Merging the county of Allegheny and city of Pittsburgh governments is a goal worth pursuing, if only to boost public morale, county Chief Executive Dan Onorato and Mayor Tom Murphy said at a South Side forum last night.

Addressing about 100 people at an event organized by the Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project, the two government leaders agreed that consolidation would not necessarily produce major cost savings.

But it would improve Pittsburgh's self-image and national reputation, they assured.

"The psychological benefits are enough sometimes to merit going forward," Onorato said. "I'm sick of hearing that our best days are behind us, because they're not."

"It's not necessarily about saving huge amounts of money," Murphy said.

In an interview afterward, the mayor echoed Onorato, saying, "There would be significant psychological benefits."

For the forum, PUMP brought to Pittsburgh a deputy mayor of Louisville, Ky., where voters merged the city and county governments in 2000.

William Summers told the audience that saving tax dollars was not the main selling point in the Louisville referendum.

"What we really talked about was economic development, about young people staying at home, being able to find jobs," the deputy mayor said. "We made the argument that we would be on the front burner of every company looking for someplace to locate."

Onorato has expressed interest in the Louisville model of consolidation, since it left suburban municipalities intact.

He and Murphy have confined their discussions to merging their two governments, recognizing that suburban officials would resist a consolidation of all of the county's 130 municipal governments.

Last night, Onorato stressed that the time to pursue a merger is now, while Murphy is in the mayor's office.

"I'm convinced that the window of opportunity is very short," he said.

The next mayor, Onorato said, might not be as warm to a merger as Murphy, who has less than two years left in his term.

Murphy, however, said the city must first solve its fiscal crisis before it can merge.

"First and foremost, the city needs a fair tax structure, whether we consolidate or not," said the mayor, who is seeking state authority to collect more tax revenue from suburban commuters and large businesses.

City Councilman Sala Udin, another speaker at the forum, remarked that it would have been impossible just a few years ago for Pittsburgh politicians to openly discuss government consolidation.

"You would have been run out of here on a rail," he said.

But voter approval in 1998 of the county's home rule government referendum has shown that the local populace can accept change, he said.

PUMP, an organization of young professionals, intends to survey its members in the wake of last night's forum and take a position on consolidation.