Unsealed warrant alleges awards of no-bid contracts under Gainey administration

A warrant unsealed on Monday alleges widespread awards of no-bid contracts to reward supporters of Ed Gainey while he was the mayor of Pittsburgh.

Back in March, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala hit the city of Pittsburgh with a series of warrants, looking into allegations of corruption in the recently exited Gainey administration.

Acting on allegations of a former city council solicitor, the warrant sought scores of contracts awarded under the former mayor, alleging a pattern of circumventing bidding laws.

These include $2 million in so-called Stop the Violence grants awarded to more than two dozen community organizations who supported Gainey's election. Those awards have been criticized for not requiring work performance documentation and the warrant states the Gainey administration used a waiver form to award the money on a no-bid exemption basis.

The former council solicitor referred to the award of contracts under Gainey as "an exemption buffet," saying 20% of the contracts under Gainey were no-bid compared to less than 10% in former administrations.

It cited the $180,000 award to the consulting group Matrix to study police staffing. The warrant document alleges the contract was steered specifically to Matrix, which came under fire for concluding that despite falling numbers and retirements, the police bureau was adequately staffed.

The warrant document states the rampant awarding of these contracts has resulted in the city's current fiscal condition and questions the former mayor's relations with those who received them, including 1Hood Media, the POISE Foundation, the Homewood Community Sport Program, BikePGH and Operation Better Block.

Councilman Khari Mosley is a co-founder of the Black community advocacy organization 1Hood, which was awarded various contracts. The warrant suggests these were payback for Mosley's political support of the mayor. 

Since being elected to council, tax records show Mosley no longer takes a salary from 1Hood, and he said he has recused himself in votes on contracts involving the organization and has not benefited from their award. 

"So I couldn't speak to whatever was mentioned in the document that somehow erroneously tries to tie me to any funding that 1Hood Media received from the city," Mosley told KDKA-TV's Andy Sheehan on Tuesday. 

That document refers time and again to statements made by former city council solicitor Dan Friedson, who said he met with Councilman Anthony Coghill and then-Councilwoman Theresa Kail-Smith about his concerns around the Gainey administration's contracts. The three then decided to refer those concerns to the district attorney.

On Tuesday, Coghill said he had no comment on the ongoing investigation and Kail-Smith did not return phone calls. But while saying the allegations are serious, Councilwoman Barb Warwick said she sees nothing illegal. 

The document questions the award of $2 million in Stop the Violence grants to nearly three dozen community organizations which supported Gainey. The warrant calls the program a political slush fund, but Warwick says all mayors develop these relationships and questioned whether there is a racial component to Zappala's probe of Gainey, the city's first Black mayor. 

"It's a small town, but somehow that seems to be put under intense scrutiny when it is folks working and doing good work in the Black community," Warwick said. 

Zappala has been investigating the Gainey administration for more than two years and he has served other warrants in addition to this one. He will need to prove the award of these contracts is more than just patronage and that city money was spent for political benefit.

Editor's note: 1Hood received three stop the violence grants totaling less than $100,000. An incorrect figure was published in a previous version of this story and has since been updated.