There is no question that one of the premier races in the state and even in the nation this November is the contest to see who will lead Allegheny County for the next four years.

Polling shows a tight contest in store with just a few weeks to go until the Nov. 4 election.

The contest is expected to break spending records for any election ever in the Pittsburgh region. Both sides are likely to spend $2.5 million each before the last TV spot is aired by the eve of election. This is a race that will dominate airwaves and water cooler chatter in southwestern Pennsylvania until it’s decided.

When it was created in the late 1990s after the abolishment of the three county commissioner form of government, the Allegheny County executive was touted as the third most powerful executive job in Pennsylvania government -- surpassed only by the governorship and the job of mayor of Philadelphia. Voters opted to replace the three commissioners with a strong executive whose power would be shared by a 15-member county council, elected by geographic districts in the 1.3 million-population county.

Jim Roddey, the Republican incumbent and a former business executive, won a close race four years ago to become Allegheny’s first chief executive despite a 2-1 Democratic voter registration edge. Roddey was already a public figure, well known from his previous service as a board member and chairman of a number of government-related authorities.

Roddey is now seeking a second term, but the Democrats, eager to take back the courthouse, avoided a primary and coalesced around Dan Onorato, 42, who forfeited an easy re-election to his current job as county controller for the chance to snatch away the top job from Roddey.

Asked why he is seeking a second term, Roddey responds: "Continuing our job growth, continuing our financial stability and reforming the row offices are really what I want to accomplish in the next four years," Roddey told The Insider. "Then I want to retire and never think about politics again."

Roddey said he does not think that record of financial stability will continue or the reforming of the row offices will be accomplished if the Democrat is elected.

For his part, Onorato said Roddey was elected four years ago on the promise that he would put his business skills to work for the county. But Onorato claims Roddey’s first term has been marked with disappointment.

"Nothing has happened," Onorato said. "Everywhere I go, people, both Republicans and Democrats, tell me they are disappointed with him. Nothing has happened that they thought would happen."

Roddey in his first television advertisement pointed to the relative fiscal stability of the county versus the city of Pittsburgh’s flirting with bankruptcy and the budget problems the Commonwealth is experiencing.

He is also expected to make the city of Pittsburgh’s shaky finances an issue in the campaign against Onorato because the Democrat is a former city council member and once headed up the Finance Committee. "We simply can not let Dan Onorato do for Allegheny County what he did for the city of Pittsburgh," Roddey says.

The Insider recently interviewed both candidates. And as you can see from the transcripts in this issue, the gloves are already starting to come off in this fight.

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Jim Roddey
The Insider talks with the Republican incumbent county executive.

Jim Roddey came to Pittsburgh in 1978, believing it would be just another way stop in his distinguished career as a businessman and outdoor advertising executive that included a stint in Atlanta with Ted Turner and his many media enterprises. Roddey, who grew up in the South, had never lived in a northern city before. He had come to Pittsburgh because he had purchased a billboard company there. But within a few years, the personable and persistent Southerner had worked his way into the local civic community and the city’s most prestigious social circles.

He became a friend and confidant of mayors and county officials and he held a number of top appointed posts in local government, including the Pittsburgh Clean Cities Committee, The Pittsburgh Water Authority and the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (sewage system) and the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the transit system. At first, Roddey was a political independent, not registered with either party, but in 1988 he changed his registration to Republican to head up Republican Barbara Hafer’s campaign to be elected auditor general. Ever since, GOP officials have courted Roddey to run for elective office, but nothing enticed him into the political arena until the county executive’s job was created.

Jim Roddey

He ran for the first time in 1999 and won a narrow general election victory over a better-known but confrontational Democrat, Cyril Wecht, the county coroner who is a world renown forensic pathologist. After his election, Roddey put his various business interests into a blind trust over which he has no control.

Roddey, 70, explains the progress he believes he’s brought to Allegheny County the past four years and what he plans to do if voters give him a four-year extension on his current job.

Insider: Tell us a little bit about why you’ve decided to run for re-election and the accomplishments you see in your first term.

Roddey: Let me start with the accomplishments. We lowered the cost of county government over three years by about $89 million. We were able to bring back from Harrisburg $30 million in support that wasn’t there before. We were able to bring $110 million a year in human services money from the federal government and about $60 million of public transit capital projects.

All that allowed us to balance our budget, improve our bond rating, keep our pension fund fully funded and allowed us to increase our reserve fund from a low of $9 million when I took office to triple that, $27 million earlier this year. So I think fiscal stability ranks as the most important thing we accomplished, especially given recent events in the state budget and the city (of Pittsburgh) financial crisis.

Right now, we’ve been able to fund some critical human service services where the state had cut funding and restoration of those funds is part of the budget stalemate. That’s what the reserve is for. One of the reasons that I wanted to run is that we’re still in a difficult time period. It will take a couple of years more for that (to work out). It’s very important to keep that discipline and I honestly believe that if I’m not in that office -- if Dan Onorato is there -- the fiscal stability will be in danger.

Dan was on city council for eight years and he chaired the Finance Committee for a number of years. If you go back and look at his tenure, you’ll see he did nothing at all to put up any warning signs or make any significant changes. We simply can not let Dan Onorato do for Allegheny County what he did for the city of Pittsburgh.

