DeSantis gets endorsements, cash

As Election Day approaches, Republican mayoral hopeful Mark DeSantis is becoming a more… As Election Day approaches, Republican mayoral hopeful Mark DeSantis is becoming a more formidable opponent.

DeSantis received yesterday an endorsement from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The City of Pittsburgh police announced their endorsement of DeSantis last week, as well.

During a meet-and-greet event held on Friday at Mitchell’s Restaurant and Bar Downtown, DeSantis also learned that he has surpassed current Mayor Luke Ravenstahl in raising campaign funds in the period since his campaign began, though Ravenstahl raised more overall as the incumbent.

At the event, DeSantis sat down with student reporters from across the city and answered questions about what’s on his iPod (Pink Floyd, Def Leppard and Depeche Mode), what his favorite movies are (they include “Citizen Kane,” “From Here to Eternity” and “Rocky”) and what his favorite part about Pittsburgh is.

“I love Pittsburgh’s history,” he said. “Pittsburgh in 1900 had more wealth per capita than any other city in the world.”

The former aide to Sen. John Heinz also said that in his spare time he likes to work out and run, but he joked that since the campaign he’s forgotten what he likes to do for fun.

“I have a good glass of wine and a cigar every now and then when I can,” he said.

DeSantis is also an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University and has written two books he’s hoping to publish: “Purposeful Networking” and “Power: How to Get It, Use It and Keep It.”

DeSantis also discussed how he intends to keep young people in the city.

“The most important thing is to create jobs, and that’ll take time,” he said.

“We could go to another part of the country and fill up busloads of young people, add them to the ones who are already here but if there are no jobs those young people will leave.

“My focus is creating a fertile soil for young, new innovative companies to grow. One of the things I proposed was to eliminate the gross receipts tax and the payroll preparation tax for companies that are three years old or younger so this will encourage, ideally, people to start coming and building companies.”

DeSantis also has a plan for student parking and housing.

“The parking problems are huge,” he said. “What we can do is encourage the Parking Authority, which is controlled by the mayor, to really look at ways to increase the amount of parking in Oakland.

“You can’t just go in and build a massive parking garage, it’s got to be in the context of a well thought-out plan of increasing the parking particularly where there are a lot of private homes, that’s critical.

“Student housing is another issue,” he said. “I would sit down with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon and see if there’s something the city can do to contribute University-owned housing.

“The non-profits need to contribute in some way or another and my plan is to convince the non-profits to do some sort of bartering where, for example, they might buy some of the city property and use it for public housing.

“It’s a quid pro quo. The city gets revenue, the universities get property.”

He also attributed a lot of the petty crime and vandalism in Oakland to the housing situation.

“When you have housing issues, when you pack people into a tight space, you’re going to have crime.

“There’s also too much of an acceptance by the University of petty crime, which in my mind is like holding up a sign pointing to that place saying ‘hey, commit more crime here,’ so I propose a zero tolerance policy.”

Some of the 75 people who attended the event were simply curious citizens.

Scott Morley, who graduated from Pitt in 2004, was there with a friend and said he thought it was a good way to meet DeSantis and people who support him and hear what he has to say.

“Pittsburgh hasn’t had a Republican mayor in a long time,” he said. “I think the city could use a fresh face.”

Despite Morley’s age, he said he doesn’t necessarily feel a kinship with the current 27-year-old mayor.

“DeSantis may be twice [Ravenstahl’s] age, but his ideas are a lot younger,” Morley said. “Ravenstahl is part of the same Democratic machine that’s been here for 50 years.”

DeSantis’ campaign communications director Mike Devanney said one of his favorite anecdotes from the race involves an 80-year-old woman DeSantis met in Lawrenceville.

“When Mark went into Lawrenceville this woman came up to him, and she was probably 85 and she said: ‘I’m your worst nightmare.’ And Mark said, ‘Why is that ma’am?’ and she said, ‘Because I love voting against Republicans. Even if I don’t like the Democrat I actually like voting against the Republicans. But you have my vote.’

“To me that’s the type of stuff that makes this all worthwhile,” Devanney said. “If you look at qualifications, if you look at plans for the future, if you look at vision, Mark’s got this thing hands down.”