Joseph Sabino Mistick
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Former Allegheny Detectives Tom Boyle and Eddie Luke plied their trade with distinction in the 1980s. In the small towns of the eastern suburbs, the county provided the only investigative services available to the tiny police departments, and Boyle and Luke were the guys.
While they did not invent the ever-popular good cop/bad cop approach to problem-solving, they used it effectively. Boyle always played the irascible tough guy; Luke was everybody’s best friend.
Theirs was a formula that continues to play well in law enforcement, government and the corporate world. To be sure, whenever people and bureaucracies must be managed, good cop/bad cop is tried-and-true.
The City of Pittsburgh and its mayors have been well served by this device. Mayors, always the good cops, face a conundrum: How do you make the tough calls of government while maintaining the popularity that is required to be a successful politician?
The solution often has been found in the rise of a curious position: executive secretary to the mayor. Part policy adviser, part confidant, part manager and all-around bad cop, the executive secretary has provided an essential yin for the mayor’s yang since the days of Mayor David L. Lawrence.
Joe Barr had Aldo Colautti, Pete Flaherty had Bruce Campbell, Dick Caliguiri had David Matter and Sophie Masloff had hers -- Jim Turner and me. Often, these complementary opposites have been viewed as the dark side of an otherwise affable and good-intentioned chief executive -- a dear friend who would surely be of help, but for that miserable executive secretary.
They have been gate-keepers, blame-takers and the messengers of bad news. And when the public shows a hankering to kill the messenger, the executive secretary tries to take the bullet. The job, above all, is to protect the mayor from occasional lapses in judgment, self-serving favor-seekers and those with political malice in their hearts.
The position of executive secretary does not appear on any official organizational chart, but therein lies its strength. It is a personal appointment of the mayor, an extra set of eyes and ears with no personal power base of its own.
But this bad cop is essential. At times, mayors are approached by disgruntled petitioners whose selfish requests have been denied by the executive secretary. It is easy enough to say, with a shrug, “What can I do? You know how tough that guy can be. I have to live with him.”
A city with a shrinking population and soaring costs can stay afloat indefinitely when there is a steady balance between art and science, yin and yang, good cop and bad cop. But if you fiddle with this, you fiddle with success.
Enter Tom Murphy.
Twelve years ago, Murphy tapped his old friend Tom Cox to be his top aide. They knew each other well, a vital requirement of any successful partnership. Unfortunately, they shared the inability to get along with people.
Murphy and Cox may not have invented the bad cop/bad cop approach to management but they did take it to spectacular depths. Not long into the Murphy administration, the ship of state began to list -- from the helm.
And now we will see another new approach -- good cop/good cop. Everybody likes the new mayor, Bob O’Connor. And this is no small thing in a business that turns on personal relationships.
As his top aide he has tapped B.J. Leber, the first woman in that position. Leber has little government experience, which may be viewed as a positive by some. But by reputation, Leber is a good person; she, too, is likeable.
Let’s just hope that good cop/good cop carries the day.