Oh, sorry.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the pre-agenda interview for Tuesday, February tenth, two thousand twenty-six for the city solicitor, where clerk please read the title of the bill.

Bill Twenty One, resolution appointing Lisa Zeidner Marcus as City Solicitor.

And for the record, we are currently joined by Councilman Strasberger as well as Councilman Wilson.

Others may be joining us shortly.

We will first begin with the oath that has to be given to all directors.

Do you, Solicitor Marcus, solemnly affirm that the testimony you are about to give before this council shall be the truth, the whole truth, or nothing but the truth, and do you further affirm that you will and faith you will faithfully discharge the duties of the solicitor's office to which you have been nominated.

Thank you.

With that, I believe you have an intro that you want to provide to members before we go into questions.

Yes, thank you, Council President.

Honorable members of City Council, good afternoon.

And I loved my job.

Cardamone of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and then for the Honorable Richard Conway Casey of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In 2007, I was accepted to the U.S.

Department of Justice's honors program, and I joined the civil division in the federal programs branch.

I represented federal agencies and officials.

I worked on high-profile litigation involving constitutional claims, administrative procedure act claims, and other challenges to statutes, policies, and agency decisions.

As I mentioned, I spent 18 years there.

Just a few weeks ago, I began my work as acting city solicitor.

I want to briefly share with you my vision for the law department.

Pittsburgh deserves the best.

That means providing excellent legal analysis and generating creative ideas to accomplish the city's objectives within that legal framework.

That means using the tools available to us to pursue the city's interests through affirmative litigation.

And that means elevating the work that we do and the manner in which we do it to the next level so that other cities look to Pittsburgh as a model for how a law department is supposed to operate.

These goals are absolutely attainable.

I've spent a lot of time recently getting to know the attorneys and staff in the department.

And I have been deeply impressed by their knowledge and dedication.

I also see enormous potential for more.

It starts with a relentless commitment to the law and to our client, the city of Pittsburgh.

From that foundation, we must pursue innovative legal strategies, embrace new technology, and push to fulfill this department this department's potential.

Pittsburgh deserves nothing less.

Thank you again for the chance to speak with you today.

I would be happy to answer your questions.

Thank you.

And we'll just start at the top and work our way down.

Councilman Schlossberger.

Thank you very much, Mr.

President.

And thank you, Acting Solicitor Marcus, for your opening remarks and for your willingness to serve in this position.

And you know, judging by the first few meetings that we've had together and your resume and your presentation, we're we're certainly fortunate to have you in this role and seeking this role.

And I agree that we we have talent and institutional memory and history in the law department that's really valuable.

So I guess starting there, we um we always have room for, I know that every department always seeks more resources, more staff, more talent, more ability to you know attract more talent, and I know that's also true in the law department, and unfortunately, we're in a very lean year this year, and so we're we're we're going to probably need to approach that kind of building back in future years.

But that said, what do you in the time that you spent in the law department so far?

What do you see are the biggest opportunities for if we could for bolstering the department internally to be able to avoid some of the really costly outside council contracts that we have?

Are there certain issue areas, or if you don't even have that at the ready in the moment, um, so this a simple sort of yes or no answer could be could be helpful.

But are you seeing those kinds of opportunities already that are already apparent within the law department?

I'm I am still in the process of analyzing, you know, where we're going to, if we're gonna bring in more people in and where those people will serve.

Um I see opportunities to grow the department within the budget that we have.

Uh I'm working on, for example, this summer having some modifications for our summer law clerk program to make it more attractive and to use it as uh a tool to recruit.

Um as to your question about avoiding outside counsel fees.

I I think that there I will be looking at ways that we can improve our processes within the law department to make sure that the staff are talking to each other that it's not completely siloed and that we use the expertise that we have in-house.

So if there's some new litigation, uh I want our litigators to be talking to our municipal lawyers about the background of that litigation and you know within their area of the within the the areas that the municipal lawyers work on.

