Interview with Dan McNally

Dan McNally, thank you for some of your time this morning. It's great to be here with you. Thanks for inviting me. We'll get to talk about some of the issues and your stances on them in a few minutes. But first, I want it to allow you to introduce yourself, tell us why you're running for re-election on the Pittsburgh City Commission, and what your key priorities would be if you're re-elected. Well, thanks again for inviting me. You know, I, um, a little bit about me. I am a, uh, I'm a, I'm a lifelong Pittsburgh resident. I'm a product of local schools, graduated, uh, graduate of Pittsburgh State University. So, I am a gorilla. Um, I'm currently working as a mental health professional. I'm helping people that suffer from mental illness and, uh, with addiction issues. Um, I also, you know, prior to that, I worked 14 years here in Pittsburgh at the Family Resource Center, serving children and families. You know, like I said, lifelong Pittsburgh resident, um, currently serving on the YMCA, uh, board of directors was, uh, a member of the Sustainability Advisory Committee. Um, I, when I was serving on that Sustainability Advisory Committee, it gave me my first

taste for, um, a position in the city and getting really involved with the city. And it really kind of fueled, uh, kind of a craving to kind of do more. Um, about that time, I was winding up my graduate studies, and I knew that I would have some more time to devote, uh, to the community. And, uh, just so happened that a vacancy opened on the, uh, city commission with, um, uh, Jeremy Johnson moving on to the, the county commission. And, uh, so that a deeply instilled value to service community that was instilled by my grandparents and parents kind of met with this, um, this craving to do more and just being really excited about some of the accomplishments and an endorsement of the direction that this town is going. Um, so all those kind of came together, um, at that time, and it's been an honor and a privilege to, to serve in that role. You know, somebody told me, um, when I was being encouraged to do that,

that, hey, you could do this and, and you don't have to run. And you can see how you like it. And I've loved every minute. I've loved being, you know, deeply involved in, in the decision to the city. And, you know, ultimately, you know, my life, um, has been about service. And, um, it's been, you know, at first with children and families at the Family Resource Center. And, you know, now it's about, you know, uh, problem solving and, and listening to people and helping people kind of kind of improve their lives. And it, it's that that I take every day into my decision making when I'm, when I'm looking at things in the city for the city. So, that's kind of kind of a rundown. It just is, it's been an honor for me to do this. And, you know, I, I want to serve my community. And this has just been, uh, a great avenue to do that in. So it sounds like to me, and maybe I'm wrong, that maybe political office was an out, uh, out in the future for you earlier in your life. Yeah, you know, I do have, I've always kind of had an interest,

kind of in politics. Um, but I never thought that I would ever find myself running. Um, I've, I've, you know, I've helped some campaigns and I'm very passionate about certain issues. You know, kind of as far as politics go, I've really kind of tried to put a lot of that aside in this role. Um, because, you know, I'm just really concerned about, you know, making, you know, raising the quality of life for all of our citizens. And, you know, I'm, I'm really, really focused on what we have going on here. And keeping kind of some state and not, not that things don't interject themselves, but kind of staying out of that. And, you know, this has just kind of been a way for me to focus on the city. And so, so yeah, I never dreamed I would be the actual person doing this. But it just kind of so happened that this is kind of how

I found a way to get more involved. And so I'm running with it. During the candidate meetup hosted by the Pittsburgh area young professionals earlier this month, there was a question relating to what you thought were the two most important matters in Pittsburgh and why. You stated child care and retaining students of Pittsburgh state. To stay living here in Southeast Kansas post-graduation, I was wondering why you chose those two topics. And if you're reelected to the city commission, how you would work to achieve those goals? Yeah, I chose those two. It was tough to just choose just to find two things to talk about. But those were two things that, you know, I think that we have a lot of, you know, great things going on in our city right now. But we've got to kind of grow our population. And, you know, we just had a, there was just a summit here on campus. And they talked about, you know, the indicators for housing and for business development, you know, that all this stuff is good. And there's

and there's vibrancy and there's energy in this town. But what we're lacking is more than one percent per year population growth. And so I think that, you know, as far as, you know, pit state students come here, they invest four years of their time in this community. And I think that, you know, it's just we're missing out on them when they go and they move to other places. I know that, you know, we might not have the jobs always to keep those students here. But I think that we've seen a lot of things with startups and entrepreneur work at the Foundry with Block 22. You know, I said that broadband and, and, you know, these, these jobs of today where people can work from home. Maybe that would be an opportunity to keep more students here. But it just is, every year I feel like we lose X amount of people that we could be keeping here that could add. And, and you know, the other part of that, other part of this is that, you know, you've

got these, these young people with young fresh ideas that are essential in having vision and keeping, keeping your community going and sustaining some of what we have going on for the long term. I mean, the people come from all over the state, all over the region, all over the world that go to, that come to this university. We need their ideas. We need them because I'm a firm believer in, you know, to have a good solid community that's going to be vibrant. You need all types of people and you need all types of ideas. And so, you know, retaining PSU students is just part of a workforce development. It's, you know, again, part of having, you know, fresh ideas. So that was why I kind of chose that topic. And on childcare, you know, we have, you know, and it's not just here. Somebody, you know, somebody, you know, having direct experience working at the Family Resource Center.

