Saying he is the best man to right the city's fiscal ship, former City Council President Bob O'Connor officially entered the Pittsburgh mayor's race again yesterday.

Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette Bob O'Connor greets supporters yesterday after announcing his candidacy for mayor of Pittsburgh at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers building on the South Side. Click photo for larger image.

In a nine-minute speech before 1,000-plus supporters on the South Side, O'Connor, a former restaurant executive, described himself as a kind of chief executive officer who could guide the city past its fiscal problems by hiring talented managers and promoting economic development.

He also promised to focus on improving the city's public schools, which are not controlled by the mayor's office, in part by seeking the power to appoint members of the Pittsburgh Public Schools board.

During his speech at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall, O'Connor never mentioned Mayor Tom Murphy, who defeated him in the past two Democratic mayoral primaries, in 1997 and 2001. But Murphy's ghost was in the union hall, as O'Connor repeatedly mentioned the city's fiscal woes, saying the crisis could have been averted if he had been elected mayor over Murphy four years ago.

This time, Murphy is not seeking re-election.

"I knew then what most of you know now: This city is headed in the wrong direction," O'Connor said. "We must turn Pittsburgh around and get this city on the right track."

O'Connor, 60, of Squirrel Hill, is the second major candidate to enter the race, following Allegheny County Prothonotary Michael Lamb of Mount Washington. City Councilman William Peduto of Shadyside is expected to officially enter the race next week, though tomorrow his supporters will start gathering the petition signatures needed to get on the ballot.

All three are going for the Democratic nomination in the May 17 primary, which all but decides the mayor's race in a city where registered Republicans are outnumbered 5-to-1. That means voters have only three months to gauge the candidates.

O'Connor unveiled a three-legged platform yesterday, promising to strengthen the management of the city, support city-county cooperation -- but not necessarily a full merger of city-county governments -- and build better relationships with state lawmakers and others.

O'Connor said he would replace the city's two deputy mayors with one city manager to work more effectively with the city's work force, which drew hearty cheers with the many city workers in the crowd.

He promised to hire an experienced fiscal official to run the city budget, and said his appointments to city agencies, such as the Urban Redevelopment Authority and the parking authority, also would be experienced officials, who would be subject to term limits of three to five years.

"You have to surround yourself with great people. That's the key to being a great mayor," he told reporters later.

There is no term limit for Pittsburgh's mayor, which is how Murphy served three terms before announcing in December that he would not run again.

O'Connor said he would release specifics on his plans for fixing the city's budget later.

Asked if he supported the spending cuts in the city's Act 47 economic recovery plan, which consumed city government all last year and triggered deep cuts in personnel spending, O'Connor was noncommittal.

"I haven't seen them all," he said of the cuts. "You have to be very careful [balancing cuts] with quality city services."

Both the Act 47 team and the city's fiscal oversight board have called for the city to close fire stations to save the city budget -- just as other fiscal experts have repeatedly recommended for years -- but O'Connor was not definitive on that topic, either.

"I'm for whatever is good for public safety. I'm for looking at public safety first, then the budget," he told reporters.

As a councilman, O'Connor long supported merging the city and county 911 emergency centers, and yesterday he called for continued mergers of local government services. He stopped short of endorsing a full-scale merger of the two governments, which Murphy and county Chief Executive Dan Onorato support.

O'Connor was an executive at Pappan/Roy Rogers restaurants for 20 years before joining City Council in January 1992. He served on council for 11 years, until early 2003, when he became Gov. Ed Rendell's representative to southwestern Pennsylvania. He resigned in December to plan his mayoral run.

O'Connor said he could trade on the friendships he made working with Rendell to get additional state help for the city budget. Saying God "gave me the gift to work with people," he said he also could improve the city's relations with the public schools, organized labor, businesses and nonprofit organizations.

A lifelong city resident who grew up in Greenfield and Squirrel Hill, O'Connor graduated from Allderdice High School in 1962 before starting work at the Jones & Laughlin steel mill on the South Side. Befitting his regular-guy status, he still slips into Pittsburghese, such as in remarks yesterday to reporters about spurring development Downtown.

"It needs cleaned up, it needs fixed and it needs attention," he said.

Unlike the past two mayoral races, O'Connor enters this campaign as the front-runner, with the most money and the longest time in the public eye.

For the next three months, his opponents may attempt to make the election a referendum on whether he is the right man to lead the city. O'Connor tried to do the same thing in his losing efforts against Murphy.

Lamb, already launching into that strategy yesterday afternoon, issued a public letter to O'Connor challenging him to a series of debates.

O'Connor's spokesman, Dick Skrinjar, said O'Connor would "absolutely" debate Lamb later in the campaign, but first will focus on winning the city Democratic Committee's endorsement on Feb. 27.

The campaign is throwing free breakfasts, lunches and dinners for officials in all 32 city wards in the next two weeks, and loads of party officials circulated through O'Connor's campaign event yesterday.