County Executive Dan Onorato and Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl are all but certain to be returned to office this year, giving a new lease to a potent political partnership.

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, left, and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl share the spotlight on March 29, announcing a new task force to oversee the design, construction and community input for a slots casino. Click photo for larger image.

Individually, and as a team, the two North Catholic High School alumni demonstrated sufficient political clout to ward off serious challengers months before the first ballot was cast.

The next two years will demonstrate whether they can be similarly successful on a policy level. Beyond whatever the relationship suggests about each of them as individual politicians, it also offers clues to the shifting governmental dynamics of not just Allegheny County but all of southwestern Pennsylvania, and to power relationships of the offices they hold that will go on after their tenures are over.

Mr. Ravenstahl, 27, who ascended to office with the Sept. 1 death of former Mayor Bob O'Connor, enjoys enormous popularity among city voters, a fact acknowledged by one of his most persistent critics, Councilman Bill Peduto, as he dropped out of the race last month. Still, by virtue of his relatively brief political career, he is clearly the junior partner to Mr. Onorato, 46.

The more veteran politician has been increasingly assertive in Democratic politics. His popularity and fundraising helped the Democratic party assume control of the state House in November. Along with U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, of Swissvale, his political embrace of Mr. Ravenstahl on the day that the mayor formally declared his candidacy helped lend it an aura of inevitability.

Veteran observers of local government differed on whether this power equation would be temporary or enduring, whether it reflected the personalities of two individuals, and whether it suggested a more permanent structural change.

"I think it's much more personality and circumstance," said former Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy. "You look at where Dan is and how young Luke is and how he came to office. I'm not sure that when Dan and Luke leave the stage, it won't change completely again."

David Miller, the dean of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, sees evidence of a more enduring trend.

"There has been an institutional sea change,'' he said. "It doesn't have anything to do with Luke or Dan. ... The importance of the county executive has increased dramatically.''

That was what many of the proponents of the change in county government, Mr. Miller among them, expected a decade ago. But the first county executive, Republican Jim Roddey, entered a local political stage on which Mr. Murphy was an established, substantial figure as mayor. Neither dominated the other.

In an interview before his recent trip to China, Mr. Onorato took pains to emphasize his respect for Mr. Ravenstahl while sharply rejecting a suggestion that the younger man would defer to him on policy issues. But, at the same time, he enthusiastically depicted his office as an increasingly more important force in the future of the region.

"Each year, it gets stronger and stronger; there's a reason for that," he said, sitting in a conference room in his suite of offices in the courthouse. "Our budget is three times the budget of the city. Our work force is double the size. Functionally, this office is really beefing up."

Mr. Miller points to the other side of that coin.

"The city of Pittsburgh is so fiscally crippled for a whole bunch of reasons," he said. "As a deliverer of services, it's not nearly of the same scope it was a few years ago."

Mr. Ravenstahl insists that the city has a good and improving story to tell. Without offering a specific timetable, he said it was realistic to think that the city could emerge from the state's fiscal supervision before the end of 2010.

While there still seemed a possibility of an actual mayor's race, Mr. Ravenstahl's critics tried to exploit his relationship with Mr. Onorato. A YouTube clip circulated in which he jokingly referred to Mr. Onorato as "the boss," a snapshot that critics hoped would bolster the image of a mayor subservient to his governing partner.

Mr. Ravenstahl, however, doesn't appear the least defensive about any perceptions of the relationship.

"What you say is accurate," he said, responding to a characterization of the county official as a dominant figure in local politics. "He has emerged as a leader in Western Pennsylvania and that's a benefit to the region and a benefit to the city."

Intersecting histories
The seeming lack of tension in a business replete with big egos may have something to do with the mayor and chief executive's shared family and neighborhood histories.

"His dad and brothers and sisters ... we all went to grade school together, high school together," Mr. Onorato said. "His father is real good friends with my sister. His grandfather and my dad were involved in sports. We've known each other through all that Catholic grade school stuff and high school stuff. My mom is real good friends with his grandparents. Our families go deep, go way back. Our trust level makes our partnership work."