And even checking in, you know, frequently with the numbers, you know, there's, you know, over 100 kids on a waiting list, you know, in infant toddler. And so, you know, those kids might be, those parents might be, you know, waiting six months to a year just to get their kid in good quality accredited childcare. And so, what ultimately happens is, you know, some people may end up not, not coming here. If that's their decision or, or, or, and businesses look at that too, what, what, what is your system like and, and, and how, where are we going to send our parents' kids? And so, it's a workforce development issue because it delays people from entering the workforce. They, like I said, they may not come here. Or they may end up, you know, you know, sending their, sending their child a place where they're not overly comfortable. And so, it just kind of, you know, there's not only, do I, have I seen that in person? You just hear anecdotal stories of people that, that have wanted

to move to this town, but they haven't just because the childcare isn't, isn't there. And so, I think that there are some ways that we could address that, you know, you know, providing incentives to, to expand some capacity to, to support employer-based care. There's actually a newly appointed childcare task force that's kind of looking at some of these things. And, and we do need, need more help from the state and, and some other places. But I do think there's a few things that the city could do to, to make this a priority because it just is such a, such a big need. So, that's why I, I chose that. And, and the other thing is, you know, from working with, working with children, you know, if we're going to invest in something, why are we not investing in our future and in our kids? And the research is there to show that finding good quality places for, for kids to start when their brains are just starting to develop is just an investment in our community. Essentially, on the population question,

you said at 1% growth here in Pittsburgh. Yeah. Just this morning, we aired a, a feature from the Kansas New Service that talks about, essentially, cities like Pittsburgh, where they've declined in health, or they fland, fland out in population, rather. And it seems that, according to the research, there has been a little increase, no matter what towns like Pittsburgh do across the, across the entire state, to try to increase their populations. And I'll offer a little pushback. Pittsburgh, versus John Flynn, for instance, and Missouri Southern, Pittsburgh is viewed as a college town. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and part of that charm is that once the students graduate, they move on. You know, and that the core residents of Pittsburgh remain. And they make up the town. And, you know, you know, from living here, that's in the fall, it is much different than in the summer. Sure. Because there's like 10,000 more people here. Yeah. And how do you go from making a Pittsburgh and the charm that it has as a college town and everything about Pittsburgh to making it, for instance, say that we'll add 10,000 more residents to Pittsburgh. If you, I don't like to

use the word trap because I don't work in here in Pittsburgh. I don't think I'm trapped in Pittsburgh. Right. Yeah. It's a really unique, charming town. Yeah. But how do you grow, go on to, to build a population in Pittsburgh in the future? Well, I think, I think the key is, you know, we're not trying to maybe, you know, grow by 10,000. Okay. I mean, I think, I think we have to be realistic about what we're going to keep. And we're not going to be able to retain mass amounts of students. But, you know, I think, you know, with what we see going on, you know, with rural towns, we definitely want to be proactive and we definitely don't want to go backwards. So, you know, I think that, you know, that we could use, you know, we could use some more. Obviously, everybody would love to land a big manufacturer. And so, I think we could get into some things we do with CTECH and things like that. But, I mean, yeah, you're right. There's a limited amount

that we can do. And, but I do think that that we do, we do, you know, I think that there are attractive things, obviously, about a city. But I think that there are also some selling points as to, you know, having a, you know, raising a kid in a, in a small town where there's, where there's more, more, more personal, more of a personal touch on things. And, you know, we see that with people that, that go off into bigger cities and they, they end up coming back just because they, they prefer the, the knowing people. And, you know, so kind of in a way trying to, you know, obviously finding jobs for people. But, you know, also selling that, like you said, that culture and that small town kind of touch. Yeah, I'm on board with what you're saying. I have two and a five year old who go to daycare. Yeah. And we went to Pittsburgh before we bought a place over in a web city. And I personally, I'm from a big city. I'm from Los Angeles. And I

enjoyed Southeast Kansas since Southwest Missouri precisely because of some of the things you said. Right. Right. It is really easy to get around here. Yeah. Things are right there. You know, when I lived in Southern California, I was constantly on an interstate. Right. And it drove me insane. So I can see the attraction of people, for instance, living in the Overland Park, Kansas City area wanting to return to Southeast Kansas. Right. Because frankly, I believe that we have a higher quality of life than people think that we do. Yeah. If they've never visited. Yeah. So yeah. And I think you're right. And I think I think that that's the other thing that that we really need to, we need to sell our story. And, you know, part of Imagine Pittsburgh 2030. I don't know if you're if you're familiar with that. That that's kind of my I carry that thing around. This is kind of like my my I wouldn't say my marching orders, but it really is, you know, something that I in all my decisions as a commissioner that I really take into account. What is what is our vision? And how do these little pieces fit into that, you know, community blueprint? And, you know, a big piece of that

