Doven launches attacks against Hallam in Allegheny County Council race

The mudslinging continued Wednesday in the Democratic primary race for Allegheny County’s at-large council seat.

Challenger Joanna Doven held a news conference in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park to launch a series of personal attacks against incumbent Allegheny County Councilwoman Bethany Hallam, D-North Side.

Doven, who runs a public relations firm and lives in Squirrel Hill, described Hallam as an agent of chaos on county council, a bully and a “heroin drug dealer.”

Hallam said she was never a heroin dealer and has never been accused of being one. She has publicly discussed that she was formerly addicted to opioids.

At the news conference, Doven shared a criminal complaint that details Hallam’s arrest in West View in March 2013 for drug possession and DUI. Another complaint she shared accused Hallam of selling $70 worth of Suboxone, a prescription drug to treat opioid addiction, to an undercover police detective in Hampton in June 2014. Suboxone is not heroin.

Doven said she understands how drug addiction can hurt families, but that drug dealing is crossing a line.

“Character. Morals matter,” Doven said. “Drug addictions is in many ways a victimless crime, drug dealing in our communities is not.”

Hallam has already publicly discussed the circumstances around her arrests, often making the story of her drug addiction and recovery the centerpiece of her campaigns. In 2019, Hallam shared details with the Tribune-Review about how she was charged with a felony in 2014 after trying to sell the Suboxone to the undercover detective.

She took a plea deal and was convicted of misdemeanor drug possession and DUI. She served four days in jail, lost her driver’s license and got two years of probation.

“Looking back, it was the best thing I ever did,” she said in 2019. “Because in the long run, it saved my life.”

Hallam won her race for county council in 2019.

Doven said one of the criminal complaints detailed how Hallam was found to be in possession of empty stamp bags of heroin, four hypodermic needles and a scale during the 2013 incident. The empty stamp bags were marked with labels such as “Justin Bieber” and “Versace,” according to the complaint.

“I wonder who Bethany Hallam was selling drugs to with a label like Justin Bieber,” she said.

Doven framed her news conference around revealing what she called “undisclosed” information about Hallam’s past. When told that Hallam had already spoken publicly about such issues, Doven said that because details about her arrest and charges were not on her campaign website, “then that is not revealed.”

Doven also claimed that if Hallam is admitting to being charged with a felony, then she would not be eligible to hold elected office because of the state constitution.

Section 7 of Pennsylvania Constitution states that people are ineligible for public office if convicted of “embezzlement of public moneys, bribery, perjury or other infamous crime,” which tend to mean felonies.

Hallam has not been convicted of any felonies. She has pleaded guilty to misdemeanors and summary offenses, the most recent stemming from charges in 2015.

She said she is proud to discuss her background and her drug addiction.

“I am a product of recovery,” Hallam said. “That is why I am a valuable asset to county council, because of my lived experience. I have never shied away from my past because I know it was one of the major reasons that I ran for office.

”We know there are people in this county going through this too, and they deserve representation, too. I think I have done a damn good job at representing them.”

Doven also attacked Hallam over her time on County Council and on the county’s Jail Oversight Board. She said that Hallam’s “consistent, chaotic disruptions of Jail Oversight Board meetings are impeding progress.”

“I believe that these actions and more show us that Ms. Hallam is unfit to serve,” Doven said.

Hallam pushed back on the narrative that she is a merely a chaos agent. She said under her tenure on council and the Jail Oversight Board, she has banned fracking in county parks, secured more funding for Allegheny County Community College, blocked a controversial contractor from training people at the jail, and funded a stipend for incarcerated people.

“I think it is a disingenuous narrative that I am a chaos agent,” Hallam said. “County council has accomplished more recently than any council before. I don’t think that sounds like chaos, that sounds like progress.”

Hallam criticized Doven for making so many personal attacks against her. She said Doven should instead be “talking about ideas to improve the county.”

She said that Doven recently missed a debate in the South Hills against Hallam because she showed up too late to participate in their time slot.

Doven said she had informed the organizer of the forum that she was running late because her son’s sports tournament was running long. She said she rushed to the forum and was able to speak to the attendees.

The race between Hallam and Doven has been primarily filled with attacks so far, mostly led by Doven.

Hallam, the incumbent, recently secured the Allegheny County Democratic endorsement by a vote of 819 to 553.

Nick Field, a political contributor to Decision Desk HQ and an election analyst based in Philadelphia, said he has been following the Allegheny County races this year with keen interest and called Doven’s political strategy “puzzling.”

“On the one hand, Doven is making her own case by arguing that people can change and grow over time. Yet at same time she’s also attacking Hallam for her past,” he said. “I imagine voters will notice the contradiction.”