And the flip go the flip is true also.

I want our municipal lawyers to be engaging more with our litigators because they are the ones who are often advising on on you know the first line advice being provided to city agencies and to council, and it should be informed by litigation risk.

Uh so there are some ways to improve the processes to have achieve better outcomes with our litigation without needing to fully rely on outside counsel.

Great.

Um as council, we uh you know, we we have um a certain number of staff per office and certain some talented staff who work for the hallway at large.

Um yet um none of us is uh is a board you know, a bar certified attorney.

So um when when it comes to drafting legislation, writing legislation, or getting a formal legal opinion, we rely heavily on the law department.

Um have you figured out quite what your approach will be for working with council, nine different council offices as we seek to, you know, ideally come to you before legislation is drafted or in the process of drafting legislation to be able to, you know, in addition to the voluminous work that you already have in the law department to be able to meet the needs of each of the council offices for either a quick turnaround opinion on something that is before us and that is pr presently at council, sort of like you know, a defense, but also on offense and sort of tackling the the drafting of legislation of how you'll approach that and um I guess on um ensuring that um well I guess there's a the second part of that is acknowledging acknowledging that sometimes council members introduce legislation that they that push the boundaries, right?

And so there's a balance there of of fulfilling the desires of what each council member is seeking to achieve with each ordinance or resolution or will of council and the balance between the risk, you know, of what the with the council office or the council at large wishes to do and the risk to the city.

Uh yes.

Uh I hope that the law department will be council's first stop in legal analysis and that you'll ask for our advice early and often.

Uh I think it's important to provide you all you all are the policy decision makers.

We know the law.

I want to make sure that we are providing the framework for your legal decision for your policy decisions.

So making sure that you know what the state statutes might say, what courts have opined on similar issues, and the scope and bounds of the authority that council has available to it for a given issue.

Uh we will make sure that council has excellent cust that we give excellent customer service to to council and continue to do that.

Uh Jesse Exilis, who uh is the deputy uh city solicitor and a longtime uh staff member uh of the law department, um I would encourage everybody in council when you have when you're seeking uh a legal opinion to use him as your primary contact, but also to CC me.

Um for bigger, more important projects that you are working on, if if we have I understand that there that you need to have quick turnaround on some questions, but if there are priority, if you have priority projects that require you know more careful thought um I would encourage you to reach out to us earlier in the process so that we can provide the legal research and advice that would support your decisions.

Um as the chair of the finance and law committee, I think the finance part of the chair uh or the committee gets outside's attention, especially around budget season, but is there anything that I can do to um facilitate a better um open door policy or relationship with council or anything you need from from us at the at the moment?

I can't think of anything.

Okay.

Keep us posted.

I think those are all my questions for now, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Council Wilson.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

So we had a great meeting the other day.

I think it was yesterday, right?

Everything blends together for me sometimes.

So it was a good meeting with you yesterday and I mean I got a lot of my questions answered there.

But I thought of a a few others.

But let me just say it was it was helpful to understand the way you view um certain litigation that we have already in the courts particular one like you know there's definitely one that I'm very interested in seeing pass.

And maybe if you can just give a like another overview something we already went over but for the public you know how you would approach um cases that are already in in litigation.

When we get cases basically sorry to write but basically because it was a lot of the efforts some of them were efforts from council but some of them were efforts from the past administration and you know it means that you're new under a new leadership I'm just curious to you know hear from you know how you would handle those situations.

Yeah well when it comes to defending city ordinances and policies I will say I have lots of experience from my prior work in in litigation and and the answer to to your question somewhat depends on on what the case is but generally when we get cases I I think we need to evaluate them early and have a sense of what um the litigation risk is for continuing the litigation versus trying to resolve the matter um to see if there's ways to save time and and money and to be efficient for for the city residents.

What is the relevant statute say and and goes from there.

