2 weeks Ago By Julia Maruca
Pittsburgh City Council members hope to have some questions answered Tuesday afternoon about the departure of Pittsburgh police Chief Larry Scirotto – and about the department’s future. Council’s post-agenda meeting, scheduled for 1:30 p.m.
today, was called for last week by Anthony Coghill, who chairs council’s public safety committee. Scirotto has just days remaining in the job, having announced on Friday that he plans to retire from the force on Nov. 1.
The announcement came days after he told media he planned to remain focused on public safety in Pittsburgh while officiating college basketball in his free time. The chief, who had refereed games in previous jobs, announced two weeks ago that he planned to return to the basketball court during his off hours — a seeming reversal of the agreement he made with the city to discontinue that work when he became chief in 2023. He announced his return hours after WPXI reported that Scirotto had already refereed a Big Ten basketball game earlier in October.
Coghill has invited Scirotto, Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt, Deputy Chief Chris Ragland, Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak and Chief Operating and Administrative Officer Lisa Frank to the meeting. He initially planned to use the gathering to seek answers about Scirotto's plans for refereeing. Scirotto’s abrupt resignation made those queries moot, but Coghill said he still has a lot of questions for public safety officials, including Acting Chief Ragland, who will run the bureau after Scirotto departs.
Councilor Theresa Kail Smith also said she wants further discussion about the process for hiring a new chief, and the direction of the bureau. Similar concerns were on the minds of other council members Monday. Councilor Bob Charland says he wants details about any discussions that took place between Scirotto and Mayor Ed Gainey about Scirotto’s desire to referee.
Gainey previously told WESA that he’d decided to allow the side gig because the city’s homicide rate had declined. Charland said he hopes that someone from the administration will be present because “Someone needs to explain what happened.” He’s also interested in hearing more about how a new chief will be chosen, and how existing programs will be continued after Scirotto departs.
“Chief Scirotto was very visible and very engaged with our Zone Command here in Zone 3, and with the community probably even more so,” he said. “We’ve made major strides on the South Side. I want to make sure they don’t fall backwards.
” Continuity is on Councilor Barb Warwick’s agenda, too. She said she hopes to focus on the future at the discussion, and ask how the city will move ahead with initiatives in community policing and traffic-calming enforcement after Scirotto’s tenure ends. She said she’s “deeply disappointed” by Scirotto’s departure, but said “we need to be looking ahead.
” “It’s not about the mayor, it’s not about me,” she said. “It's about the kind of policing that the people of Pittsburgh want to see.“ Councilor Erika Strassburger also wants details on how the new chief will be chosen.
She hopes the process will be more like the one that chose former Chief Cameron McLay, in which members of the public weighed in and spoke about their priorities at community meetings. “To build up the trust from the public, it would be a very wise decision to have a fully public process,” she said. She said Scirotto was doing a good job with many aspects of the job, notably community policing and working with a limited number of officers.
But going forward, she said, “One of the most important factors is continuity. Are they willing to stay a good number of years and boost morale in the police force?” Strassburger also wants the facts about “exactly what happened and who knew what when” about Scirotto’s return to refereeing. She said she was concerned that councill only learned that Scirotto had returned to refereeing after he had already refereed a game.
Councilor Khari Mosley said some details about the chief’s previous plans are “moot” at this point. He wants to focus on the future and how a new chief will be chosen – a process he said shouldn’t be rushed. “The most important thing to do is take a little bit of time, being that we do have an interim chief in place, to determine what is the best path,” he said.
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