Mayor Luke's Pledge

Both city papers (The Trib and the P-G) have the story about Mayor Luke's pre-emptive pledge to run a clean campaign. The P-G:

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl pledged yesterday to conduct "a cleanly contested and meaningful mayoral campaign" in a letter to the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh.

And The Trib:

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl today vowed to run a mayoral campaign that's free of dirty politics.

Ravenstahl, 26, of Summer Hill, said he has signed a clean campaign pledge from the Pittsburgh chapter of the League of Women Voters.

"My spoken words and campaign materials will reflect truth. I will not engage in fraud or deception, or falsely portray the background or record of an opponent," Ravenstahl wrote in the one-page pledge.

This, of course, was a complete coincidence coming as it did the day his main rival, Councilman Bill Peduto, announced his campaign to run for Mayor. From The P-G:

League President Suzanne Broughton said, though, that such a letter was premature, noting that the nonpartisan group waits to issue its annual clean campaign code until all candidates have filed to run, which occurs in March.

Pure coincidence, of course.

Anyway, one part of Mayor Luke's pledge caught my eye:

My spoken words and campaign materials will reflect truth. I will not engage in fraud or deception, or falsely portray the background or record of an opponent...

Since it runs head on into something already on the mayor's official city website:

Ravenstahl also led the charge to move forward the City’s downtown Wi-Fi plan, improving the quality of life for every Pittsburgher by allowing for improved internet access.

One day after the pledge and already a mislead from the Mayor's office. We've previously blogged on this (here and here) but it might be a good idea to revisit the facts.

One just needs to take a look at this 11-page report from April of 2005 to see where Mayor Luke's got it wrong. The report starts this way:

At the request of City Councilman, William Peduto, a working group was formed in July 2004 to evaluate the current information and communications technologies (“ICT”) environmentin Pittsburgh and make recommendations on ways the City can improve the ICT environment. The ICT Working Group is composed of ICT users, service providers and members of theacademic and government communities.

And this from page 4:

Information and communication technologies involve a broad range of services, from
high speed internet access to basic telephone service. The economic viability as well as quality of life of a region is dependent on a vibrant ICT environment.

With this in mind, City Councilman, William Peduto requested a working group be
formed as a subcommittee of the Pittsburgh Cable Communication Advisory Committee to assess the current ICT environment in the City of Pittsburgh. The ICT Working Group was formed in July 2004 and has met on a monthly basis to discuss and assess the ICT environmentin Pittsburgh and make recommendations as to how Pittsburgh can improve this environment.

And finally this from page 7:

The Working Group also discussed several other issues such as a City owned Wi Fi network and the use of ICT services to facilitate the democratic process. In particular, the deployment of the Wi Fi network in Philadelphia was discussed, however these discussions didnot result in any consensus on the part of the Working Group.

So, what can we gather from these paragraphs? That a working group formed by Peduto in July of 2004 to discussed setting up the Wi Fi network. Oh, and Mayor Ravenstahl is not mentioned in the document at all.

By the way, he only began his tenure at City Council 7 months before.

Do you see my confusion? The Mayor's city website states that he "led the charge to move forward" for the city's Wi Fi network. Yesterday he said he's pledged not to engage in fraud or deception in this campaign and yet...