Morning Edition; Sarah Chenewith

It's morning edition on 89KRPS. This morning our fourth and final interview with one of the six candidates running to fill three seats on the Pittsburgh City Commission. Today, we hear from Sarah Chenoweth, who's running for re-election. I spoke with her at our studios here at Pittsburgh State University on the morning of Tuesday, October 22. I first asked Sarah to introduce herself to voters, and to tell us why she's running, and what her key priorities would be if re-elected to the Pittsburgh City Commission. Hi, well, hello KRPS listeners. My name is Sarah Chenoweth. I am on the Pittsburgh City Commission, and I am running this time for re-election. I have lived in Pittsburgh just about ever since I came here for college in 2002, I'm from Baxter Springs, Kansas. I got two master's degrees here at Pitt State, and my husband and I live here now. We own a small business, and we just purchased a downtown building. So we are really investing in Pittsburgh, and I want to continue that investment with my re-election.

I've been on the commission for two years, and I feel like I have a lot more left to offer the city and the citizens. So I want to make sure that the progressive momentum that we have got right now continues. In the candidate meet-up hosted by the Pittsburgh area, young professionals earlier this month, there was a question relating to where you saw the city of Pittsburgh in the next two and five years. You pointed out to a management Pittsburgh 2020 and 2030 as a portrait of the future of the city of Pittsburgh. You also said that you wanted to see the city become more economically diverse. You said verbatim, a self-sustaining marketplace that encourages diversity in entrepreneurship here in Pittsburgh. How would you work to achieve that if we elected to the Pittsburgh City Commission? Well I think that one of the things that we can do as the city government is try to target particular types of businesses or industries or manufacturers that we want to bring in the city so that offering economic incentives really works to try to get businesses here that we think would be a good fit for our city and a good fit for the businesses and things

that we already have in place. So when I think self-sustaining marketplace, I'm thinking about businesses that support other businesses, people that make products that another business uses to make their product and then to sell it on. And so I think in that way it could really insulate us a little bit from what goes on in the rest of the state and the nation as far as when we hit economic downfalls, the more self-sustaining our own Pittsburgh economy can be, the better we'll be able to weather those national and states or storms. Okay so when you're describing this to me, I kind of see like a pyramid but flipped on its head where the city of Pittsburgh would sit on top and have multiple companies supporting and it would be kind of a trickle-down effect in a way. Yes, I don't love the term trickle-down but yes. Yeah, and keeping it diverse, you know, having businesses that sell on the state and national level and, you know, of course corporate chains are an important part of the economy, too.

But Pittsburgh has such a great pool of archipreneurs that we can make that top level of that pyramid really big and solid for that trickle-down to happen, yeah. Yeah, I know. It probably trickle-down, not your preferred because that goes back to Reaganomics, not exon exactly the economic model that you want to probably have here in Pittsburgh. Trickle up. Trickle up, right? Because like you mentioned, corporate chains are not going away anytime soon but Pittsburgh in essence, you believe that Pittsburgh should have a local base of archipreneurs who support the city regardless of what corporate chains and what they're going to do. Yes, exactly. We've got restaurants here. We're in Kansas for goodness sake, we're at agricultural state, we should be growing more food to support our local restaurants and recycling and having renewable energy and all of these things can play in that self-sustaining marketplace and then keep us going. You brought up energy.

It seems like a hot bun issue of this election is whether their city of Pittsburgh should essentially go into the electricity business and pry itself away from the merged company of Western KCPNL, now known as Emergy. It appears that those who are elected to the city commission could have a significant voice in the future of how Pittsburgh residents receive their electricity. So what are your thoughts and whether Pittsburgh should play a role as electricity provider here in the future? Well, yeah, thanks for that question. That's on a lot of people's minds right now. I have been very public saying that I believe that public utilities should not be owned by for-profit corporations. I believe that the things that the people need to live healthy modern lives should be owned by those people and the way that we do that here is municipalizing. And so I support the idea, but I also understand that every community is different and we are still studying this and we won't know if this is best for Pittsburgh. And so we get back the numbers, we look at our budget, we look at projections, I wouldn't be comfortable with anything less than a 20 year plan.

You know, we mentioned IP 2020 and 30, the electricity is going to be the same. We are going to have a solid strategic plan before we make any decisions and be able to present that to the public to vote on whether or not we get funding for that. Well, you mentioned the word public and public utility. A lot of times I don't think in this day and age we think of it as a public utility. But it really 2030 isn't that far away, especially when you're planning for a city. So you would be comfortable with the city of Pittsburgh, well, how about I rephrase a question like this, should the city commission have the power to allow that or should that be put to voters? Well, the people that there will be a vote because the way that we will fund it, the only really source of that much funding that we will have will be a bond issue and people vote on bond issue. So I see that bond issue vote as being a referendum on do people want electricity. If that fails, I mean, we could look for other sources of funding, but I would think at that point, as I said, being a referendum, if people say no, then they don't want it.

So the commission does have some power, but I think it is important for the people to have most of the power. And I would want to see any public utility be run by a separate independent board. Maybe those people are elected. Maybe they're appointed by people who are elected, but somehow that utility answering directly to the public who owns it and who is profiting on it instead of shareholders like in a corporation. When you're speaking with your constituents and your rank for re-election, is the electricity issue the topic they bring you to you the most or what is? You know, honestly, I think the most that I hear about is every day city kind of stuff, streets and parking and when what kind of new businesses are we getting. I do hear about electricity from people who are paying attention and I think people are mostly curious, you know, where they don't have a lot of facts and it's a little frustrating when I say I don't have a lot of facts yet either because that's the process and it's

taken a long time. But I think that that's a good thing because it means that we're doing our due diligence. And so when we present it, we are going to have all of those solid facts and numbers. But I think people have noticed that their electric bills have been going up and that they're not happy with that and I think if we can really drive home the idea that municipalizing would give us local control that the people in this community would have control over the infrastructure, over the rates, you know, as much as you can and be able to make our decisions based on what's best for our community and not what a Missouri corporation says is best for us. Right. They're based in Kansas City, Missouri. Yes. Certainly, say that you're out knocking on doors, voter answers the door. I'm Sarah Chenoweth. Why should they vote for you? That's a great question. People have asked me that. They people have been like, well, what have you done? And I'm like, oh, that's great.

Thank you for telling me not to just go away. Nobody has told me to go away, by the way. But I, you know, I usually, I will turn around and I will look at their neighborhood. And, you know, when I go out walking, I try to take somebody that I know from that neighborhood so they can, you know, talk about it on a personal level. And I say, I want sidewalks, you know, I want the things that you want. I want your children to be able to walk to school safely. I want them to have a place to play sustainability is a huge thing for me, outdoor spaces. I have been the driver for getting some of our sidewalk projects started. I income inequality is a big issue for me. I think that that, this part of that trickle up, right? We need to be bringing people up into the middle class. And we are. It is trending that way here in Pittsburgh instead of the other way. So I try to talk to people, you know, about that. We need good jobs, we need good paying jobs. And to just try to make the lives for people better.

And electricity is part of that and I feel like everything that I try to do is part of that. And thank you for your time this morning. Thanks.