►
Description
On this episode of CityTalk, John interviews Mohammed Burny from Pittsburgh City Council District 1 Office and Rick Williams from Mayor Peduto's Office.
A
Welcome
to
another
virtual
edition
of
zoom
city
talk
as
we
continue
to
broadcast
remotely
during
the
endless
pandemic.
I'm
john
mcintyre,
I
hope
you're
doing
well
considering
and
our
first
guest
today
is
muhammad
bernie,
who
is
a
legislative
aide
for
north
side,
councilman
bobby
wilson,
mohamed,
welcome
to
the
program
hi.
How
are
you
doing
well
considering
how
about
yourself.
A
Yes,
for
some
reason,
the
location
I'm
in
they've
turned
off
the
air
conditioning
and
opened
the
windows.
I
have
no
idea
why
that's
translated
at
any
rate,
is
that
is
that
a
plant
you
had
well
before
the
pandemic,
or
is
that
a
a
plant
you
got
so
you'd
have
cool
things
to
have
in
the
background
you
know
during
interviews,
ice.
B
B
A
B
Well,
the
the
biggest
thing
that
a
legislative
aid
should
do
is
stay
on
top
of
the
legislation
that
comes
through
city
council
every
week
on
tuesdays
and
wednesdays
at
the
regular
and
standing
council
meetings,
largely
that
means
when
it
first
shows
up
in
its
first
induced
city
council.
It's
my
job
to
read
all
of
the
attached
text.
That
comes
with
the
bill
that
you
see
on
the
agenda
for
the
public
and
make
sure
I
understand
it's
the
best
of
my
ability
and
then
explain
it
to
the
council
person
if
necessary.
B
B
The
other
specific
thing
more
specific
to
councilman
wilson
is
that,
because
he's
chair
of
the
land
use
an
economic
development
committee
legislation
that
comes
through
that
committee,
it's
really
our
job
to
stay.
On
top
of
what
that
department
is
doing
and
to
be
aware
of
what
legislation
they're
going
to
be
bringing
forward
and
if
there's
going
to
be
any
issues,
then
making
sure
that
other
council
people
are
aware
of
this
legislation.
A
B
A
Yeah
and
for
the
uninitiated
we're
the
department
of
innovation
and
performance
and
we
sort
of
make
sure
everybody's
computers
or
try
to
anyway
work
and
that
they
have
the
computers
they
need
and
it's
a
good
point.
It
did
become
a
much
more
essential
department,
probably
than
it
was
over
before
interesting.
So
what
are
some
interesting
pieces
of
legislation
that
you've
been
working
on
so
far
or
tell
us
about
some
of
your
priorities
and
you're
very
young
in
office.
You've
only
been
in
there
a
few
months.
Just
so
people
know
yeah
sure.
B
Well,
let's
see
just
as
a
you
know
as
a
this
occupied,
probably
two
or
three
weeks
of
my
summer,
but
and
ultimately
we
decided
it
wasn't
the
time
to
do
it,
but,
as
I'm
sure
you
remember
a
few
weeks
ago,
it
has
calmed
down
now,
but
a
few
weeks
ago,
every
night
at
sunset,
going
forward
the
city
would
be
alive
with
the
sound
of
fireworks,
and
you
know
we
had
a
lot
of
constituents
call
and
ask
us
hey:
what's
the
deal
with
this?
What's
the
law
on
this,
can
we
do
anything
about
it?
B
You
know
we
were
seeing
reports
of
buildings
being
damaged.
Thankfully,
we
didn't
have
too
many
injuries
over
the
course
of
summer,
but
property
damage
public,
especially
property,
that's
publicly
owned,
like
parks
and
such
being
scorched.
So
I
sort
of
had
to
get
up
to
speed,
really
quick
on
what
our
ordinances
allow
us
to
control
and
regulate
and
what
they
don't,
and,
in
contrast,
what
the
state
does
and
then
see.
If
there's
any
legislation
that
we
could
pass,
that
would
have
any
sort
of
an
impact
on
the
nightly
fireworks
spectacular
that
we
were
experiencing.
B
This
is
what
we
did,
but
the
background
to
get
to
that
decision
of
not
doing
anything
and
letting
the
state
give
us
the
power
to
do
much
more
a
few
weeks
or
months
in
the
future
was
one
of
those
classic
legislative
aid
stories.
You
know
it's
all
happening
in
the
deep
and
as
far
as
public
is
concerned,
all
I'm
telling
them
is
hey.
