John Fetterman: Pa. lieutenant governor's appearance vs. reality might surprise you
John Fetterman, who has gained inordinate amounts of attention for someone toiling in the trenches of Pennsylvania’s municipal government, goes into a job that’s rank on state government’s organizational flow chart typically far outstrips its actual function.
It’s literally a blank canvas at the state Capitol that Fetterman, 49, is clearly eager to fill through the next four years as your lieutenant governor.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s ticket-mate took some time out of his transition prep this week for an interview about his move up from mayor of hardscrabble Braddock in Allegheny County to the State Capitol in Harrisburg, and what he wants to do with the bigger platform his new, $166,291-a-year job entails.
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Fetterman’s new digs, incidentally, is a townhouse on North Second Street owned by his brother Gregg. John Fetterman describes the rental as a private transaction that he will not seek any reimbursement from the state for. “The Commonwealth does not owe me a place to live,” he said.
Still and all, working out of Harrisburg marks a regional homecoming for Fetterman, a York County native - Central York High School Class of ’87, in case you’re wondering - who graduated from Albright College and worked in the insurance industry before a volunteer stint with Big Brothers changed his personal trajectory.
“I made the choice at that point in ’95 that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my professional career just making my circumstances even better than they were,” he told Pennlive in a 2015 profile.
After a stint in AmeriCorps and graduate school, Fetterman found his way to Braddock and founded a non-profit serving youth there, which morphed into running for mayor, which morphed into a career in which he gained a lot of regional attention for his personal investment in trying to make something out of a down-on-its heels mill town that another notable politician probably had in mind when he famously decried “this American carnage.”
Fetterman has spent the last 17 years practicing street-level triage for little Braddock, from development of an all-purpose community center, to landing a starring role for the town in a Levi Strauss advertising campaign, or a one-man protest for improved medical services that resulted in a defiant trespass arrest in Pittsburgh.
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/01/meet-your-new-lieutenant-governor.html
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I say that because I don't know him personally but he has received good press coverage in the Pittsburgh area. By the way, Braddock is a community-neighborhood of Pittsburgh that had its share of problems since the steel mills shut down. During the 1970's and 80's many jobs were lost and middle class people moved away in search of new jobs. But that was a long time ago.
Since then John Fetterman and other good citizens like him have attacked the social and economic issues and great communities have emerged. Pittsburgh is no longer a rust-belt city, thanks to our "can-do" mayors and their vision for the future. I'm happy that Governor Wolf recognized Mr. Fetterman's achievements and invited him to join the ticket. As the new Lt. Governor, he'll bring his community-building expertise to all areas of Pennsylvania.
This map shows that Braddock, PA is actually no more than a few miles from downtown Pittsburgh, and it's surrounded by communities that were all seriously hurt when the steel mills closed almost 40 years ago.
