Two year`s ago, the city planning commission was a mostly male preserve, as most of Pittsburgh government's panels were and still are.

When that commission meets tomorrow to consider the plan for the proposed North Shore casino, it will be six women and three men doing the deliberating.

That commission, charged with approving or rejecting site plans and making other key development decisions, is exhibit No. 1 in the increasing diversity of city panels. It's a process that has accelerated during Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's nine-month tenure, though some think it hasn't applied to all boards.

Twenty-five of Mr. Ravenstahl's 47 nominees to city-related panels are women, and 15 are minorities. Put another way, more than half of his picks are women, and nearly one-third are minorities, roughly reflecting the city's demographics.

"I think it's indicative of the commitment I've made to diversity boards, authorities and commissions," he said last week.

Asked when diversity across all city-related boards might be reached, he noted that most members of panels were appointed long before he became mayor.

"It's going to take time to get there. We've showed so far that there is a commitment that we've made, and as those positions become available or changes are made, hopefully, we can even improve those numbers."

A study done in 2005 found that 23 percent of seats on city authority boards were filled by women, along with 42 percent of commission seats. Authority boards typically have budgets and often own extensive property, while commissions usually don't.

City Council passed legislation in November 2005 that required the city to set up Web sites listing its boards, their charters and bylaws, their members, when their terms start and end and who appoints them.

The legislation, authored by Councilman William Peduto and backed by all council members, also demanded an easy process for those interested in applying for board seats, and annual reports on the diversity of applicants and nominees.

A board and commission application is available on the city Web site at www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/mayor/html/boards_commissions.html, along with basic information on 28 panels.

Mr. Peduto said some of the legislation's planks aren't being followed.

"By law, there is to be a database of all applicants, that council has to receive" with each nomination, he said. If it exists, he hasn't seen it. "There has not only been no annual report, but not even a memo."

Mr. Ravenstahl said the annual report is coming "soon." Efforts to compile it have been complicated by the quality of the data, and the question of whether to include applications that came in through the late Mayor Bob O'Connor's campaign Web site in late 2005.

Of Mr. O'Connor's first 29 appointments, 15 were women, minorities, or both. That's just over half.

Of Mr. Ravenstahl's picks, 31 -- just under two-thirds -- are women or minorities.

The numbers "represent significant growth, which is a very encouraging sign, and I do think that's directly related to the legislation that passed," said Heather Arnet, director of the Women and Girls Foundation and a key figure in Pennsylvanians for Fair Representation, an umbrella group of some 60 organizations seeking diverse government.

The administration hasn't used quotas or practiced reverse discrimination, the mayor said. "Make no mistake, this isn't based on gender and skin color. It's based on the qualifications of the individual."

The results came from "a lot of outreach," he said. "We really made it a priority to interview and consider folks who might not have otherwise been considered."

"We've been asked two or three times now to submit names of people" interested in board seats, said Doris Carson Williams, president of the African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania.

She is one of the mayor's two appointees to the Pittsburgh Housing Authority board. (The other, city Director of Economic and Community Development Pat Ford, is a white man.) She said being on the board helps her advance the mission of her organization.

"I'm able to make sure that the housing authority is doing their due diligence on women-owned and minority business involvement in contracts," she said.

More diverse government should prove to be better government, said Ms. Arnet. "We'll see policies that begin to take into consideration all citizens, and all of our communities."

Having ample female representation on the planning commission is a plus as that panel deals with issues like balancing a casino's needs with the concerns of its neighbors, including residents, the Carnegie Science Center, and the Pittsburgh Steelers, said Lynne Garfinkel. She's one of the mayor's two nominees to the commission, both women.

"A lot of what we do is sort of facilitating, making sure that developers and communities are talking," she said. "Women tend to look at those things, to find alternatives to conflict."

Ms. Garfinkel, a 39-year-old human resources consultant from Squirrel Hill, jumped into the political scene last year, besting an incumbent member of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee at the polls. The granddaughter of Max Heller, mayor of Greenville, S.C., during the 1970s, she said she has a zeal for public service that may not stop at the commission.

"Both younger people serving, women and minorities serving [on boards], will change what our city looks like in terms of leadership," she predicted.

Women still don't have their fair share of seats on the most powerful boards.

Two joint city-Allegheny County panels, the Regional Asset District board and the Sports & Exhibition Authority board, each have one woman among seven members. The city's Comprehensive Municipal Pension Trust Fund board, which controls more than $300 million in investments, consists of seven white men.

"You want to see fair representation across boards," said Allyson Lowe, director of Chatham University's Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy. "You don't want the entire Shade Tree Commission to be women, and all the commissions that deal with pensions, parking, water and zoning to be men."

"Where the money is, it seems like the same old people, the same old names, being put in," said Mr. Peduto. "Are you really creating more diversity when women and minorities are at the card table?"

Seventeen of the mayor's appointees who are women or minorities are on the Human Relations Commission or the new Youth Commission.

The mayor has had limited chances to put his stamp on some of the most important boards.

His one pick to the Sports & Exhibition Authority was white male Councilman Jeff Koch. He's made one appointment to the Parking Authority, and that went to Mr. Ford. He placed his Chief of Staff Yarone Zober, a white man, on the Urban Redevelopment Authority board.

His choice to fill an Ethics Hearing Board vacancy, though, was white woman Penny Zacharias. And to the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority board, which sets water rates and issues millions of dollars in contracts, he steered his white male Finance Director Scott Kunka and city staffer Margaret Lanier, an African-American woman.

Mr. Ravenstahl said diversity will spread over time, including in the mayor's office. He said he's "certainly taking [diversity] into consideration" as he pores over hundreds of applications for jobs including spokesperson, solicitor, business retention coordinator, and a new position dedicated to deploying management systems for making city decisions.

He's also seeking an equal employment opportunity manager, charged with improving the diversity of the entire city workforce. The public safety bureaus, in particular, have become less diverse in recent years.

Some say the city should broaden its view of diversity.

"I wish there were more young people on this," said Erin Molchany, executive director of the young professional-oriented Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project, as she reviewed a list of board picks. "There's still some work to do."