Here's
a
law
like
you
can
call
9-1-1.
That's
within
your
right
within
your
purview,
there
aren't
really
more
enforcement
powers
that
we
can
enact
at
this
point
overnight
and
here's.
A
B
A
B
B
Yeah,
I
mean,
I
think
our
theory
again
is
one
of
the
things
that
I
discovered
in
the
process
of
doing
this
research.
I
think
one
explanation,
psychological
was
that,
because
there
weren't
public
fireworks,
shows
everything
from
the
pirates
of
winning
ball
games
and
having
fireworks
to
the
fourth
of
july
fireworks
that
happened
in
the
city.
People
felt
the
need,
or
the
desire
to
you
know
do
that
privately,
but
also
a
lot
of
people
who
sell
fireworks
suddenly
had
all
these
institutional
buyers
who
hadn't
bought
them,
and
it's
not
like
fireworks,
are
good.
B
I
think
for
a
long
time,
so
they
were
selling
them
for
a
huge
discount,
much
more
powerful
fireworks
to
you
know
your
neighbor
and
my
neighbor,
and
there
was
also
a
pretty
thriving
secondary
market
where
people
are
buying
those
fireworks
in
different
states,
bringing
them
back
here
and
selling
them
for
steep
markup
which
again
in
the
pandemic
and
all
the
economic
damage
that
has
caused
if
you're
going
to
be
entrepreneurial.
This
was
a
very
easy
thing
to
do,
but
it's
also
the
kind
of
consideration
that
led
council
to
think.
B
A
B
Whenever
I
get
asked
that
question,
it's
very
difficult
to
answer,
I'm
fundamentally
from
everywhere
and
nowhere
I
moved
to
this
country
when
I
was
11
from
saudi
arabia,
my
parents
are
indian,
they
moved
there.
My
parents
are
physicians,
they
moved
there
to
work
in
a
public
hospital
where
you
know
it
was
a
career
ladder
and
after
a
few
years
they
decided
they
wanted
to
give
their
kids
more
opportunities,
I'm
the
oldest
of
four.
B
So
they
moved
to
this
country
and
my
dad
sort
of
restarted
his
training
here
at
the
age
of
40.,
and
so
I
lived
in
you
know
we
moved
to
california.
I
lived
in
california
in
michigan,
in
in
new
jersey
in
missouri,
I
graduated
from
high
school
in
missouri,
in
a
small
town
actually
in
the
boot
hill
of
missouri.
B
That
is
rush,
limbaugh's
hometown
and
I
think,
partly
as
a
function
of
that
being
the
place.
I
came
of
age
politically
as
soon
as
I
could.
I
moved
far
away
to
berkeley
california
back
to
california,
and
I
was
there
for
four
or
five
years
at
the
start
of
my
late
teens,
early
20s
and
working
in
politics
working
for
local
campaigns,
public
interest
campaigns,
not
candidates,
and
I
sort
of
got
more
and
more
into
the
political
world
and
further
and
further
away
from
working
for
elected
officials
after
they
win.
B
Ultimately,
it
led
to
you
know,
working
on
wanting
to
work
on
a
presidential
campaign
and
when
president
obama's
re-election
campaign
came,
knocking
I
applied
was
hired
and
they
sent
me
out
to
pennsylvania
to
a
battleground
state
and
they
told
me
pick
pittsburgh
or
philadelphia.
It's
up
to
you
and
I
had
never
visited.
I
had
no
idea
coming
from
california,
I
had
a
snobbish
sort
of
oh.
B
A
A
B
The
great
thing
now
is,
I
have
started
saying
pittsburgh
because
there
you
go
pretty
in
tangible
sense
as
an
adult
when
I
wasn't
being
dragged
around
by
my
parents,
I
chose
to
be
in
pittsburgh.
I
chose
twice
actually
I
chose
the
first
time
to
come
and
then
after
graduating
from
college
last
year
again,
I
was
like
I'm
going
back
to
pittsburgh
and
I'm
sinking
my
roots
here
so,
and
I've
been
here
for
a
decade
which
is
a
long
time
in
a
30
year
old
man's
life.
So
this
is
home
for
me
now.
B
I
I
really
enjoy
the
behind
the
scenes
policy.
Wong
thing
I
mean
I've
had
the
privilege
of
watching
probably
a
half
dozen
elected
officials
at
every
level
of
government
from
u.s
senate
to
city
council,
and
it
is
a
demanding
demanding
job
and
frankly,
I
think
it
would
chew
up
and
spit
out
anybody
who's
not
prepared
in
their
bones
in
the
minutia,
for
what
they're
signing
up
for
so
there's
a
great
deal
that
I
had
to
learn
over
many
years
before,
I
could
even
remotely
contemplate
something
like
that.
