Last week, Pittsburgh officials passed a law that obliges the city to try to hire more minority and female police and firefighters, improve the energy efficiency of its fleet and buildings, revamp its pay structure, reuse a former police station, merge a half dozen functions with the county and much more.

Those were among the planks shoehorned by a suddenly muscular City Council into the new Act 47 recovery plan -- ostensibly a 300-page blueprint to restore the city's fiscal health by capping pay hikes and replenishing the pension fund, but now also a wide-ranging agenda, with deadlines, in ordinance form and with the state's imprimatur.

"You have to not only adopt a plan. You have to implement it," said James Roberts, co-leader of the Act 47 recovery team, created by Gov. Ed Rendell in 2003 to fix the city's finances. "The entire city, meaning council and the administration, is responsible for implementing it."

The city's first recovery plan was adopted in 2004 by a narrow council majority that felt it could only vote yes or no. Its five-year sequel, though, seemed to face certain doom until state officials and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl accepted 30 council amendments, putting the force of law behind a few members' priorities.

One example: A sentence that council pushed onto page 239 of the plan requires that the city update its data on contracts with minority- and women-owned firms. That advances Councilman Ricky Burgess' desire to legally justify special contracting consideration for groups that faced discrimination. He also got a diversity-in-hiring push stapled into the plan.

It's no coincidence that Mr. Burgess was the first council member to endorse the Act 47 plan, and one of two who Mr. Roberts singled out for "particular thanks and appreciation" after Tuesday's 6-3 vote for it.

The Act 47 team rejected suggestions by council members who wouldn't vote for the plan. But it bought into most of the agenda championed by Finance Chair William Peduto, who, Mr. Roberts said, "worked tirelessly to find five votes and get consensus."

By the end of June 2011, thanks to a few sentences council squeezed on to page 211, the city must have a "professional management system" governing street paving, cleaning and snow clearance. That's something Mr. Peduto has long sought, and an area in which, he has said, Mr. Ravenstahl has moved too slowly.

Next year, according to a paragraph Mr. Peduto jammed into page 241 of the plan, the city "shall start negotiations" with Allegheny County to merge or share computer, payroll, personnel, law, purchasing and tax collection, and it is supposed to complete mergers "where applicable" by 2012. The city is required to "explore" a city-county parks commission by 2011.

Council recently debated the city's car-buying policies, weighing whether fuel economy, reliability or domestic content should be paramount. Now, according to a council-driven, seven-word addition to the plan, it's decided: Vehicle buys will be made "emphasizing energy efficiency and low maintenance costs." Another amendment driven by green-leaning Mr. Peduto sets a goal of saving 40 percent on energy costs of city buildings by 2013.

"I have worked in city government under four administrations," said Mr. Peduto, who ran for mayor in 2005, aborted a bid in 2007, and is now trying to forge alliances with other cities' councils. "I'm not going to waste another day. I know what's needed for Pittsburgh and for older communities throughout Pennsylvania."

Mr. Ravenstahl, who initially characterized council's amendments as "giving an ice cream cone to the world," now faces a sundae sprinkled with the wishes of a frequent foe. He didn't seem worried Tuesday.

"We think that it's only good to take a look at some of the issues that were raised in those amendments, and we'll do our best in working with council and the [Act] 47 coordinators to meet those deadlines, but I think we can do it," the mayor said.

Council added a plank requiring the Act 47 team provide an annual report tracking progress on implementing the blueprint, giving it a yearly excuse to revisit deadlines.

It remains to be seen whether council's assertiveness was a product of unique circumstances, or a trend.

Eleven years ago, then-Councilman Jim Ferlo -- now a state senator -- likened council to mushrooms. "We're fed manure and kept in the dark."

Since 2004 the mushrooms have been put on a near-starvation diet, first by the no-amendments-allowed passage of the original Act 47 plan, and then by another state panel -- the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority -- which gets initial approval of city budgets, and then bars any changes.

Last month, though, council found itself with leverage.

The state and the mayor wanted a new recovery plan by June 30, to cap police and firefighter union contracts now entering into the arbitration process. The state wrote it, the mayor endorsed it, and the unions lobbied to kill, delay or gut it.

Harrisburg told city officials that they'd doom any efforts to win new taxing powers, and maybe lose existing state aid, if council nixed the plan. Hammering home that point in person as the vote neared was acting state Secretary of Community and Economic Development George E. Cornelius -- the person empowered to withhold state grants and loans from distressed cities that don't adopt and follow plans.

Unlike 2004, when five council members more or less consistently backed the plan, this time there was only Mr. Burgess.

"Councilman Peduto and some other colleagues said, 'Wait a minute, I don't buy into this,'" said Councilman Jim Motznik. "It seems to me that council realized that you don't just jump up and agree to something, if you have the ability to bargain for something better for the city."

Mr. Peduto worked with colleagues Bruce Kraus, Theresa Smith, Darlene Harris and council President Doug Shields to form a bloc to force amendments. But those last two members dropped out.

Just 15 hours before council's on-deadline meeting, Mr. Ravenstahl asked his council allies, Mr. Motznik and Tonya Payne, to reverse their long-standing opposition and vote for the plan, including the Peduto-driven amendments.

"The mayor's involvement and guidance was very important, particularly at the end of the process," said Mr. Roberts.

Mr. Kraus and Ms. Smith met with the mayor on the eve of the vote. Several of their priorities made it into the plan -- a pay sweetener for city employees, and pledges to work with the Fraternal Order of Police on officer attraction and retention, and explore reusing the former Zone 3 police station in Mr. Kraus' base of the South Side Flats.

Mr. Shields called it "a unique situation that certainly doesn't come along every year" and said that parlaying it into influence over the fall budget process would be "a far reach for council."

Ms. Payne, who lost her May primary, predicts that council's agenda after her December departure and that of Mr. Motznik, who won a primary for district judge, will "be just personally going after the mayor" rather than collaborating to set policy.

"I don't see Bill [Peduto] ever trying to form an alliance with the mayor," she said. "He's always going to have this attitude that Luke robbed him of something."

Mr. Burgess, though, sees a city government that can find a middle ground.

"I do believe [Tuesday] was a pivotal moment in my tenure on council," he said, resting on the bench outside of Council Chamber, "in that the decisions were made by the majority for the best interests of the city and the workers of the city, and not for a special interest or due to personalities."