggling for years. Businesses are leaving, along with graduating students who can’t find jobs in the city, and crime and inadequate housing conditions are a hard reality in many parts of the city.

Ravenstahl was only handed 14 months to tackle Pittsburgh’s many problems, so it’s difficult to judge his effectiveness at mending Pittsburgh’s hardships. He served the last year in the spirit of the late Mayor Bob O’Connor, striving to fulfill his vision of a cleaner, safer city with the “Redd up Pittsburgh” campaign.

But now that Ravenstahl has won the election, he is here on his own terms. Ravenstahl has worked for the past year to change the image of Pittsburgh, something our city certainly needs, and a job that Ravenstahl seemed born to do. He was a prime example of a successful twenty-something living in Pittsburgh. He was supposed to attract more young people to the city and give businesses a wake-up call: Young people live in Pittsburgh, too.

Unfortunately, one thing we’ve learned in the past 14 months is that boyish good looks and an exuberant personality aren’t enough to save our city’s economy. In order to attract young people to Pittsburgh, we need to first bring in the businesses to give them jobs. And our existing tax structure is not very forgiving to new businesses.

Reforming Pittsburgh’s tax structure is in the best interests of the city. Even though Ravenstahl’s victory will continue Pittsburgh’s Democratic legacy, he needs to understand that business growth does not have to be a partisan issue. Bringing new businesses into our city is good for everyone, from young, liberal college students to middle-aged conservatives.

DeSantis’ strong showing in Tuesday’s elections can’t go unnoticed, and there is no shame in adopting some of his ideas, because, if there is one characteristic that all Pittsburghers share, it’s that we love our city and want the best for it.