The imagery was compelling: Gang members, hauled into a room under court orders if necessary, would be confronted by community leaders, police, ex-convicts, and the mothers of murder victims.

They'd be offered a choice of going straight and being embraced and helped by their community, or facing massive group punishment the next time someone pulled a trigger.

That's what Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl pitched at a news conference on Sept. 19, 2008. Then, he said, the Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime, or PIRC, would show results on the streets within six months. "If there's one agency that is not committed, then it won't work," the mayor said at the time.

More than a year later, there has been no meeting with gangsters.

A key contract with the University of Pittsburgh will likely be finalized today, after Pittsburgh Post-Gazette inquiries sent officials scrambling to finish long-shuffled paperwork and shift money to replace what was supposed to fund PIRC but was spent on other public safety services. Pitt is to do much of the research underlying the program.

Michael Huss, the city's public safety director, said a contract with Pitt "went back and forth, back and forth." The mayor signed it two weeks ago, but then it hit another road block. "The money that was originally identified for that isn't there, and the contract got stopped at the controller's office."

Yesterday morning, city Councilman Ricky Burgess, a prime architect of PIRC, originally told the Post-Gazette: "The money is still there."

In the afternoon, though, he began circulating a petition to fellow council members seeking to shift $140,000 meant for a new curfew center to a pot from which PIRC's bills can be paid.

Asked why he was transferring money after saying it was still there, Mr. Burgess called the shift "a technical thing. ... The commitment to fund the program was still there."

Other than the number-crunching and the "call-in" meeting with gang members, he said, the program is "all queued up."

Others said the program should have been rolling months ago.

"I really am not at all pleased that a matter of, literally, life and death was given such short shrift," said council President Doug Shields.

David M. Kennedy's plan "is a proven commodity if it is implemented, and implemented properly." Mr. Kennedy, of the City University of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is the architect of the violence reduction system that was pioneered in Boston, used in dozens of cities since, and now touted as Pittsburgh's great hope for reduced youth gunplay.

He would not return calls yesterday, and in an e-mail referred questions to the city's PIRC coordinator, Jay Gilmer, who was hired in June.

Mr. Gilmer said he has been busy building networks -- his City-County Building office walls are covered with lists of people in government, policing, social services, and community groups. He said he's "finding places where we can link in with other organizations" to solve the complex problems that arise when you try to turn a criminal into a productive citizen.

He doesn't yet have any clients to guide. Those come from the "call-in" meetings, which can't happen until the city knows who it should be summoning.

The job of crunching police data and creating a "map" of people and relationships in the city's youth gangs is supposed to fall to Mr. Kennedy, plus the University of Pittsburgh's John Wallace of the School of Social Work and Michael Yonas of the Department of Family Medicine. None are under contract yet.

Dr. Wallace said yesterday his team has "not formally begun our work. We have had a couple of meetings about PIRC but the city and the university are still finalizing the paperwork."

The hold-ups, said Mr. Burgess, are the different business practices of the city and Pitt, and the departure of a key university person "to Europe for a long period of time."

The university yesterday did not respond to that.

The fund originally slated to cover PIRC was spent on a mix of public safety needs, from animal control to telecommunications to witness protection. Mr. Burgess yesterday persuaded four council colleagues to sign on to shift funds from an unopened Oakland curfew center.

Mr. Huss said the shift is possible because the curfew center -- originally slated for a May 1 opening -- may not have to open yet because of the impending onset of cold weather, which generally keeps youths home.

Controller Michael Lamb was provided with council's approval of the fund shift yesterday, and may sign the contract today.

The delays have become an election issue in Mr. Ravenstahl's bid for a four-year term. He faces independents Kevin Acklin and Franco Dok Harris in the Nov. 3 general election.

"Press conference, photo-op, no follow-through," said Mr. Harris. "We talk a lot, and we don't seem to do much."

"I'm very well aware of the good work Professor Kennedy has done and I've spoken to some of the folks who were responsible for bringing him here," said Mr. Acklin. "What I've heard from them is a concern that it was politicized too early, it wasn't adequately sold, so to speak, to the neighborhoods ... and as a result people don't have a very clear vision on what it means."

Through Sunday, the city has seen 35 homicides this year. In 2008, 72 people were killed.

Mr. Huss said it's hard to speculate on the reasons for the decline, though good police work may have something to do with it. Still, the administration is committed to PIRC.

"If we could save one person's life with this, or turn one thug around, it's all going to be worth it," he said.

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