A
B
Going
to
the
movies
huge
I
so
going
to
the
movies
is
like
this:
I
do
it
by
myself.
I
do
it
in
the
middle
of
the
work
week
you
know
take
an
evening
off.
This
is
my
like
way
to
decompress
during
campaigns
when
you
don't
really
have
any
time
to
decompress.
It
was
my
way
to
decompress
in
school
and
not
being
able
to
go
to
movie.
Theater
is
absolutely
crushing.
I
can't
wait
till
we
get
back
to
at
least
that
level
of
public
health
movie.
Theaters
are.
A
A
A
C
I
guess,
the
the
middle
man,
so
to
speak.
To
avoid
a
lot
of
the
red
tape
that
goes
on
in
our
city
departments,
to
kind
of
clear
the
path
to
help
city
residents
and
then
through
the
work
it
we.
We
really
saw
that
there
were
a
lot
of
equity
issues
in
that
work.
And
recently
I
guess
last
year
may
of
last
year
we
transitioned
into
the
office
of
equity.
C
C
We
didn't
have
the
capability
to
be
able
to
do
that
prior
to
my
arrival
and
so
moving
fast
forward
into
january
of
this
year.
I'm
the
business
inclusion
manager
and
my
role
is
really
to
bring
in
vendors
that
the
city
needs
in
procurement.
In
our
various
cities,
departments
we've,
we
noticed
in
doing
the
work
that
we
we
needed
to
have
someone
that
was
kind
of
like
the
client
representative
as
a
bank.
A
C
Well,
I
I
like
talking
to
people
I
I
like
being
able
to
connect
people.
I
think
that's
one
of
my
strengths,
but
I
also
I'm
good
at
doing
compliance
work
too,
but
it's
not
fun
doing
compliance
and
really
looking
at
contracts
and
and
seeing
where
people
are
short
and
kind
of
holding
people
accountable
to
what
they
say.
They're
doing,
but.
A
A
C
A
C
When
the
mayor
came
on
in
2014,
he
wanted
a
staff
that
really
didn't
have
connections
with
government,
no
government,
operatives
and
and
so
forth.
So
he
had
a
fair
process
through
talent,
city
we've
interviewed
for
that
process
and
a
number
of
us
who
came
on
board.
This
was
our
first
time
the
government
so
that
I
went
through
that
process
got
interviewed
and
I'm
proud
to
be
a
servant
of
the
city.
C
You
know
I
was,
I
was
very
cautious
about
it
and
didn't
have
any
john.
To
be
honest
with
you,
you
hear
what
people
say
about
government
and
what
I
can
honestly
say.
It's
not
true.
Being
on
the
inside
of
that
me
and
my
colleagues,
we
really
work
hard
to
serve
the
people
and,
and
unfortunately
they
don't
really
get
to
see
the
the
type
of
work
and
the
hours
that
we
spend
and
trying
to
help
people.
C
It's
been
kind
of
tough.
I
have
two
little
kids
that
I'm
so
sorry
to
hear
that
that
I
have
to
help
in
as
far
as
assignments
and
so
forth.
We
just
got
word
last
week
that
we're
going
to
be
out
for
another
nine
weeks
doing
the
same
thing
when
school
starts,
so
I'm
learning
how
to
be
an
elementary
school
teacher
right
now
I
have
a
daughter.
C
I
mean
basically,
you
know
my
my
daughter
has
a
loft
bed
and
in
the
loft
bed
she
has
a
desk
to
be
able
to
do
her
schoolwork.
My
daughter
actually
hangs
out
with
me
on
the
kitchen
room
table
here
and
she
does
her
work
on
her
tablet.
I
do
my
work
on
on
my
tablet
and
I
make
calls
and
and
send
them
to
their
rooms
accordingly,
when
I
have
to
have
meetings
like
this
with
you
so.
A
C
I
just
need
to
take
a
vacation
somewhere,
you
know,
go
to
the
beach
or
something
and
just
let
the
water
hit
my
feet
and
just
relax
a
little
bit,
because
this
has
really
been
a
trying
time
covet.
19
started
when
it's
cold
and
now
it's
the
summer
and
we
still
have
it
and
we're
kind
of
restricted
to
our
quarters
so
to
speak.