Brandon McGinley gets insight from the mayor on the UPMC and Highmark deal

All righty, Pittsburgh, about 1037 here on this cloudy Friday. Brandon McGinley, filling in for Marty. I'm a columnist at the Post Gazette, and we're talking this morning about the New Deal struck by Mayor Cory O'Connor and his team, along with UPMC and Highmark to get $45, $55, $55 million for city vehicles, public safety vehicles over the next 10 years. And here to talk about it is the mayor himself. Mayor O'Connor, thanks for joining the show. No, thanks for having me. Oh, no problem, no problem. Can you shed some light on how this deal came to pass on the, you know, the conversations that you've had with UPMC and Highmark about getting to this point? Yeah, so we obviously made this a commitment and a promise to the voters that this was one of our major agenda items. And I think to do it within seven months or before we even hit the seven month mark, it is a great thing for everybody and everybody wins. But I think when we started having these conversations prior to taking office after winning the general election, it was let's be, let's go in these meetings and be specific. to where the money is going to be spent and audited so that it's just not a lump sum of money. Because for far too long, we've heard from these organizations that say, oh, the city just asks us for money and isn't really specific on where it goes. And it's like, okay, well, let's look. What is our need and what is the mission that relates with their missions? And obviously, aligning them with public safety first responders is something that's clearly their missions. And we were very specific. you know, talking out the numbers and how it can all work over the last couple of months. And we got to this great agreement. And I will say that, you know, Governor Josh Shapiro was helpful through the process as well. And I think it just shows that when we went in with our minds made up, this is going to benefit more residents in the city of Pittsburgh to save lives than anything else. Let's get together and work on this. And they were both very receptive to that concept. And then it was just trying to figure out what made sense. Great. So it's interesting. So this started even before the inauguration, and the governor was involved as well. I hadn't, maybe that had been said, but I hadn't heard that before. So was the governor kind of like mediator here, or how did that play out? Yeah, I mean, he was helpful with a couple of calls when asked because he was. part of a prior negotiation, and he was asking me questions about it. And, you know, hey, it fell through multiple times. Why is it going to happen this time? And I just said, look, we are going to be specific right to the point. We're going to audit the money. We're not messing around here. This is too important. This has really never been done in the city of Pittsburgh to do this and to do it on a multi-year level. So it was a big win for all of us. you know, talking with him just about our strategy, where it was going to go. He reached out to some individuals to say, hey, you know, this would very much support the city of Pittsburgh, and we were able to all coordinate and get it done. But there was a big, big lift on both CEOs of both Highmark and UPMC who saw what our vision was and are, you know, really anchors across this city and the region.

And then working within their staff, and obviously my chief of staff, Dan Gilman, coordinated a lot of those conversations to get really into the details of the agreement. And here we are, you know, celebrating basically today, something that was never done. And a lot of people for so many years thought it would never get done. And it got done. And we're really happy about it. So it sounds like your administration broached the possibility. of aligning, you said, kind of aligning the missions. So it was you guys who said, you know, we understand that a no strings attached cash infusion is a non-starter for you guys, but how about funding precisely the public safety and public health equipment that aligns with what you do as healthcare organizations? Exactly. And that's how we've done it with everyone. And we've raised, you know, 70 million to date. And it's, you know, R.K. Mellon talking about the future of Pittsburgh with learn and earn programs. It's the University of Pittsburgh talking about not only public safety, but also recreation and what their students use. Same with CMU and rec to tech and STEM research. And it's things that align with them. And it's also things that we obviously need support with. And we have all of these great resources in the city of Pittsburgh. It's too often that we get caught up and saying, hey, I need this money and it's going to fill in this gap or that gap. Well, again, they all have boards and not just high market and UPMC. They all have to go back to their boards and foundations to say, does this align with what we're talking about? And for far too long, it was a no. Now, when you're specific, and again, it's not just this deal. It's the prior ones that we were able to land. It's involving economic development. It's involving the future. It's involving young people. It's involving public safety. And I think, you know, being that specific was very helpful in them also going back to their boards because they have to approve their budget. Right, right, right. To say this is a simpler sell for us than just a general number. Right. Right. No, that makes sense. One concern that people raise any time, anything. like this is discussed, is whether, basically, whether we as taxpayers and whether the institutions who are giving the money can be confident that they will be used for the purposes that are outlined, and specifically what level of transparency there will be about where the money goes. Can you speak to that? Yes, I said it yesterday. You know, we want to work with the controller who's been talking about this for a couple years now, especially around vehicles. We want to work with the controller and make sure that it's audited. It's put out there. There's reports constantly because we want to be transparent. We wanted this money, and this is why we set it in this way and we wanted to frame the conversation this way. We don't want this money to go into city coffers that's not going to help our residents. When you're talking about gifts to the city of Pittsburgh, it should support everyone. And this is what this money is going to go to. So, yeah, we want to be as open and transparent about it, working with the controller's office, so that if there's a quarterly report, a yearly report, I mean, the trucks are going to take a while to get here. So you might not see them right away, but starting to pre-order and get all of those things lined up. So we can do a yearly audit.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I've heard the lead time on some of these things. It's like two, three, even four years. It's crazy. Yeah, it could be. Fire trucks especially are long. So, you know, we are working as quick as we can. Now that this has been agreed to, let's start working in-house on what we're going to purchase and quickly so we can get these orders in fast. Do you have a sense at this point of how many fire trucks and ambulances these gifts will fund? Yeah, I kind of, you know, don't want to put it that way. I don't have a specific number, but I do think from what we're hearing, especially from EMS leadership, it would almost revamp the entire fleet, which would be a great sign over the next couple of years. I mean, some of our trucks are 40 years old. It's crazy. Oh, yeah. And they're breaking down to and from calls. So if we can get it to where we're rotating in and out, that would be amazing. I mean, fire. you know, has different types of vehicles than just ambulances. So to replenish all of that will take a little bit longer. But I think, you know, a million dollars of fire truck, you know, you're looking for a couple of years and just... I mean, I've seen the internal documents on just how much taxpayer money would have been needed to get the vehicles back to square one, back to par, and it was outrageous. So, I mean, anything helps. Yeah, no, this is great. I mean, this is a huge, huge support for us. And, you know, especially when it comes to vehicles and getting this relief right now when we're, you know, having our own deficit problems here, how can we use this to? spur other things in the future as well. Yeah. I have to get to traffic, Mr. Mayor, but do you have any other deals in the pipeline that you're able to tease? You know, I think we're just working with some other organizations out there and some more community gifts would be definitely beneficial. But, you know, I think this was a great step to do this and get a five-year commitment shows that, you know, hopefully we can go back in a couple years and extend it. Because, again, something like this has never been done. And we're so happy to do it. And we're so thankful for the leadership in Highmark and UPMC for stepping up to do this. For all... all of Pittsburgh. Oh, great. Hey, Maricori O'Connor, thank you very much for coming on the show. Really appreciate your perspective in the background on this, which is fascinating. I love finding out how these things get done. Thank you so much. No, no. Thanks for having me. Take care. All righty.