I know Dan Onorato’s campaign is built around two issues -- job creation and property assessments, which I inherited. I did not walk away from that problem. The budget that I inherited had a built in $27 million loss.

If I had thrown out those numbers, it would have cost, we estimate, as much as $25 million. That would have thrown out any chance for recovery. We finished that first year in the black, overcoming the $27 million deficit. I made a decision, it would be tough, but we would go through the appeals process and fix the system that way. And it worked. We just got a rating from the tax equalization board that we stand at 97.5 percent -- the highest county in the state. It still has problems. It still needs to be fixed but we are infinitely better than we were four years ago. Our plan of concentrating on companies that are here, trying to improve their growth, is working.

The final reason for running is that I don’t think we’ll have real row office reform unless I’m re-elected. Dan keeps talking about it and says he’s for it but he had an opportunity this year. We could have amended the administrative code. We could have had it on the ballot this November. But Dan did not want that turnout in the suburbs this November and he’s hiding behind a court ruling. The court would have allowed us to do it if we amended the administrative code.

He let council members know that he didn’t want that passed because he didn’t want that turnout in the suburbs.

So continuing our job growth, continuing our financial stability and reforming the row offices is really what I would like to accomplish in the next four years. Then I want to retire and NEVER think about politics again!

Insider: Do you think you can do all that with the county council majority being Democratic?

Roddey: I believe there is a very good chance I will have a Republican majority on county council after the November election. There are two excellent opportunities and if that happens we can really streamline government and accomplish a great deal more. There are things we should look at about privatizing some parts of government and taking an objective look at that. I don’t think that will happen under a Democratic executive and a Democratic council. As much as unions will object to that, it’s better than the alternative in the city of Pittsburgh where they are virtually bankrupt.

Insider: Regarding U.S. Airways and the threat to abandon Pittsburgh as a hub airport unless it gets severe lease reductions, what can you tell us about that?

Roddey: It’s not possible to know what’s going to happen because U.S. Airways has not been very forthcoming with information in their negotiations. We believe they will keep a presence in Pittsburgh. We are hopeful they will keep a hub operation here. And if they do, it will be made up of fewer mainline jets and more of the smaller regional jets. We may still have 400 flights a day but the mix will probably be 3-1 regional jets versus mainline jets. And the jobs will not pay as well, only about half of what the wages are for the mainline jets. But I’m not absolutely convinced the U.S. Airways model will work. They may not be successful and they may go back into bankruptcy and may not emerge this time. So it’s important that we bring in other airlines and we’re working on that and starting to get some real interest from those airlines.

Insider: Tell us about the campaign team that you’ve put together for this race.

Roddey: It’s essentially the same team as we had in 1999. The campaign manager is Kent Gates. Tripp Oliver (on leave from county staff) is doing research. Brabender Cox is the ad agency and media strategist and the Tarrence Group is doing the polling and there’s a whole group of people who advise and work on various aspects.

We’re doing extremely well in the African-American community, far better than a Republican should. Most of that is because my record there has been very positive and Dan’s has not. Dan voted against creating another minority district for city council. He voted against the police review board and reform. All of those things have come back home and have caused him not to have the support in the black community that he would have hoped for. We’re doing very well with seniors and that’s good because they vote in large numbers.

We’ve had some recent polling numbers. We know Dan has done some polling and we suspect he knows that this is a close race. But look, I’m the underdog because there is a two and half to one registration disadvantage Democrat to Republican. Dan Onorato is an unknown. He doesn’t have the experience and that is something we will emphasize in our campaign. He has high name recognition but the public doesn’t know anything about him. I have the disadvantage because I have a record he can criticize. But I think the record is good and if people are objective and look at it in light of the fiscal crisis at the city and state level they will really appreciate the fact that the county has been cautious and conservative and we’re in good shape.

Insider: When do you think the air part of this campaign will get under way?

Roddey: Everyone wants to wait until the other guy does it but my guess is that by late August you’ll see commercials up. I’ve been going door to door, primarily on the weekends in Democratic areas. And it’s going to be a tight, close race.

The last time when I ran against Cyril Wecht (Allegheny County coroner and well-known forensic expert), he was a very good candidate in many respects. But he tended to polarize people with folks liking him a lot or not at all. With Dan, he’s an unknown. People may know the name but if he walked down the street people would not be able to pick him out.

One of the jobs we’ll have in this campaign is to help Dan define himself to the public (with a chuckle).

Insider: What are the challenges in the next four years for the county executive?

Roddey: They will remain the same. No 1 is economic development. We’ve done well. By the end of the year, we should be at 20,000 new jobs created. But we have to do better, at least 50 percent greater than what we have done. Secondly, fixing everything with the (property tax) assessments. We need to get all the bugs out and have a system that people don’t complain about. Third, we have to keep our eye on the ball with fiscal stability that we don’t overspend, that we continue to try to make government less costly and more efficient. Finally, we have challenges in specific areas: the jail which is full and we need to drive that population down; there is the U.S. Airways challenge and then we have the row office reform effort, which will produce significant savings and improve efficiency.