PITTSBURGH City chiefs hail return of O'Neill

Even the Democratic governor-elect says he'd like to have the former treasury secretary working for him.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Now that the Bush administration no longer has his services, Pittsburgh leaders say they can't wait for outgoing U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to pick up where he left off.
O'Neill, who resigned from his post Friday and was already at his Pittsburgh home but unavailable to comment, plans to settle back into his adopted hometown and concentrate on improving the region's health care and education systems, said Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis.
Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey, a friend of O'Neill's, described the 67-year-old former head of Alcoa as "brutally honest."
"In fact, that's probably one reason he's leaving Washington. He really cares about this city, and I think it's wonderful to have him back," Roddey said.
Before going to Washington, O'Neill in 1996 headed Mayor Tom Murphy's 11-member Competitive Pittsburgh Task Force.
The goal was to increase the city's global competitiveness, reduce city service costs and propose savings strategies.
The panel's findings, known as "The O'Neill Report," were widely praised by city and academic leaders, though labor unions criticized some of the cost-cutting suggestions as threats to jobs.
Even while serving as treasury secretary, O'Neill arranged for members of the Regional Healthcare Initiative, a coalition of regional health care providers and insurers he co-founded in 1998, to meet with Bush administration officials, to testify before a congressional committee and to host a visit from two senators and the director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"It doesn't surprise me now that he says he wants to resume his work with us because he never really left us," said initiative co-founder Karen Feinstein, chief executive president of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation of Pittsburgh. "He really has kept in close touch."
Feinstein says O'Neill has a standing invitation to rejoin the initiative as co-chairman.
Even Gov.-elect Ed Rendell, a Democrat, said he'd like to have O'Neill, a Republican, work for him, though Rendell wasn't prepared to say whether he wants O'Neill for his transition team, his administration or for a panel he's forming to study Pittsburgh's finances.
"We'd love to have him," Rendell said. "I haven't had a chance to talk to the former secretary. Obviously, if he's got any time available, he's a great businessman and a great public servant."
O'Neill and his wife, Nancy, still have their home in Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood, and their daughter lives in the Pittsburgh area.