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Election '99: Majority expected to sit it out County executive race tops long, complicated ballot Tuesday, May 18, 1999 By James O'Toole, Politics Editor, Post-Gazette
"I understand you've got a big election tomorrow," Bob Dole noted as he arrived at a Downtown hotel last night. "Hey, is there anybody you don't like? I'll endorse them."
The former presidential candidate -- in town for a University of Pittsburgh dinner and speech -- was only joking, of course, but he displayed more awareness of today's balloting than many people with more at stake in the outcome. If projections are accurate, a majority of registered voters will stay home today while Allegheny County begins the process of selecting the first executive and council in its history.
Shortly after 7 a.m., some early riser will have the anonymous distinction of being the first person to walk into a voting booth to cast a ballot for the county's new government.
To be decided are nominations for the new and potentially powerful post of county executive and the 15-member county council that will take office in 2000. Those offices share a long ballot with candidates for City Council, judge, district justice, school boards and town councils and boards of supervisors. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
If there's a late crowd at any polling place, it will stay open long enough to accommodate all registered voters in line by the 8 p.m. deadline. The state election code specifies that when there is a line, voters may take only three minutes behind the curtain. That's a rule that's rarely invoked, but the plethora of names on today's ballot may force elections officials to enforce it.
"Our recommendation is that voters should study the sample ballots before they go into the booth so they get an idea of where the candidates' names are before the curtain closes," said Mark Wolosik, manager of the county's election division. Wolosik expects turnouts of about 45 percent of county Democratic voters and 40 percent among Republicans.
Moving across the first choices is easy. For both parties, two candidates are seeking two nominations for state Superior Court. After that, things get complicated. Forty-nine names appear on the Democratic ballot and 39 on the Republican one for the six nominations for Common Pleas Court.
The sharpest focus in this primary is on the inaugural contests for county executive. Two incumbent commissioners, Democrat Mike Dawida and Republican Larry Dunn, have been battling challenges, respectively, from Coroner and former Commissioner Cyril Wecht and Republican businessman Jim Roddey.
Wecht and Roddey, both critics of the pace of economic development and of the tumultuous financial history of the current county administration, have been perceived as the front-runners throughout the primary season.
Dawida boasts, however, of turnarounds in the county's budget and in the region's economy and asserts that those changes will, in turn, bring him to an upset victory at the polls.
Dunn has staked out a reputation as a populist defender of the common voter, noting that he was the only candidate to oppose the so-called "Plan B" public-private financing proposal for building new sports stadiums and expanding the convention center. At the same time, he has been promising a fresh 10 percent tax cut when he takes the new office.
Roddey promises to bring marketing skills and business discipline to managing the government.
Wecht bases his appeal on a pledge to infuse the county with new dynamism and leadership.
The latest Pennsylvania Poll showed a GOP race with Roddey far in the lead, but a Democratic contest in which Wecht's substantial early advantage has narrowed after weeks of sharp attacks by Dawida. The incumbent commissioner has sought to turn voters against Wecht by reminding them of the coroner's fight against a controller's surcharge arising from his operation of the county morgue in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Wecht has countered by accusing Dawida of incompetence in office and dishonesty in campaigning through a pattern of exaggerations about his administration's success in luring business and jobs to the region. Dawida declares that all of his attacks are rooted in the public record while issuing his own complaints about Wecht's tactics.
The Republican primary has had its nasty moments as well, with Roddey belittling Dunn's competence and criticizing him for a series of abstentions on votes before the board of commissioners.
Dunn shoots back the accusation that Roddey presided over a series of rate hikes as chairman of the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority while trying to characterize his rival as a creature of Pittsburgh's Downtown establishment.
The winners of those contests will face off in November, but we will, in all likelihood, know the names of some members of the new government by tomorrow.
Both parties will nominate just one candidate for county council member-at-large, but two at-large seats will be on the November ballot. That means that, barring the unlikely emergence of a strong independent or write-in candidate, the winners of the Democratic and GOP primaries will each be members of the new council.
On the Democratic side, it is a race between businesswoman Bonnie Vojtak DiCarlo and union official John P. DeFazio. For a time, it seemed that DiCarlo would win the seat by default. She was successful in having a lower court order DeFazio off the ballot after he failed to file a financial disclosure form in the county manager's office. A Commonwealth Court panel reversed the lower court and restored DeFazio to the ballot. Last week, the Supreme Court also went DeFazio's way, as it declined to hear a DiCarlo challenge to the Commonwealth Court ruling. Now, the DeFazio-DiCarlo battle is back where it started, on the ballot.
Republicans will decide a three-way at-large contest between businessman David Christopher, who opted for this race after deciding against running for executive; David Fawcett, an Oakmont councilman and attorney; and Fred Baker, a businessman and former member of the Regional Assets District board. Baker was succeeded on the board by Christopher after Baker refused to support RAD participation in Plan B.
In addition to the at-large nominees, two more members of the new council should be apparent by the time today's ballots are counted. There is no Republican candidate on the ballot in District 9, in the Mon Valley, or District 10, which includes Wilkinsburg and parts of the city of Pittsburgh. If no one wins those GOP nominations through a write-in campaign today and if no independent challenge emerges in the general election, the Democratic nominees for those seats should stroll into office.
In another countywide contest, there has been a sharp Democratic clash over the nomination for district attorney. Incumbent Stephen A. Zappala Jr. is facing a challenge from veteran former prosecutor Chris Conrad. Zappala bested Conrad in a vote of the board of judges when the district attorney's office became vacant, and Zappala fired Conrad. There are no GOP candidates for district attorney, but both Conrad and Zappala are mounting write-in campaigns for that nomination.
For county controller, city Councilman Dan Onorato is facing Baldwin Borough Councilman John Conley for the Democratic nomination. Former state representative George Pott is unopposed on the Republican side.
The only other contested county row office is for clerk of courts, pitting incumbent Joyce Lee Itkin, Carol Coyne, her predecessor in the office, and George Matta, the mayor of Duquesne.
Democratic incumbents are unopposed in the rest of the row offices. They are Treasurer John Weinstein, Register of Wills David Wecht, Prothonotary Michael Coyne and Recorder of Deeds Michael A. Della Vecchia.
Similarly unopposed are all of the city officials seeking re-election. No one of either party could be found to challenge city Controller Tom Flaherty or council members Gene Ricciardi, Bob O'Connor, Jim Ferlo and Valerie McDonald.
The only council fight is for the seat left open by Onorato's bid for county controller. In that North Side district, there is a four-way battle among Kevin Quigley, Malcolm Hardie, Kevin Kirby and Barbara Burns.
Staff writer Cindi Lash contributed to this report.
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