Category: News || By Jason Togyer

Editor's Note: The author of this story has a conflict of interest. Please read the note at the end of this story.

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City council has decided to seek an outside legal opinion on whether former Mayor James Brewster is entitled to nearly $41,000 in deferred compensation.

Council voted 7-0 this week to table a resolution authorizing payments to 27 charities designated by Brewster, now a state senator representing the city and surrounding area. Brewster had asked for the donations, rather than having the city pay him the money personally.

The vote was triggered in part by a memo from City Controller Raymond Malinchak questioning the language in the ordinance that sets the mayor's pay.

It can also be viewed as the latest skirmish in a bitter and hotly contested Democratic primary for mayor which pits Brewster's replacement, former Council President Regis McLaughlin, against three current council members and former school director Lori Spando.

Malinchak also was considering a run for mayor, but is not registered for the primary, according to the Allegheny County Division of Elections.

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Under the city's home rule charter, the mayor's job is a full-time salaried position. A 1996 ordinance sets the mayor's salary at the salary of "the city administrator/finance director, plus 5 percent."

Brewster has argued that because City Administrator Dennis Pittman has been serving as both administrator and finance director, the mayor's salary should have been 5 percent higher than the combined salaries for those positions, or approximately $67,000 annually. Brewster was paid $60,000 per year during his term in office.

But Malinchak argues that although Pittman may have been serving as the city's de facto finance director, that title isn't attached to his pay. Instead, Malinchak says, Pittman receives $57,000 in salary as city administrator, plus $10,000 in additional compensation which is budgeted for an "administrative assistant."

"The former mayor was never entitled to more than $60,000 per year," Malinchak told council in a letter dated Monday, and released to the media at the same time.

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In December, Brewster said he had deferred part of his salary during his time in office. Rather than keep the money, Brewster asked that this compensation be divided among more than two dozen non-profits, including the Carnegie Library of McKeesport, the McKeesport NAACP, the planned Noah's Ark Community Center, Auberle and the Womansplace shelter.

No ordinance authorizes compensation of more than $60,000 to Brewster, wrote Malinchak, who called Brewster's request for deferred compensation "unauthorized and self-described."

If any money is being donated to charities, it should be donated "because of the benevolent spirit of the citizens of McKeesport" and not because of Brewster's request, Malinchak wrote.

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Council President Michael Cherepko, who's running for the Democratic nomination for mayor with Brewster's endorsement, on Wednesday sharply criticized Malinchak for releasing his memo to the media at the same time it was sent to council.

Cherepko said the controller's opinions were almost always negative, sometimes contained errors, and were harmful to the city's image.

The news should be about how 27 local non-profits are going to receive gifts, Cherepko said. Instead, he said, "we've managed to take this event and turn it into a negative."

But Malinchak --- a frequent vocal opponent of Brewster, who at times has seemed to be campaigning against the former mayor --- accused Cherepko of "taking a page out of the former mayor's playbook and attacking the person who asks the question."

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It's not clear who will provide the outside legal opinion, because McLaughlin and a council majority have not reached agreement on the appointment of a city solicitor.

Former City Solicitor J. Jason Elash, who since January has served as an unpaid outside counsel to the council majority, which includes Cherepko, has resigned from that post. In a letter of resignation, read at Wednesday's council meeting, Elash cited the "current political atmosphere" and "the character of certain elected officials" among his reasons for stepping down.

Those and other factors "make it impossible to protect the city's interests," Elash said.

Elash served as city solicitor and full-time head of its law department from 2004 until Dec. 31, when McLaughlin announced that Elash would not be reappointed.

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Editor's Note: The author is a member of the board of directors of McKeesport Heritage Center, one of more than two dozen charities that were named as beneficiaries of a possible lump-sum payment to former Mayor Jim Brewster. Opinions expressed at Tube City Almanac do not represent those of McKeesport Heritage Center, its directors, employees or volunteers, and no control is exercised over Tube City Almanac or www.tubecityonline.com by McKeesport Heritage Center, its directors, employees or volunteers. This possible conflict of interest has been disclosed in writing to McKeesport Heritage Center.