There as far as ongoing litigation goes, I think also it can be helpful for me to provide council members and the public with information about the lifespan of litigation the fact that we may be before start with you know the the Court of Common Please and we our chances of success in that court may not be the same as our chances of success in in the appellate courts and ultimately in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

So for very big issues and big litigation we have to think about the entire span and come up with a strategy for for the litigation with with that you know potential appeal in mind as well.

And with your first bullet point here with uh your work at the U.S.

Department of Justice I have to ask um you know it says defending the White House and a diverse set of federal agencies so since you've worked there since 2007 I'm not sure if that was the same role that you were in or you were if you're doing those duties in like in 2007 as well but throughout that span it's been different presidents.

Five yes and so could you talk about how you know that may relate to the question that council typically has like will you represent council as well as like how does that work for us you know you as a city solicitor um you know appointed by or you know current mayor and you know approved by this body like I think council always wonders you know who are you working for and I know we've talked about this and you know your answer was that you know the answer that all solicitors usually give which is they you know work for the city of Pittsburgh that the their client is city of Pittsburgh so just seeing that first bullet point I'm thinking well well you've already been through where you've had to represent the client regardless of who the client is and so could you just walk us through how that experience will really benefit us here since you've had multiple different you know presidents throughout the time you worked at the Department of Justice.

I was in the same group, the federal programs branch, which does work on these high profile cases no matter who the president is and no matter who the Congress was that passed the statute that is being challenged in a given case.

Um you see similarities?

Absolutely.

I mean, as the litigator who's you know in that job, my my client was the United States, but but I defended a number of policies that I if I had been the di policymaker, I would not necessarily have made that policy, but that wasn't my role.

My role was to defend um to defend it.

And I have lots of experience uh defending you know policies from from different uh points of view uh depending on the the administration that that enacted the policy.

Um and and I do think that that is relevant experience as you note uh that I being a government lawyer is a unique thing.

And this has been what my my career has been is to be a government lawyer and to think about the public's interest and the I I know sometimes people come into roles like this not having had similar prior experience necessarily and um and they may bring other things to to the position, um but what I can bring is certainly an understanding of what that means to represent the city of Pittsburgh and to look at the legal issues from the perspective of a lawyer and as a litigator and to advise on the litigation risk for a given policy and to to help provide options within the bounds of the law if if council is looking to address a certain topic to to try to work with counsel to figure out the best strategy to um for addressing that topic and avoiding a serious litigation risk.

Yeah, thanks.

Uh the other question I had was uh just quickly looking through here and looking for words like managed or supervised.

I'm not nothing's like coming out of me, but um you know if you could help us understand you know what uh past experience uh that you have uh with these other um you know, with your prior work, it suits you well to to manage and supervise this department.

Yeah, I I often served as a lead trial attorney on big cases.

So I would be leading a team of lawyers at the Department of Justice and also often lawyers at a federal agency as well as other staff members, paralegals and others, um working on the litigation and the strategy.

So that leadership experience does directly translate to the type of work that I would be doing uh at the at the city as the city solicitor.

Yeah.

I can see that.

I just want to um you know, just get a background of like what that looks like and I imagine that happened in the in the role throughout the I believe it's 18 years at the Department of Justice that there was a lot of collaboration and a lot of leadership.

So thanks for um clarifying that.

Thank you.

Councilman Mosley.

Thank you.

I want to uh also thank you for your willingness to serve as well as for a very loudly discussion that we had.

I guess about a week or two ago now.

Um I could you know my my first question is you know, somewhat dovetails off uh some of the questions that were at as previously, you know, if you could you know speak to you know how your you know specific, you know, experience um, you know, working uh for f federal judges, um, you know, as well as the Department of Justice, you know, what kind of uh unique set of experiences does that bring to the table that you know makes you uniquely suited for this role that you're embarking on.

Among the skills that I developed in those prior roles, I think w one of the skills that I I most developed was statutory interpretation and statutory construction.

That was at the heart of my prior job and also at the heart of my work as a federal law clerk.