Following a template set by Mr. Onorato and Mr. O'Connor, the executive and the mayor make a point of meeting every week without staff to discuss whatever might be on their minds. While critics, including Mr. Peduto, argue that the efforts to find efficiencies between the two governments have proceeded too slowly, the city and the county signed a major purchasing agreement this year.

Mr. Ravenstahl said they continue to look for significant longer-term efficiencies as well as "more low-hanging fruit," that could produce more immediate savings.

Asked about the possibility of more significant structural changes, both said separately that they were waiting for the recommendations from a panel chaired by University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg. Both also said they were open-minded about what those recommendations might produce, although Mr. Onorato seemed decidedly more enthusiastic about the potential for major transformation.

"I don't think there's any limits," Mr. Onorato said, when asked about the future of the office he holds. "I think it's wide open as to what the community wants to do and what the voters eventually decide on."

Citing examples of consolidation in other metropolitan areas such as Louisville, Ky., he said, "There's no reason why the city and the county [can't] end up as one government one day, and you have a mayor of Greater Pittsburgh. You can leave the municipalities alone, you can leave the school districts alone. ... We both have public works, we both have parks and recreation, we both have a department of engineering ... there's no reason you can't run those departments out of one office."

Mr. Ravenstahl was more reticent in describing potential changes.

"A merger? You have to look at what that means. Does it mean the city no longer exists? My first obligation is to the taxpayers, that's how I would approach it."

From their different perspectives, both acknowledged that any discussion of structural change would be shadowed by the city's longer-term fiscal straits.

"The 800-pound gorilla in the room in that debate is the unfunded pension and debt service in the city. It's just through the roof," Mr. Onorato said. He said that any significant city-county consolidation, without outside assistance, would be a non-starter. While there might be a logical or good-government argument for some sort of merger, he said it was politically unrealistic to expect his suburban constituents -- the county majority -- to volunteer to shoulder that debt.

"What could happen is that you'd have to go to the state -- because you'd need a state law to do that. You'd need a referendum. And it would be a package and the idea would be, 'Hey, state, you have to help fix the unfunded pension and the outstanding debt and, in return, we'd get efficiencies.' "

Mr. Ravenstahl similarly said that the city's crushing long-term obligations would be at the heart of any broad-ranging proposals to meld the city and county government.

"That's what I meant when I talked about city taxpayers," he said. "It doesn't make any sense for us to relinquish our assets -- and we do have great assets -- while still left dealing with our debt and legacy costs. We are going to have to deal with these issues and they are difficult issues."

City-county rivalry
There has always been some mixture of tension and cooperation between city and county government. A half-century ago, David L. Lawrence, a former mayor and governor, was occasionally at odds with county Commissioner John Kane, but, while Mr. Kane was a formidable figure, there was no doubt that Mr. Lawrence was the more significant at a time when most county residents lived in Pittsburgh. Since then, however, the population proportions of the city and its surrounding communities have reversed. Does that mean the power relationships have reversed as well?

Chris Briem, a Pitt economist and urban expert, noted that one vital footnote to the demography-is-destiny argument is that while the city's population keeps falling relative to the suburbs, its status as the jobs and economic engine of the region persists.

Mr. Murphy contends that the county executive, however important, does not have the kind of connection with the public that a mayor represents.

"Dan has come to the fore because of some of the difficult decisions he's made, but a county chief executive is not as directly connected to people's lives as someone who makes sure the garbage is picked up every day, who's responsible for the police and those fundamental services," he said.

The former mayor also said that the very term "mayor" confers a huge perception advantage, simply because people understand what it means. The term county executive, on the other hand, doesn't have that widely understood traditional definition.

Mr. Onorato agreed in part. He said that within the region, the title was a non-issue, as the public had come to understand it.

"But when I go beyond the region, people say, 'County executive?' County executive is different everywhere. So I would say, in hindsight, they would have been better off having a different title."

How about "Mayor of Greater Pittsburgh"?

It sounds all right to Mr. Onorato, though he doesn't see himself or anyone else in such an office on the immediate horizon.

"The reform of county government in the 1990s was part of a more regional basis on how decisions are made," Mr. Miller said. "The office of the mayor is always going to be important. But I think it doesn't make any difference who the mayor is. The office of county executive was going to emerge as second only to the mayor of Philadelphia."