stonecrandall Chapter 289 - 146: Dictator
Chapter 289 - 146: Dictator
In April, the chill in Pittsburgh finally began to recede from the surface of the Monongahela River.
As the date of the midterm primary elections approached, the entire city’s political pulse quickened.
Leo Wallace sat at the center of power, like a patient gardener trimming the bonsai tree that was Pittsburgh.
But the shears in his hands were power, personal interests, and a meticulously woven network of personnel.
Following Roosevelt’s strategic blueprint, Leo began to set his plans in motion.
It was a political project that would permeate the city’s very capillaries.
First came the preparations for a "blood transfusion."
Leo knew full well that the current city council was a tough nut to crack. He couldn’t remove them immediately, but he could cultivate their replacements.
Over the past several months, Leo had been making frequent appearances at seminars at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, public policy forums at Carnegie Mellon University, and youth leadership training sessions in various communities.
He was searching for young people with a fire in their eyes, who were dissatisfied with the status quo and eager for change.
He was looking for grassroots leaders who had influence in their communities but lacked the funding and the platform to grow.
Through a non-profit program called the "Pittsburgh Future Leaders Scholarship," Leo gathered these young people around him.
He offered them opportunities to intern at City Hall, allowing them to experience the real workings of the administration.
He had Ethan teach them how to organize a campaign, how to fundraise, and how to mobilize voters.
He was cultivating his own Praetorian Guard.
Though this army was still green, in the city council elections two years from now, they would become the sharp knives in Leo’s hand, aimed precisely at the soft underbellies of the disobedient old council members.
Meanwhile, the "hunt" for the current council members was also quietly underway.
Leo had learned how to use the politics of patronage.
Gavin Stone had hinted to Leo more than once that he desired a higher standing in the business world.
So Leo signed an executive order establishing the "Pittsburgh Special Committee for Business Environment Optimization" and appointed Stone as its lifetime honorary chairman.
Ostensibly, all business district renovation projects fell under this committee’s guidance.
From then on, Stone’s seat at Chamber of Commerce dinners moved from the second row to the first.
His hostility toward Leo dissolved amidst champagne and compliments.
Linda Rossi had a lot of relatives, and the newly established "Community Services Liaison Office" at City Hall needed a large number of administrative staff.
Leo had Rossi submit a long list of recommendations.
When her nephews and nieces were all drawing salaries under Leo, Rossi’s voice on the council floor naturally grew quieter.
Pete Miller wanted to upgrade the police department’s equipment.
Leo specially allocated a dedicated fund for the department’s equipment upgrades.
When Miller was out patrolling the streets in a brand-new riot command vehicle, he no longer called Leo a "radical."
Moretti cared a great deal about his dignity as Council President.
So Leo established an informal "Monday Breakfast Meeting" with him.
Every Monday morning, he would invite Moretti to his office for coffee and give him a "heads-up" on all major decisions before they were announced.
This made Moretti feel like he was still in control of the situation, still that indispensable middleman.
With threads of self-interest, Leo entangled these nine council members one by one, spinning them into cocoons.
They thought they were getting the better end of the deal, but in reality, they had become parasites dependent on Leo as their host.
Finally, there was the restructuring of power itself.
This was the most covert and complex phase of his plan.
Under Leo’s direction, Ethan was constructing an administrative labyrinth.
They rewrote the formatting standards for the fiscal budget.
Clear and simple line items like "Road Maintenance" and "Park Construction" were replaced with a series of grand yet vague concepts such as the "Urban Infrastructure Resilience Maintenance Fund" and the "Community Ecological Resilience Enhancement Initiative."
What the city council approved were these concepts—these massive pools of capital.
But the specific details of how the money was spent, where it was spent, and when it was spent—the power of interpretation—rested entirely in Leo’s hands.
They established the "Pittsburgh Revitalization Executive Agency."
This was a special agency that reported directly to the Mayor, superseding traditional departments like Public Works and Planning, and was responsible for coordinating the execution of all major projects.
Through a series of complex administrative authorization documents, Ethan gradually stripped personnel, procurement, and approval powers from the old bureaucratic system and transferred them to this new agency.
The old department heads still sat in their spacious offices, still drew their high salaries, but they were shocked to find their desks growing cleaner, the paperwork dwindling, and their phones no longer ringing off the hook.
They had been rendered powerless.
Power, like water, flowed into the new riverbeds Leo had designed.
The city was gradually becoming Leo Wallace’s city alone.
However, Leo hadn’t done all this just to sit on his throne and enjoy the cheap thrill of a dictator.
He was clearing the weeds in order to plant seeds.
He was consolidating power to forge a fulcrum strong enough to leverage the entire Rust Belt.
In his mind, there had always been an industrial map of Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh was just the starting point.
His gaze had long since crossed the Monongahela River, passed over the Allegheny Mountains, and settled on the sister cities that dotted the landscape, all struggling with the same decay.