And that is directly transferable to this work because oftentimes the issues facing a municipality depend on interpreting state statutes and understanding the scope of the city's authority within the framework that the state has set up for its localities.

And as noted before, I served under five different presidential administrations.

So I understand political considerations, but but I am laser focused on the law.

Thank you.

Again, could dovetails off my colleague, Councilman Wilson's question.

If you could just, you know, elaborate a little bit more about what does it look like, you know, to lead a team of lawyers, you know, for us folks who don't have jurisdoctorates, you know, what would it what is that like just to you know for the public to get a sense of you know, what is it like to, you know, to lead a team of lawyers around a particular case and then talk about how that you know transferred directly to instead of being you know lead lawyer on a specific case now, you know, you know, leading a department uh uh of attorneys and support staff and how those connect.

Um that work looks like uh providing guidance, providing um expertise and uh sort of the wisdom that comes from from litigating over time.

Uh but it also looks collaborative.

Uh it is engaging with other lawyers so that they pr produce their best work product and so that the collective effort produces the best work product.

Uh also I will say that my work at the federal programs branch uh I was very lucky to have very excellent managers um who served as role models and mentors for me.

Um I I think some of the management approaches that uh they had uh I'm looking to bring to the law department here.

And um and then you do you use the term you know, a government lawyer.

Can you talk a little bit about you know what a unique experience that a government lawyer brings to the table as opposed to a criminal defense attorney or someone who's primarily a law professor, you know, but like specifically being you know a government lawyer, you know, what does that mean you know, in in your context and what unique you know experience you know do you see you know as a government lawyer stepping into this role in particular?

A lot of my work as a government lawyer was primarily defensive, although I did have some affirmative cases where I represented the United States as the plaintiff or the potential plaintiff in an action.

The real difference between working in the civil division federal programs branch and working as a prosecutor is that the body of law of the work that I have done is much more applicable to the law department where we handle the civil work for the city.

Um uh in Allegheny County, we have a DA who's ha who handles our criminal work.

Right.

Um and so the criminal prosecutorial experience uh while it could be very um relevant generally to being a lawyer, uh it's more aligned with the work that the DA's office does and with the law department does.

Um thank you.

And and I think my final um question, you know, is you know, what was it about you know this particular role?

I mean, it seems like you you know been very comfortable sometimes working by remote, but you know, really you know, planning your flag in the nation's capital, uh, you know, working within the confines of the federal, you know, judiciary.

Um, what was it about this particular role that that called you to kind of step away you know from that arena, you know, into municipal law um and and here on in in the in the in the in the in the hollow halls of the city county building.

I worked on some really big cases in my last job, and I did really like it, you know, but i I mean, cases that impacted nationwide policies or programs or cases worth a literally a billion dollars.

But the work that we are doing here, it impacts it impacts our neighbors everyday lives.

It is more important to this community.

It's it's I I feel like I can have I can make a real difference in this job for this community, and that is really exciting and and important to me.

Uh thank you.

I believe that uh exhausts my questions for now.

I'll defer back to the chair.

Thank you, Councilman Warwick.

Yeah, thank you.

Um yeah, thanks for being here.

Thanks for your willingness to come work with us at the city.

Um I guess sort of along the same vein as the other questions, you know, there's there's always this balance between what's legal and what's right, right?

And um, you know, here at the city of Pittsburgh, we're we're quite small, right?

And and and we do have there's some limits on what we can and can't do, you know, with you know, under state law, et cetera.

But um, you know, so around this this sort of idea of of you know what's the litigation risk, I mean I recognize that when we talk about, you know, because we settle a lot, like right.

So let's say somebody tripped over a thing and there's like a bazillion 311s and we should have known about it, and it's just gonna be cheaper for us to just settle and you know what I mean, than to to litigate the thing.

And I get that, right?

Like I understand we, you know, the the law department makes those recommendations uh based on what the most effective use of of time and and taxpayer dollars.

