The Pitt News
The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | February 6, 2017 | Volume 107 | Issue 116
protesters The Challenger aim to drive Taking on Peduto, Welch promises “people’s uber out campaign,” more equitable city
Reverend John Welch spoke to a crowd of friends and supporters on the North Side Saturday John Hamilton VISUAL EDITOR
Stephen Caruso
Contributing Editor Florence Turner, 57, of Pittsburgh’s Manchester neighborhood, knows her candidate for mayor of Pittsburgh, John C. Welch, has a tough fight ahead of him. But like Marvin Gaye’s dedicated lover in “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” which played softly in the background of the Pittsburgh Project hall Turner sat in, she and the dozens-strong crowd around her are determined that no obstacle will stop Welch’s call for a campaign that represents every Pittsburgher — one Welch has named a “people’s campaign.” “He brings something different to the campaign, something people want to hear,” Turner said.
Welch, who is an activist and has been dean of students at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary since 2007, has run his two-week-old campaign on a promise to improve the city for everyone — proclaiming early in his speech that “John Welch is social justice and social justice is John Welch.” To win city hall, Welch will need to unseat incumbent Bill Peduto, a three-term city councilman and mayor since 2013, in the Democratic primary May 16, while running his first campaign for an elected office. The North Side rally, held at the Pittsburgh Project — a Christian nonprofit community development organization — was the second of his campaign. The first kickoff event was held two weeks earlier in Welch’s native Homewood. And while Welch still offered no specific policy
proposals, he enthralled the crowd with his promise for Pittsburgh government based in equality, not access. “We’re sick and tired of the status quo, we’re sick and tired of being excluded from the table and sick and tired of being left out of the group,” Welch said to the crowd. Turner, chatting with her friends a few seats from the front, knows Welch personally. She said she is supporting him because “what you see is what you get,” specifically pointing to his “intellect” as a defining trait. Crossing the Allegheny from East Liberty to see Welch was Ashley Ashley, 27, who works at the seminary. As a seminary employee, she trusts Welch’s judgment and says he’s been “among the See Welch on page 4
Stephen Caruso
Contributing Editor Taking the trip from Denny Park, off Liberty Avenue, to Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center on Smallman Street in the Strip District would take one minute in an Uber. But about 30 Pittsburghers marched the same route for a half hour Saturday afternoon to protest a swathe of issues they had with the ride-sharing company — its stance on immigration, worker’s rights and its tight relationship with Pittsburgh’s city government. Uber’s Pittsburgh based detractors pointed to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s cooperation with President Donald Trump’s administration, lack of benefits for drivers and emails that show secretive deal-making between the city and the corporation as reasons for their anger. Bracing against a cold wind, Chandana Cherukupalli, a community organizer with Pittsburghers for Public Transit, made a point to not limit the issues at stake in the protest. “This is not just about Uber, this is not just about [Trump], this is about oppression,” Cherukupalli said. Uber came under fire from progressives last weekend for allegedly breaking a taxi driver’s strike against the president’s executive order to ban refugees from entering the United States. Trump’s executive order resulted in federal immigration officials detaining U.S. legal residents at airports who were still citizens of one of seven restricted countries. The multi-billion-dollar company dropped See Uber on page 4