Good afternoon, and welcome to the preagenda interview for Wednesday, March fourth, two thousand twenty-six for Alcassan and Pittsburgh Water.

Would a clerk please read the title of the bill?

Bill one twenty-eight, resolution appointing Shatar Murphy as a board member of the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority for a term to expire January one, twenty thirty-one.

And Bill One Thirty Six Resolution appointing Scott Conka as a member of the Board of Directors of Pittsburgh Water for a term to expire January one, twenty thirty-one.

For the record, we are currently joined by Councilman Schlossberger, Councilman Warwick.

I know Councilman Gross is on her way, and others may join us as well.

If you would first introduce yourself, tell us who you are, tell us why you're willing to serve in this position.

And then once you both have presented, we'll turn over to members for questions.

Now we can.

All right.

Good afternoon.

I'm Chatara Murphy.

I currently serve as the Assistant Vice Chancellor and Executive Lead for Community Connected Economic Strategies at the University of Pittsburgh.

But the focus of my career has really been working in critical roles at the intersection of government, large institutions, and community, and helping to be one of the individuals that really break down systems and policies and help to drive them into outcomes that really improve the quality of life for our residents.

Prayerfully, I will be done in April of 2027.

But I believe that my background and community impact, um, economic stability and economic resilience will make me a good fit for the board.

Um that governance um lens that I bring from my other board service, as well as my time in government and large institutions will be very beneficial as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh my name is Scott Kwonka.

I live at 525 Lloyd Street in Point Breeze.

Uh I'm a constituent of Councilman Mosley.

Um I thank you, and I thank the mayor for the consideration for this position.

Uh I've lived in the city since 1974 when I came here to go to the University of Pittsburgh.

I've raised three kids, all of whom went to the Pittsburgh Public School System, and they've all graduated uh from this public school system.

Um I care deeply about the city, and I did spend several decades working here with the city and with the county in various positions, and I hopefully was able to make some sort of an impact during that time, uh almost 30 years with the city, seven years with the county.

And uh I have been retired for almost five years now, and I really would like to continue contributing.

It's something that I missed uh during the retirement.

And um uh when the mayor asked me to join the board, I jumped at the chance.

Um just a way of background.

I retired from the city as a finance and budget director in 2014, and I spent the next seven years at the uh Allegheny County as the chief investment officer.

And some of you may know I also spent seven years as City Council's budget director in a previous iteration.

Um with this appointment, I will have work for seven mayors during my career uh with the city.

Uh I also served on the PWSA board previously for seven years.

Um, and so I'm very familiar with the operations of the authority.

But it has been 12 years since I've been on the board, so there's been plenty of changes, I'm sure, and uh plenty of um changes to the operation.

So what I do pledge is to do my due dil due diligence to study and learn about the current situation.

I think I can offer a fresh set of eyes for the board and for the authority itself.

And I do I don't have any preconceived notions about what is going on.

Uh as I said, I would like to learn, uh study and do what's best.

But the one thing that I have learned during my government service is that the financial means always are less than the needs than the resources that are needed to do uh what's necessary for the city and for the authorities, and in particular with the PWSA, the ratepayers' ability to defund the various items that are that are necessary for the authority in the future.

So having said that, I'm just available for questions at this point in time.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

With that, I will turn over to Councilman Schlossberger.

Thank you very much much, Mr.

President.

Thank you both for your willingness to serve in your respective roles in different agencies and authorities.

And um I you know I welcome both of you at to the table and your um again, thank you for your for the time that you will be putting into these these endeavors.

Um Ms.

Murphy, I will start with you and um understanding that uh uh regardless of the issue area at hand, your understanding of big systems and you know, larger, larger entities, as well as um particularly any entity that has the power to I would imagine, much like Pittsburgh Water, whose board I serve on Alcassand's um meetings will be focused on um the approval of contracts, procurement, and but given your built by build higher local experience in your current um role at the University of Pittsburgh, if you could talk a little bit about um what experience you think you might bring from that to an entity like Alcassan, who I would imagine, I don't want to speak for them, but I would imagine is constantly working to empower the newer um uh bidders, entities, you know, um organizations that could potentially bid on a project and struggle with um the ability to do so with our current sort of ecosystem that we have.

And but given your built by build higher local experience in your current um role at the University of Pittsburgh, if you could talk a little bit about what experience you think you might bring from that to an entity like Alcassan, who I would imagine, I don't want to speak for them, but I would imagine is constantly working to empower the newer bidders, entities, you know, um organizations that could potentially bid on a project and struggle with the ability to do so with our current sort of ecosystem that we have.

What's your vision for helping the organization as an entity not only meet its own standards and goals and meet a you know a quota or percentage, but actually go beyond that and start to to work to build up the capacity of these vendors to bid on projects that could grow in size and grow in in uh in cost to um allow diverse diverse business owners to thrive?

Great question.

Uh, one thing I'm very passionate about is the regional economic stability.

And um I sat through an Augustan board meeting, did not vote, just observed, and you are correct.

There are a lot of procurement contracts that come across the table, and one thing I'm really um focused on is local procurement.

How do we make sure that we are contracting with businesses in our region to make sure that money is staying in Allegheny County, Southwestern Pennsylvania?

And so also too, awareness.

And so people don't know right now what opportunities are available with Alcassan.