But um a lot of the time though, you know, the work that we do at this council, assuming we can get things passed, right, you know, is um you know, around environmental justice, around land use and zoning, around housing affordability, tenant protections, uh, you know, and now you know civil and constitutional rights.

And so much of the time as representatives, oops, excuse me, of the of the public, you know, we as sort of a very small, you know, like this just the city of Pittsburgh with our with our um often overburdened law department are going up against large, you know, corporate players, government players, like whatever, uh who have huge legal teams, right, and who are always gonna threaten to sue.

Like that'll be the very first thing they do is they're like, we're gonna sue you.

And um, so how you know, for you, how you know, as and and while we recognize that we write the policy, how do you as you know leading up the law department kind of work with us to ensure that you know there's also the purpose, right?

It's not just like, well, are we gonna get sued and what's the risk?

Because like I feel like a lot of the time, yeah, we absolutely are gonna get sued, right?

Like people are gonna fight us tooth and nail to keep us uh from protecting the residents of Pittsburgh and oftentimes the most vulnerable residents of Pittsburgh, right?

Who don't have big legal teams, all they've got is us, right?

They've got us here fighting for them.

So how do you see kind of the the law department's role in that?

I would say two things.

Um, again, the the law department's primary role is to provide legal advice.

Uh I I want uh as we do that, as we provide that advice, I I want to make sure that we are providing background information on the law, on the framework and the context in which you all are making your policies and identifying the lien in which the city can be creating policy.

And then within that lien, it's it's up to the city council to determine what the policies are.

As far as litigation risk goes, generally, I mean I am a litigator.

I'm not afraid to litigate.

And I will say that it won't be the first time that I will face many lawyers on the other side.

And there were a couple of people from the agency who came just to keep me company.

And the other side had literally 12 lawyers, and they came in with boxes, and it was just for uh an oral argument on a motion to dismiss.

And I'm not intimidated by litigation.

With with that experience in mind, I I will look to provide as good advice as I can on what the litigation risks are.

And sometimes we will choose to take a path that will still have us in litigation.

We do have to think about like what those resources entail, but um but uh generally speaking, you know, I the fact that we might be sued um in and of itself is not a reason to um to not enact a given policy, but we have to think about the best way to position the policy so that when we are sued, we can defend it and it will be upheld by the courts.

Um so that actually leads me to another question.

I actually I don't I'm sort of curious about this.

So, you know, there can be times where the administration and council are at odds on a on a on any given policy, right?

Maybe something passes, whatever.

Um when that happens, and this is more just for me to understand, and I think that sort of to what Councilman Wilson was asking, like who do who does the lead who does the law department represent, right?

Um so let's say there's a given I don't know, something that's that's you know probably gonna land us in court, right?

I don't know, maybe like rental registry, that's just an example, right?

What how does it work for the law, like how does it work from your perspective of like whether or not we pursue this litigation?

Like whether or not, you know, let's say we get sued for sure, yeah.

I mean, I again I'm and and I I don't know the answer to this, so I'm asking you like are as as the solicitor, do you feel like if if council passed it, then the law department is gonna go in and and fight for it regardless, or yeah.

So I mean the the client is the city um and we assess the litigation from that lens.

Um I I can draw mostly on my prior experience um uh because I am you know there's there's many uh uh ways in which something like what you're describing could arise.

Um but you know there were times in when we had a piece uh a policy that was being challenged and the judge was not understanding you know our arguments, you know, there were I'm thinking about a policy guidance document that the state of Texas tried to enjoin.

And I looked at the policy guidance document and it didn't do what the state of Texas said it did.

And so we went to court, we told the judge that, and he didn't agree with us.

Um we worked uh with the agency and they ended up revising the policy guidance document to address the judge's concerns and to moot the case, which means to make it so that the claims are no longer valid.

And so you know that was an option that we considered in in that time.

It didn't mean that we weren't defending the policy guidance document, but um but we did think about a broader legal strategy and advice on on that as well.

