PITTSBURGH (NewsRadio 1020 KDKA) –  Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald has been watching developments with the Pittsburgh Mayoral race closely. After all, he and Luke Ravenstahl’s successor will work very closely together, and he has some thoughts on who it should be and how they should work together.

“The mayor of the City of Pittsburgh needs to be someone who can work with the county executive and Congressional congressman,” says Fitzgerald. “It’s really the relationships and how that individual can work with the other folks.”

KDKA-AM’s John Shumway talks to Fitzgerald about what he’s seeing in the mayoral race and what issues that future mayor will face. One of the things he talked about was city/county consolidation.

“I do not see anytime soon the City Council and County Council merging together. If anything what would happen are the other smaller municipalities who are struggling to pay their bills, I think you’ll see more consolidations with those communities,” Fitzgerald said.

And with 130 different municipalities making up Allegheny County, Fitzgerald says you should be more concerned about your county councilman who represents over 100,000 citizens each, as opposed to the Pittsburgh mayor, who represents less than a quarter of the county population.

Fitzgerald hopes that all communities in Allegheny County can work together and continue  the growth that our region has seen lately.

“If we don’t handle government properly, we could thwart some of the momentum we’ve seen over the past few years,” Fitzgerald said.