Dan Onorato was in town recently to explore interest in a southwestern Pennsylvania political lobbying committee. He came at the urging of Johnstown’s Ed Cernic Sr., a businessman, Democratic power broker and friend of Gov. Ed Rendell.

“I figure 12 to 15 counties working together is better than one” when it comes to dealing with Harrisburg, the affable Onorato said in a meeting with our editorial board.

He got no argument from us. Regionalization. Consolidation. Merger. Shared services. We like all of those terms when it means helping our communities thrive while keeping taxes low.

The “one” county Onorato was talking about was Allegheny.

The 46-year-old is chief executive of that county, which has a population of 1.2 million and includes the city of Pittsburgh.

He jokes that he, in essence, is the mayor of Allegheny. After all, he has a $1.5 billion budget under his thumb.

We guess that when he speaks, people tend to listen. At least we hope so, because we liked a lot of what we were hearing from this rising political star.

He talked about:

n Economic development and how cleaning up 800 acres of former Pittsburgh steel mills – brownfields – is a big part of that. It reminded us of Johnstown’s brownfields, many former Bethlehem Steel Corp. properties, and how someday, with proper cleanup and marketing, they, too, will play bigger roles in the city’s economy. Some already are.

n Operating an airport and past problems dealing with a carrier – USAirways – that at one time controlled air service providers and routes. It reminded us of long and tedious efforts to get commuter service locally to Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

n Municipal and transit pension funds and how they had come back to financially strap local governments in his county.

One stark example he gave was a transit worker who had retired and started collecting a pension at age 47 (after 25 years of service). His health insurance will be paid until he is eligible for Medicare.

Onorato would like to see local government pensions consolidated under state government.

But more importantly, he talked about downsizing government and expanding shared services, things we have long supported editorially. Although a Democrat and union supporter, he said he had led efforts to cut several hundred union jobs shortly after taking office in 2004.

And just as importantly, Onorato had the ear of many of our city officials and county judges and row officers. At the end of the day, he seemed convinced his visit was the start of something special and beneficial – a working relationship between our region and Allegheny County.

We hope so, and so, apparently, does City Manager Curt Davis.

“If we’re not going to get consolidation, at least look at regionalization and how we can save costs,” Davis said.

“We talked about the combining of city and county services and how we could save money. Joint things we can do.

“We discussed pension issues.”

As a follow-up, Davis said he was looking forward to meeting in Pittsburgh with former Johnstown fire Chief Mike Huss, now that city’s public safety director, and with Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

Dan Onorato is a certified public accountant and a lawyer. He has served two terms on Pittsburgh City Council, four years as county controller and is running unopposed in November for four more years as chief executive. We’ll be surprised if he isn’t heavily recruited as a successor to Rendell.

But for now, he’s talking about a plan for counties/communities to work together to improve the lot of citizens in southwestern Pennsylvania, and we’re glad our officials are willing to listen.



Bruce Wissinger is editor of the editorial page. He can be reached at bwissinger @tribdem.com or at 532-5076.