Quiet Skills of an Unbeatable "Grunt"

At first glance Pittsburgh Mayor Richard Caliguiri, 49, appears to be the very model of a modern civil servant. Indeed, he served 15 years with the parks and recreation department before getting elected to the city council in 1970. Slight (5 ft. 6 in.) and unobtrusive, he has the muzzy charm of a maitre d' and avoids controversies as if they were fatal diseases. As a Democrat in a city where his party has a 5-to-1 lead in registrations, Caliguiri (pronounced Cal-i-jeery) would be favored for reelection. But the diffident mayor is so popular that barring disaster, he is a shoo-in for a second four-year term next November.

A major reason for Caliguiri's lock on his job is that he has presided over one of the few success stories among cities of the recession-plagued Northeast. Despite high unemployment in the steel industry, corporations have invested $1.5 billion in new office buildings, speeding Pittsburgh's transition from mill town to corporate center. Caliguiri is spending millions more to repair bridges, build water and sewer systems and upgrade housing in the city's older neighborhoods. Predicts the mayor: "Pittsburgh is going to be the first major city in the Northeast to see actual gains in population." (It lost 18.5% in the past decade.)

If politics were pitching, Caliguiri would be called sneaky fast. In 1977 maverick Mayor Peter Flaherty quit to take a job in the Carter Administration. As city council president, Caliguiri automatically became interim mayor; an Italian immigrant's son and home-town boy, he got his first city job, as he puts it, as "a grunt in the parks department." In return for six months in the municipal limelight, Caliguiri promised Democratic bosses that he wouldn't run for a full term. Or so they understood. Shortly after the primary, lifelong Party Regular Caliguiri turned uppity and declared himself an independent candidate. He cannily put the city's money where his mouth was. Between taking over as mayor and easily beating the official Democratic candidate, Mayor Caliguiri spent $17 million, or roughly $40 per Pittsburgher, repaving potholed streets.

Caliguiri's style is to try for conciliation rather than confrontation. On his first day in office, he skipped an important Democratic rally to dine at the bluebloods' Duquesne Club with members of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. The conference, which included the heads of Gulf, U.S. Steel and other corporations, had been largely responsible for the "Renaissance" of the late '40s and '50s that rebuilt the downtown Golden Triangle. At that dinner, Caliguiri spoke about his desire to re-establish good relations between business and city hall.

The building boom that began shortly after that dinner has been dubbed "Renaissance II."

The mayor has staffed his administration with dedicated professionals, some of them Republicans. Somehow he has avoided embroilment in the city's two major recent controversies: a court-ordered school desegregation plan, and the awarding of a cable TV contract by the city council that is still in litigation. An administrator's administrator, Richard Caliguiri has managed to turn quiet competence into an apparently unbeatable virtue.

"He's able to get along with everybody," says John Robin, chairman of the Urban Redevelopment Authority. "How long this can last I don't know, but it's quite remarkable."

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