Seventeen ribbon cuttings. Seventeen NFL Draft events. Ten visits to senior centers. Two Lenten fish fries. And 21 rounds of cold calls to business owners.
Those and more than 500 other public events paint a partial picture of Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor’s first five months in office.
Unlike the prior administration, O’Connor’s office publishes a daily schedule at the start of each work day, including select meetings, press conferences and community events the mayor plans to attend.
The resulting record, compiled by Public Source from 104 schedules published through June 10, shows some of the mayor’s policy priorities during his first half-year: Business development, youth and education were frequent topics, as were housing and public safety. It shows which parts of the city’s 55 square miles the mayor has visited: Among events with a confirmed location, Downtown and the North Shore (host of April’s NFL Draft) were easily his most frequent destinations.
“It’s rare if we say no,” O’Connor said in an interview about his frequent appearances at business and community events.
Why do so many people want the mayor at their event, anyway? “I think it shows that the city supports whatever the event is,” O’Connor said. “I think it’s also good to know that we’re a mayor’s office that they want to invite.”
The daily schedules are not a complete record of the mayor’s time or travels, and there are no rules or laws requiring the mayor’s staff to disclose his activities. O’Connor said there are countless unplanned meetings and stops throughout each work day, many of which are documented on his social media channels.
Case in point: The schedules included just one meeting with Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, way back on Jan. 12. Asked for comment, Innamorato’s spokesperson said she and the mayor have met several times, with recurring monthly and ad hoc meetings, and the meeting cadence is the same as it was when Ed Gainey occupied the mayor’s office.
Where’s the mayor?
Of more than 500 events in the mayor’s public schedule, 198 were listed with a location. Of the others, many were likely in the City-County Building or Downtown, but this analysis only includes those with confirmed locations.
Of the events with a confirmed location, Downtown was the most common neighborhood. Forty-one events took place there, not counting those that took place in the City-County Building. Downtown events included a Jan. 6 public safety “blitz” on O’Connor’s first day in office, a Steelers pep rally Jan. 12 and a bike ride to celebrate Bike to Work Day on May 14.
Thirty-nine events took place in the City-County Building, mostly within the mayor’s office suite on the fifth floor, with some public-facing events in the ground-floor lobby or portico. It’s a familiar location for O’Connor, who spent 10 years on City Council and three years across the street as county controller.
The mayor’s second most-visited neighborhood was the North Shore — directly caused by the NFL Draft descending on the area around Acrisure Stadium in April. The draft was one of the largest events the city has ever seen and the mayor kept busy welcoming out-of-town officials and tourists throughout the grounds (as well as taking in concerts featuring Wiz Khalifa and Nelly).
The schedules show visits to 51 of the city’s 90 neighborhoods; 28 of those saw more than one visit.
O’Connor said he’s visited more than 70, with some impromptu stops while en route from one event to another not reflected in his public schedule.
“Of the 15 to 20 we haven’t gotten to, we’re going to get there,” O’Connor said. “I think being present in every neighborhood is very important because you get to see what each neighborhood group and organization is working on, and you get to hear it straight from them.”
The neighborhoods he visited include some of the city’s hotspots for housing development, like Central Lawrenceville and the Strip District, and longtime targets for renewal, such as Larimer and the Hill District.
The neighborhoods that have not appeared on the mayor’s public schedule are spread throughout the city; each of the broad regions and the nine council districts received a sizable dose of mayoral attention.
What is the mayor working on?
A Public Source analysis of the events’ topics showed education has been an early focus for O’Connor, a father of two young children who, as mayor, has little formal power over the education system. The mayor held or participated in 57 events related to education and youth during his first five months, out of 463 events for which a topic could be gleaned.
While the school district is governed by elected and appointed officials separate from city government, the pattern fits with O’Connor’s campaign pledge to boost youth programs and rec centers to make the city “every family’s first choice.”
Many of these events included the mayor’s wife, Katie O’Connor, and they ranged from reading stories at Pittsburgh Arlington PreK-8 school to hosting a roundtable on early education at City Hall. O’Connor visited or hosted students at 12 city schools during his first five months.
“I think having young kids, our message is we want this to be a family-friendly place,” O’Connor said, crediting his wife for helping to drive a focus on early childhood education. “Schools are kind of out of our purview, but if invited to go to a school and talk to students, we’re going to do it.
“I think that’s a big push for us, so families are welcome here. Your kids have access to the mayor’s office, that means you have access to the mayor’s office.”
Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Wayne Walters wrote in response to a request for comment that the district values a “strong and collaborative relationship” with O’Connor.
“The partnership between the city and the district remains robust and meaningful, reflecting our shared belief that a high-quality, equitable public education system is essential to the success and vitality of Pittsburgh,” Walters wrote.
The city-school relationship hasn’t always been harmonious. At least one former mayor and superintendent pair butted heads over finances and union negotiations, and the school district solicitor said in 2022 that the city had been “openly hostile” toward the district. The two governments have wrestled for years over each one’s share of the earned income tax.
Besides education, businesses of all sizes were the focus of 43 events, from a meeting with a Comcast executive to the ribbon cutting of a Downtown cafe. That number does not include O’Connor’s weekly habit of sitting down to call 10 local businesses to thank them and offer support, which the schedules indicate the mayor has done 21 times.
He has attended 17 ribbon cuttings, mostly for private businesses but also a few major city developments, like the revamped Market Square, the new Arts Landing and a new apartment building in Lawrenceville.
The baseball and golf coach-turned-mayor has done 40 events related to sports, 17 of which were directly related to the NFL Draft. Among the others: attending the city’s first all-women’s squash tournament, hosting city championship-winning high school teams in City Hall, recording an interview with former Steelers coach Bill Cowher and giving a speech at opening night for the 14th Ward Baseball league.
O’Connor’s office included 15 meetings with City Council members in his daily schedules, along with seven meetings with state government officials and one meeting with a federal agency official, from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. (Again, the public schedules may not include all of the mayor’s meetings.)
Getting the word out
O’Connor sat for 51 media interviews during the first five months, averaging about one for every two business days. He additionally gave or participated in 11 press conferences.
The most frequent news outlet to speak to the mayor was KDKA radio (four times) followed by WESA (three). Seven other outlets interviewed the mayor twice, including Public Source (our third interview was for this story).
The rest of the interviewers represent a range of locations, sizes and topics, from morning drive radio and the “2 Jagoffs” podcast to Business Insider and NBC News.
O’Connor said his availability to media outlets is in part a counter to misinformation.
“When you have social media clips that aren’t really telling the story, I believe the more the mayor and the mayor’s office can be out there stating the facts, it helps to build that relationship and that transparency,” he said.
Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Ada Perlman.
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