Another Allegheny County Executive candidate calls for ethics reform in local government

Pittsburgh Controller Michael Lamb, a Democratic candidate for Allegheny County Executive, has become the latest official to call for more ethics guidelines in county government.

At a Wednesday news conference, Lamb called for all candidates and public officials to sign what he called a Pledge of Good Governance that would include promises to disclose job expenses and support open meetings and transparency while not accepting gifts from people trying to exert influence.

“We are hearing about holding polluters, corporations and large nonprofits accountable, which I support, but we have to hold ourselves accountable too,” he said outside of the City-County Building in Downtown Pittsburgh.

Lamb said he is proposing the pledge because of a recent vote on the county’s Retirement Board, where Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, a retirement board member, proposed ethics rules for the board.

O’Connor is proposing that county Retirement Board members follow campaign finance limits and restrictions in Act 44 of 2009, which requires municipalities, but not counties, to submit an annual disclosure to their Pennsylvania public sector clients.

That proposal was tabled and referred to a subcommittee at the behest of Allegheny County Treasurer John Weinstein, Lamb said. Weinstein is the longtime president of the Retirement Board and also a Democratic candidate for Allegheny County Executive.

Weinstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lamb said he was surprised to see the Retirement Board table the proposal. He said when the city’s pension fund adopted similar proposals, it protected pension funds and made them more sustainable. He said people who serve on the retirement board give political donations to certain candidates and those donations should be more transparent.

“This is personal for me because I worked to save (the city’s) pension board — tens of thousands of retirees count on their pensions,” Lamb said. “They are the ones that lose when political games get played with their money.”

Lamb’s move comes after other county executive candidates such as former County Councilman Dave Fawcett and state Rep. Sara Innamorato have called for similar efforts, including campaign finance restrictions and gift bans for county employees.

Allegations have risen against Weinstein, suggesting he participated in backroom deals in order to maintain power and position on the county’s Alcosan board.

Weinstein has denied these allegations and called them “deliberate smear tactics.”

Other Allegheny County elected officials and candidates have signed onto Lamb’s pledge, including Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, Allegheny County Councilman Tom Duerr, D-Bethel Park, county Treasurer candidate Erica Brusselars and District Attorney candidate Matt Dugan.

Fitzgerald, who also is a member of the Retirement Board, said in a statement that he supports O’Connor’s proposal and will introduce a motion at the next meeting for an “independent audit of the number of money managers and fees paid from the pension fund to ensure we are using best practices.”

Brusselars would become a member of the Retirement Board if elected county treasurer and said she supports increasing transparency of board members who are making contract decisions.

Lamb said this isn’t the first time ethics rules such as these have been introduced at the Retirement Board. He added that if the county doesn’t include these safeguards then the state Legislature should act and expand the pension rules and apply them to county governments.

“We need to stop the sale of our retirees’ pensions to the highest bidder,” Lamb said. “This is not the first time reform has been introduced to the pension board, and not the first time that effort has come up against a small but well-funded force to stop it.”