Updated: Gainey Administration pulls city out of Peduto-era OnePGH Fund

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey (Photo by Nick Childers. Photo illustration by Natasha Vicens/PublicSource)

A year after its unveiling, the OnePGH fund has been severed from the city as Mayor Gainey negotiates with nonprofits.

by Charlie Wolfson, PublicSource

Update (7/13/22): In a reversal from its previous comments, Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration announced July 13 that it will sever all ties with the OnePGH Fund. Felicity Williams, Gainey’s deputy chief of staff who had taken a seat on OnePGH’s board, said, “It has become clear that our priorities were headed in a different direction,” and announced that she would resign her post on the panel that runs the OnePGH nonprofit.

The city announced in a news release that it would work to see through the contracts already approved by OnePGH, which include contributions to Allegheny Goatscape and the Hazelwood Greenway.

The release did not further detail the administration’s approach to securing contributions from large nonprofit entities.

Reported 5/5/2022: A little more than a year ago, then-Mayor Bill Peduto announced what he hoped would be a triumphant milestone in his yearslong quest to get tax-exempt nonprofits to contribute more to the city. The OnePGH Fund would be the financial solution Pittsburgh had been waiting for.

The future of OnePGH was thrown into doubt when Ed Gainey defeated Peduto last May and became mayor this year. But the new administration may not scrap the project entirely: Gainey has appointed two high-profile administration officials, Deputy Chief of Staff Felicity Williams and City Planning Director Karen Abrams, to its board while he simultaneously negotiates with major nonprofits. 

“We’re in a ‘to be determined,’” said Grant Ervin, OnePGH’s board president and a former city planning resilience officer under Peduto. “The tool and the organization is there for [the Gainey administration’s] utilization. It’s incumbent on the mayor and his team to set the course on how to utilize it and what those priorities are.”

Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak told PublicSource that the administration is looking at ways to use the nonprofit and that it will continue to exist, but they do not intend to use it as a conduit for major funding from the likes of UPMC and other large nonprofits.

“We are figuring out the right way to situate it in the city’s toolbox for seeking outside funding,” Pawlak said. “It’s fair to say we have a more limited view of that than the previous administration.”

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