8 hours Ago By Julia Maruca
Another candidate has declared he’ll be running for mayor of Pittsburgh — on the Republican ticket. Highland Park resident and Lawrenceville business owner Thomas West owns men’s clothing boutique Trim Pittsburgh on Butler Street. West, 48, has a background in TV news production, having worked for both WPXI and WTAE, among other stations.
He grew up in Greene County, Pa. “I don't care where you fall on the political spectrum,” he told WESA. “If you've been cut out of the city conversation by those in leadership, come back in.
I'm open to hear you. I want to get things done.” West describes himself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.
He hopes to run on a pro-business platform and bring attention to areas of the city that he feels are neglected — which include not just remote neighborhoods but much of the business community as well. “There's a lot of ambition in this city. It's just very complicated to open up a small business.
But we need to be a city that's welcoming, and we need leadership that says we are open for business, both big and small,” he said. West also wants to invest further in what he considers to be neglected western and southern neighborhoods, like Carrick, Elliott and Sheraden, as well as in Homewood and Lincoln-Lemington. “I've heard complaints that they're not listened to by the city,” he said.
“They need something. They're put on the list of things to do. Well, okay, that list needs to start getting shorter and we need to get things done.
” Republican officials in Pittsburgh are expecting a competitive mayoral primary for the party for the first time in decades. Last month, Todd McCollum, who chairs the GOP's city committee, said he expected several people to run for mayor , and credited President Donald Trump’s victory with motivating the base and opening up a chance for victory for the party. And West will likely face Tony Moreno, a former Pittsburgh Police officer who ran against Gainey in 2021 (first as a Democrat in the primary, then as a Republican in the general election) is running again on the Republican ticket in the May primary.
(At least one other Republican, South Side business owner Richard Cupka, is also said to be pondering a run.) West doesn’t credit Trump as motivation for his own candidacy. He says he was inspired by hearing complaints for years from friends, customers and other business owners, and seeing signs of “stagnancy” in the city over time.
Since his youth in the early 90’s, he said, he has heard people talking about Pittsburgh’s revival. Incumbent Mayor Ed Gainey is running for a second term on the Democratic ticket, where he faces a spirited challenge from Allegheny County Controller Corey O'Connor. “What we have to remember as a city is that people don't have to live within the city boundary.
They don't have to have a business in a city boundary. We have to be competitive when it comes to the suburbs, when it comes to other cities. And until we do that, we're going to keep seeing businesses either not open here in the city limits or go someplace else.
” West is openly gay and sponsors an LGBT sports organization, Pittsburgh’s Stonewall Sports league. He said part of his concerns about safety in the city were sparked by an incident several years ago in which someone tried to assault him and his partner in a Downtown parking garage. “That right there opened my eyes.
I was like, what is going on here?” he said. “Nobody should go through that. And I think that started the political process.
” Like Moreno, West identified public safety and the police force’s staffing struggles as key concerns. He said he is talking to police officers about what initiatives they would want to see to support them, and has heard them float the idea of additional incentives for recruiting. He also wants to increase transparency and support businesses as a whole.
One idea he’s thinking about is a program to foster entrepreneurship among high school students. He hopes to encourage discussion with businesses across the city — something that O’Connor also cited as a goal during his own announcement speech on the Democrat side. “Every industry is different, and you need to contact these small business owners or big business owners, get them in on a group roundtable — ‘What can we do to keep you here? What can we do to get more people to open up businesses here?’” West doesn’t have previous political experience, but credits his TV news and business background with developing his skills.
He said that talking with customers has allowed him to hear perspectives from both left- and right-aligned Pittsburghers, and keeping up with the pace of TV production meant making fast decisions. He hopes to bring into the conversation Pittsburghers who he considers to have been excluded in the past — ranging from “middle-of-the-road Democrats” to Republicans, independents, and libertarians. “We've had one-party control,” he said.
“This is not a slight against Democrats. But when you have one-party control, you have no accountability, because there doesn't have to be.”.