Um as for your question about a conflict between the mayor's office and council, again, it's hard for me to envision exactly what you're referring to.

And it's the policy makers' role to make the policies.

But from my perspective, right, even though I was not on council at the time, right?

That was absolutely worth passing.

Right?

That was absolutely worth council, like, you know, making making that statement essentially as a body, right?

About what's good for Pittsburgh and what's good, you know, for for yeah, what's good for for our residents.

Um another example would be like these parcel reviews, right?

So where where you know there may be a difference of opinion about the so is it your role as the solicitor, do you have the final say about whether or not to continue pursuing whether it's ongoing litigation or new litigation, or to say, oh, well, you know, maybe it passed, but we're not gonna I don't even know how that works, right?

Like so somebody's like, no, you can't do this.

Like what what power does the city have, or does the solicitor have to say, okay, well, never mind, we aren't gonna we aren't gonna do this.

I mean, in those situations, we generally would confer with you know, council and with the mayor's office.

Um yeah, I mean, I in some of the situations, I think this the city solicitor is the one who's making the decision on behalf of the client, which is the city of Pittsburgh.

Um but it's it's a little bit hard to talk in the abstract.

Yeah.

No, no, I I understand.

I just it's um Yeah, I mean, I just I I appreciate because it it is, it's it's a tough position to be in, right?

Because you know, there's the there's obviously the taxpayer issue, right?

You don't want to be just blowing lots of money on a case that you're not gonna win, right?

Or or or have a you know and then have the the residents owe you know, or the city, you know, the city be, you know, or taxpayers owe a lot of money um uh following a bad outcome.

But at the same time, you know, as representatives of the public, we we need to be creative and innovative and kind of brave and like what we're willing, the fights that we're willing to pick oftentimes against Goliath's, you know, um on on behalf of our residents.

So I I guess when you're going into a fight, if there's a best way to win that fight, that's that's where I'm gonna be advising.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna necessarily say have the fight, don't have the fight.

I mean, that might be part of my advice, but it is positioning the policy so that it will best accomplish what you want it to accomplish.

Yeah.

Um and will withstand legal challenges or if there's some risk, you know, that we have at least a decent chance of it withstanding the legal challenges.

Right.

Okay.

Well, that's great.

That's nice to know just because you know, we do write legislation and um don't always send it to the butt, but if it's complicated, certainly send it to, you know, if it's something complicated, sending it to the law department.

Um but that's it's good to it.

It's comforting to know that that is the you know, that the looking at it is going to be like, okay, how can we make this work?

Like how can we make this this the most solid piece of legislation so that so that when it inevitably does face a challenge, which uh feels like everything complex that we do does, right?

Um that it's as um as strong a piece of legislation as possible to to go through that future litigation.

Right.

Yeah.

Um okay, I think that's it for me.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Councilman Gross.

Uh thank you.

I appreciate it.

Um I have appreciated my colleagues' questions and your answers.

And I'm um I'm not sure if there's really much more to cover.

Um, but maybe just recap again.

I think we talked about it when we were on a Teams call with each other.

You may have already addressed it even in in some of your answers here, but that the specificity of municipal law versus other levels, you know, not just government service.

So it's very particular, especially around you know, other bot other levels of government don't have land use, for example, right?

And I know that we've staffed up a little bit internally on the capacity in that department, but maybe you want to speak a little bit to that.

We're often sued over these kinds of issues, so that might be something worthwhile touching on.

Sure.

Well, generally speaking, I will say that a lot of state and local statutes and ordinances are modeled after federal law.

So there is a lot of similarities in the legal frameworks.

Um I I actually did have a case in my last job involving a zoning question where a city was really a town, um, tried to have particular zoning that only apply to this one piece of federal property, uh, which is a post office, and change the zoning just for that property and that spot zoning.

That didn't I don't know if that's the legal technical term, but spot like zoning for one parcel is generally we don't do that.

