So in profiling the city council representatives I decided to simply go in order. That means District 1′s Darlene Harris is up first. What an interesting lead off hitter she is too. I did a lot of scouring the Internet looking for stories about her that I could post that were factual. There’s a lot of hate for her out there in the blogosphere, but I’ll try to post only stories from reliable, unbalanced (or at least mostly unbalanced) sources.

Name: Darlene Harris

• School Board Member: Late 90s to 2003
• Won a special election to take Mayor Ravenstahl’s spot on city council.

Notes:

• She was not endorsed for election last year by the Post-Gazette. The Post-Gazette (a lefty paper in general) endorsed the republican candidate.
• She was notorious for being a deliberate, inquisitive penny pincher in her time at the school board. Occasionally, this got in the way of her relationships with her fellow board members. These disputes were, apparently, the reason that several charitable funds pulled donations from the city schools.
• She, much to the dismay of several bloggers, had a device that eliminates smoking odors installed in her office in the city-county building, where smoking is against the rules.
• She was not elected through a primary process to run in 2006, she was appointed by the democratic committee.
• She supports saving money through combining municipal and county purchasing.

I realize she’s a polarizing figure, and I hope if there is anything critical that I’ve missed (good or bad) that my readers will add it in comments.