Olivia Bennett enters county govt contest vowing to ship on progressive reforms
Olivia Bennett has stepped into an more and more crowded county govt race, vowing to convey progressive reforms to Allegheny County.
Talking this afternoon from Emerald Metropolis, a Black-owned arts and enterprise incubator, Bennett stated she would, if elected, proceed advancing the progressive insurance policies she’s stood behind as a county council member since 2020.
“I’ve fought for staff, the incarcerated, and those that do not have a voice to combat for themselves,” Bennett stated, of her county council report. “I labored to decrease the inhabitants within the jail, to guard our most weak within the pandemic.”
Bennet joins a rising pool of candidates who’ve up to now entered the competition for Allegheny County Government, together with Pittsburgh Metropolis Controller Michael Lamb and DHS contractor Erin McClelland. State Rep. Sara Innamorato (D-Lawrenceville) is predicted to announce her entry Thursday. Former County Councilmember Dave Fawcett has additionally hinted at a run.
Wealthy Fitzgerald, who turned govt in 2012, is term-limited and can step down on the finish of 2023.
Earlier than getting into politics, Bennett gained prominence within the native activist neighborhood, the place she has labored with organizations together with Take Motion Mon Valley, the Alliance for Police Accountability, and the Black Fairness Coalition.
Fawn Walker-Montgomery, a advisor engaged on Bennett’s marketing campaign staff, additionally praised her report as a grassroots organizer.
“Each time we have been on the street Liv Bennett was proper there subsequent to us, she was combating with us,” Fawn stated. “After which she circled and ran for workplace and received.”
Bennett, who now lives in Northview Heights, stated she was first spurred to public service by the devastation of drug habit and gang violence she witnessed rising up in Pittsburgh’s Manchester neighborhood within the Nineteen Eighties.
“Seeing the detrimental results of this gave me a imaginative and prescient for a greater society,” Bennett informed the gathering. “This ardour, additionally fostered by my religion, made me see different organizations and politicians who additionally wished to see a greater society”
Bennett listed off a number of legislative achievements she’s contributed to throughout her council tenure, together with a ban on conversion remedy, a ban on fracking in parks, and the institution of a county-wide police evaluation board. However, she says, she’s now searching for the levers of the manager’s workplace to take this agenda additional.
“Our work is just not completed,” says Bennett. “We now have a lot left to do. We see violence in our streets each day and lots of the assets to foster peace in our communities sit at our county companies such because the Well being Division and the Division of Human Companies.”
