Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl played traveling salesman last night, pitching his proposed 50-year lease of city parking garages and meters during a small gathering at a North Side senior center.

Only about a dozen residents attended the session, the first of three public meetings Mr. Ravenstahl has scheduled to discuss his plan to leverage parking lease proceeds for an ailing pension fund. The other meetings will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday at St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brookline and July 28 at the Greenfield Senior Center.

"I would have liked to see more folks here, no doubt," Mr. Ravenstahl said, noting the proposed lease represents major change.

Under Mr. Ravenstahl's plan, parking garages and meters would be leased to a private party for 50 years. In return, the city would receive a lump sum payment that would, at minimum, cover about $100 million of parking authority debt and pump about $200 million into the pension fund.

Mr. Ravenstahl spoke in a small room where the number of mayoral advisers and staff members rivaled the turnout of everyday Pittsburghers.

If the city doesn't shore up the pension fund by year's end, he said, the state will take over the fund and require dramatically higher contributions -- $30 million a year more than the city current's minimum annual obligation of about $45 million.

"We don't have that $30 million," he said, noting the city could raise the money only through drastic measures, such as a 24 percent increase in the property tax, 44 percent increase in the wage tax or the layoff of about 400 police officers.

Parking rates would increase significantly under the lease proposal developed by Mr. Ravenstahl's staff; the additional revenue is needed to lure bidders. However, Mr. Ravenstahl called higher parking costs preferable to a dramatic hike in the wage or property taxes.

While Mr. Ravenstahl said he doubted the increases would hurt neighborhood business districts, North Side resident John Canning told the mayor he's concerned that higher parking rates would divert more shoppers to suburban malls.

"I'm just concerned about the impact on neighborhood businesses," he said after the meeting.

"I'm a North Sider who wants to see the North Side revitalized."

Seven firms have been pre-qualified to bid on the lease proposal, and Mr. Ravenstahl wants City Council to vote on a deal with the winning bidder by mid-September. Council is scheduling its own public meetings, including some in the city's main business districts.

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