is one of the pillars of that is marketing. And whether that's with our schools or whether that's with, you know, kind of this idea that, you know, that, you know, that the crime is high and that that that, you know, we have to deal with, you know, some of the some of the some of the poverty, some of the poverty tags that we get. And, you know what? And the drug addiction. And those are real issues. But I think that we're painted sometimes statewide as exclusively high poverty, exclusively, you know, whether you want to talk about methamphetamine or whatever it is. And you were kind of dispainted by that brush. And so I think that through marketing and telling people that, you know, what's going on here, you know, and kind of selling that small town, you know, the advantages of that. And that, you know, that the quality of life is good here. And things for the most part are peaceful and quiet. And you can get around, you know, safely and and then that

sense of community. That's what, you know, I've, I've, you know, I graduated with my undergraduate degree in Lawrence from KU and moved back down here and got my graduate degree here. And so I just think that there's down here with our, with our heritage and the mining tradition and our university. I mean, where else do you find that kind of tailgating, that kind of support at a football game? And then, you know, these IP 2030 meetings are chamber coffees, are committees. I mean, there is just a, a really strong sense of community in this town. And, you know, I made the comment last night that, you know, we're up at the league of municipalities meeting in Kansas City. And, you know, they talked about how they're struggling to get people engaged in in community government and in community action. And they had made the point that state wide in

this election, 60 mayoral slots in 100 commission or council positions have no candidate. And that's not even to, to think about how many are uncontested. In this race, we have six people that are very passionate about their community, that are working very hard. And I can attest to this is going to be, you know, the most competitive city commission race that we've ever had in this town. And I'm excited to be part of that. I think that's great. And, and I think, you know, when or lose for me, it's just great to be part of this. And this is what we want. And so I just, I just encourage people to not take for granted that we have this, this vibrant community that is engaged in this election. We should be very proud of that. And, you know, get out and vote. And beyond that, you know, join, join one of these committees. Be part of these IP 23, 30 work working, working

groups. Run yourself, find ways to volunteer. We have this great place and this strong sense of community that I think we do, getting back to marketing, that we need to sell. And I think that you find, I keep hearing more and more from people that have been gone from a long time, that have moved back. And they've talked about how much they appreciate what's going on now, how they see things kind of, you know, a little bit different. But that some of the things that they've heard about this town and, you know, some of those, some of those missed that we, that I discussed, they're just not true. They're just not true. So we've got to do a good job of selling our story. All right. Finally, the hot, but an issue of the election seems like whether the city of Pittsburgh should essentially go into the electricity business, pry itself away from Evergie. Now in the, the merge company of Western KCPNL, it appears that those who are elected during this

city commission have a significant voice in the future of how Pittsburgh residents receive their electricity. So what are your thoughts on whether the city should play a role as a electricity provider? Well, you know, this is something that I knew was, I knew was, I knew was brewing just as a citizen before I even jumped on the commission. And this is something that right off the bat was one of the first things that I had the opportunity to vote on. You know, I thought that it was, it was, it was in the city's best interest to at least explore this option. And I think, and I mentioned last night in the forum that, you know, it's always the job, the job of the city to be checking for efficiencies. You know, we've done this with, you know, we made, we had to make a hardest, I wasn't, I wasn't around when they made the decision, but they had to make a hard decision on health insurance and switching a provider to account for, for efficiencies. You know, there's been things with workmen's comp and liability insurance and, you know, leasing versus

purchasing equipment. So I get that this is a lot bigger than all of that. But, you know what, there's municipalities all across the state that are looking at this issue. And this is, you know, the one, the one where, where we're talking about a separation from, from a big corporation. But a lot of places are just not, just looking to other people that already have the grid in place that cities that already own the grid are looking other places for power because they're finding it so much cheaper. So I said last night that I fully understand the gravity of this decision and that I'm, you know, doing my due diligence and doing the research, looking at both successes and failures. But, you know, we're in negotiations and there's just a lot of information that we still don't have at this point, a lot of numbers that we still don't have. I feel like we're getting, we're getting closer. For me personally, you know, some boxes need to be checked before I would

move forward with something like this. And, you know, that would involve like reduced rates. Just affordability of the acquisition itself. How, how we would regulate it, you know, there'd be a board, but I would want more specifics on how it would be regulated. You know, kind of a comprehensive plan for outages. And, you know, just making sure that it's reliable and safe. And this is a, this is a big venture. And I think that it's, it's going to be not only financially, but, but such a big thing for the city that I've said before, even if all those boxes are checked and even after I've sat down with the city and I planned that to sit down with Evergie as well. You know, ultimately, I would support, you know, taking this to the people and letting the citizens decide whether or not this is something they want for their community. Dan McDanieli, thank you for some of your time this morning.

Hey, thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you.