So I mean in that context, I I have some background.

I I am not an expert in land use, but we do have um uh a very good attorney, uh at least two attorneys in the law department currently who have worked on those types of issues.

Um although they are different topics, it's really the same analysis, the same approach to the analysis, right?

It's what does the statute say or what does the zoning law say, and then do we have any court cases that give more information on how we're supposed to interpret those words.

And that's pretty much it.

And and that um way of analyzing legal issues cuts across all the topics that that we face at the municipal level.

Great.

Great, appreciate that.

I think it is it's really important as we face more um land use policy than maybe we've ever had before, especially when the city kind of was facing different kinds of policy challenges like when we were in austerity or when we're facing population decline.

Those are kind of like the mirror version policy challenges we're facing when we're looking at kind of hyperinvestment and neighborhoods diverging in terms of their real estate markets from disinvested to versus hyperinvested instead of just kind of there being stasis.

Right.

Um and so we're trying to to really change policy, um, and it brings up legal questions.

Yeah, I I really appreciate that.

And I will say that in in my work as an attorney, um, I have often encountered new to me legal schemes.

You know, that actually was what I loved most about my last job.

It was constantly new and changing and challenging.

So prior to two years ago, I had never worked with a Bureau of Prisons and then I got one case with the Bureau of Prisons and I became an expert in this area of the law and the Eighth Amendment and some other related um statutes and and policies having to do with prison operations.

And so I do think that that skill set of being able to learn new areas of the law is something that I'm looking forward to bringing to this role.

Good.

I won't call you out on them now, but I literally I have this recurring question from constituents, and I've had to say um like you know, it's like other cities do this when we're faced with the problems of gentrification and and uh quick like rapidly changing neighborhoods.

And uh I've had to say like uh every attorney has told us we're not allowed to do this, right?

I'm not gonna put you on the spot, but I'll follow up and see if you can you know figure out a different take.

But maybe maybe there's a way that we could do something that's similar enough with the same outcomes, but it threads the needle of kind of the restrictions or preemptions that our state has put on the city of Pittsburgh.

Um so there's a handful of those, and it's always great to have a fresh eye on them.

So uh I'll follow up with those questions because you know our residents are asking us to make policy to address the challenges that they're seeing.

So it's really um, you know, we keep trying, even if we haven't figured it out yet.

You know, we'll we keep trying to to to find solutions to that problem, and so it's it's good to have um to keep asking the question.

You know, maybe there's just an answer we haven't thought of yet.

Um other than that, I think um again, I'm I I've had a uh my own discussions with you.

I um we've had lots of good questions here at the table.

Um I'll just again not call you out, but I'll I'll flag for you that we're also kind of looking at the ways that cities currently are protecting the rights of their citizens.

Um and so you know, my staff's hard at work on it.

We've got probably like eight different avenues that we're looking at.

So I look forward to having those conversations as well.

Great.

Appreciate it.

That's all I have, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um for my part, I think yeah, I think all the questions that you and I had spoken about when we met have get been brought up today.

I will simply sort of reiterate something that came up in our conversation, which is that there be someone within the solicitor's office that's sort of the point person for counsel.

I know historically for me at least, I'm not sure for all members, but we and we talked about this.

It it was historically Jesse.

Um and I know you're evaluating um and structuring what your office is going to look like.

But I just I think it's very helpful to the councilman's sort of opening remarks that there is a direct sort of point of contact of which on all major issues you've already been clear that you want to be copied, but that council has a direct line into the solicitor's office.

Obviously, we can reach out to you, but you have a lot on your plate.

So there being at least one point of contact in the solicitor's office for counsel becomes important.

So that's very reasonable, and it it is and should continue to be Jesse.

Okay.

Thank you.

And he he uh also oversees our municipal law group and can ha has a good context to figure out who else to bring in on a given issue.

Okay.

If nothing else from the rest of members, then having exhausted the business of this pre-agent interview, we are adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.