Name: Luke Ravenstahl
Current Position: Mayor till 1/2008 with elections in 11/2007
Born: 2/6/1980
Education: Mercyhurst (partial), Pitt (partial), W&J (degree)
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Religion: Practicing Catholic
Non-political Career: He was very briefly an account manager for a courier service.
Political Career:
- District 1 City Councilman: 1/2004 to 9/2006
- City Council President: 12/2005 to 9/2006
- Mayor: 9/2006 to Present
Notes:
- The Pittsburgh Promise is a promise to city High School graduates from 2008 on that they will get any college help they need from a program backed by private funding. The clock's ticking on whether this program will be implemented successfully.
- Works closely with Dan Onorato (who is a family acquaintance). Soon after Ravenstahl became Mayor the two agreed to a panel that would study the potential for combining county and city governments. Though this relationship may be on the fritz.
- Youngest Mayor of any major metropolitan city in the US.
- A wide variety of mini-scandals have hit in his time as mayor. He may have accepted an inappropriate gift by appearing in a golf tournament as a guest of UPMC, he has had to clean up a few city officials accused of wrong doing, though they date to his predecessors, he may or may not have been disorderly at a Steeler's game and he promoted three police officers with a history of domestic abuse. None of these seem to be too major (at least to me), but it does seem like quite a few things considering he hasn't been mayor a year yet.
- Helped keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh (though how much of a role he played is debated).
- Helped pass two difficult budgets one as city council president and one as mayor.