DeSantis courts students

It seems like a valid question to ask a mayoral candidate – who is your favorite past… It seems like a valid question to ask a mayoral candidate – who is your favorite past Pittsburgh mayor?

Mark DeSantis would choose William J. Howard, a name that he admits most probably have not heard.

Howard was mayor of Pittsburgh in 1845.

On April 10 of that year, a Downtown fire “left the city in ashes,” DeSantis said at an event co-hosted by the Pitt Law Republicans and the Pitt College Republicans in the Union yesterday afternoon.

Howard lost his home and was left with very little, the Republican mayoral candidate said, and “if anybody had an excuse to leave the city, it was Mr. Howard.”

DeSantis parallels the economic disparity that Pittsburgh faces now with the physical damage it experienced after one-third of the city was destroyed in the fire.

“We can rebuild this city like [Howard] did,” he said. “In an entirely different way, but we can do it.”

DeSantis’s plan is based on reducing the cost of government and reducing taxes – “We are horribly taxed,” he said – while still being able to pay the bills.

The goal of the plan is to reduce government costs by 1 percent each year for the next five years – without layoffs. “We have to do more with less,” DeSantis said.

“My opponent proposed a budget that projects a deficit,” he said. “You only do that as a joke or you get fired.”

DeSantis, who hopes to have raised more than $350,000 when his campaign is said and done, has been endorsed by The Pitt News and both of the city’s major downtown papers, and credits this support partly to the diverse group he surrounds himself with.

“I even have a communist on my campaign,” DeSantis said.

He confessed that his staff doesn’t agree on everything – they can’t talk about national politics because “a fist fight would break out.”

The simple fact that they all have the same goal – pulling the city out of its virtual bankruptcy – makes it easy to see eye-to-eye when it comes to Pittsburgh.

“I propose the modest goal of having our city government be engaged in its community,” DeSantis said.

His vision for alleviating the financial weight of the city includes straying away from development, big subsidies and taxes.

When it comes to development Downtown or elsewhere in the city, DeSantis discourages government spending.

“We’re broke,” he said, pointing towards “neighborhood-by-neighborhood development” as a potential remedy to this question. “This way, the people on the receiving end actually design the development.”

DeSantis suggested that the government should stop being a developer and hand government property that isn’t in use over to private businesses.

“When you get into the private market as a government, you skew it,” he said.

And this theory includes public transportation.

DeSantis said that there is an urgent need for a “public artery of transportation from Downtown to Oakland,” but that the problem always leads back to the city’s lack of money.

“Direct economic contribution is not going to happen,” he said.

DeSantis plans to use his background in business, if elected, to stimulate the economy.

In turn, he said, Pittsburgh will become a more viable place to live for college graduates.

“If there are no growing businesses in this city, there’s not much we can do to keep you folks,” he said.

One idea is to let new businesses keep some money they would normally be expected to dish out to the government.

“I’m not going to write big checks,” he said. “If that means eliminating taxes for new companies, so be it.”

DeSantis said this would have a “minimal impact” on the city government.

Another plan that should affect city retention of college students is DeSantis’s plan to develop a program for minority-owned businesses, he said.

He vows to start the program – through non-profit and corporate funding – with or without a win in the election.

As for consolidation – combining county and city governments – DeSantis is all for it. It would require starting from square one and re-drafting the city government, therefore not yielding significant savings right away, he said. But “there are some very practical benefits.”

By “fusing” the city and county departments that overlap and by re-assessing government structure, the city would benefit, DeSantis said.

When all is said and done, his plan is about saving money – and incrementally, bringing the city away from its deficit.

“I don’t want to be that person that says ‘if only,'” DeSantis said. “Eventually, you run out of the ‘if onlys’ and your potential fades away.”