Bob Cranmer

During their administration Mike Dawida and Bob Cranmer also oversaw the rehabilitation and restoration of the famed Henry Hobson Richardson Allegheny County Jail designed in the late 1800s.

They had established a committee chaired by the then chancellor of Duquesne University, John E. Murray Jr. called "ComPAC 21", (The Committee to Prepare Allegheny County for the 21st Century).

Their report laid the plan for a completely new organizational structure of county government.

He also initiated the creation of the Allegheny County Airport Authority to manage the Pittsburgh International Airport in a more effective, professional manner.

Robert Wesley "Bob" Cranmer (born 1956, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a veteran, businessman, author, and politician, best known as a former Republican County Commissioner of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, from 1996 to 2000.

He is the author of the horror novel The Demon of Brownsville Road.

The son of a retired military officer, Cranmer graduated from Brentwood High School in 1974 and received a bachelor of science degree in secondary education and history from Duquesne University in 1978.

After service as a United States Army officer where one of his assignments was as a company commander with the 101st Airborne Division, he returned home and was elected to Brentwood Council in 1991.

In 1991 Cranmer ran for a seat on Brentwood council stating that he would bring a new grocery store to the community.

But after his election Cranmer found his campaign promise was easier said than done when grocery chains he contacted disparaged the condition of the current shopping center and the topography of the land where it sat.

Understanding that the Brentwood-Whitehall Shopping Center was in an advanced state of deterioration (and had fallen into bankruptcy), he initiated a plan to create an economic development corporation (Brentwood Economic Development Corporation, later expanded and renamed Economic Development South) to work with developers in addressing the commercial needs of Brentwood (specifically) and later expanded to serve other communities in the South Hills of Allegheny County.

Working with Allegheny County (Cranmer, later as a county commissioner), Kappa Properties, and Giant Eagle this corporation undertook a development plan to demolish and rebuild this primary business district, eventually creating a $32 million development which became known as "Brentwood Towne Square or Center".

He gained the attention of the national media in 1993 when he challenged the operating practices of the media giant TCI Cable.

The firm, which had contracted with Brentwood to provide cable television services, added without notice or approval two explicitly adult (pay-per-view) channels, Playboy TV and Spice Networks, and was done to test market the service.

When a subscriber television was turned on it would automatically "default" to one of the adult channels, each being lightly scrambled but still providing full uncensored audio.

These "mechanical" features made contact with the channels unavoidable, making children vulnerable to programming designed explicitly for adult viewers.

Cranmer claimed that this was done as a ploy to entice viewers to subscribe while subjecting all viewers to the adult content, including children.

He also based his objections on an existing borough ordnance that prohibited the sale of sexually explicit magazines, videos, or performances.

In signing a contract with the borough, TCI had agreed to abide by all borough laws and regulations and that they were now violating the ordnance by providing "home delivery service" of pornographic material.

Brentwood borough and TCI eventually came to an out-of-court agreement in which the channels would be further scrambled and blocked entirely upon request of the subscriber.

In 1994, he was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Allegheny County.

In October of that year Cranmer again gained the national spotlight when Teresa Heinz, the wife of the late Senator John Heinz, a Republican, and later wife of presidential candidate John Kerry, publicly endorsed Democratic incumbent Senator Harris Wofford, who had been appointed to the seat by Governor Bob Casey following her husband's death.

She called the Republican candidate, Congressman Rick Santorum, "Forrest Gump with an attitude" and labeled him much too conservative for Pennsylvania.

The same day that her endorsement made the Pennsylvania newspapers Cranmer issued a press release which included a letter from him to Mrs. Heinz (who was, at that time, a registered Republican), asking her to change her voter registration to the Democratic Party; he also included a voter registration form.

Cranmer's letter helped him gain notoriety, as it was seen as emblematic of the betrayal felt by State Republicans.

In 1995 during his campaign for county commissioner, two Brentwood Police officers were involved in an incident during which a young black man named Jonny Gammage of Syracuse, New York, was killed during a routine traffic stop.

Gammage was the cousin of Ray Seals, a player for the Pittsburgh Steelers football team.

The controversy surrounding the death made the national news and racial tension rose to a fever pitch in Pittsburgh.

Cranmer, who had been at odds with the Brentwood police as a councilman, denounced the police conduct and when pressured leveled accusations that Brentwood had a history racist incidents.

He and his family were castigated by members of the community and contemplated moving but eventually did not.

After several trials and mistrials, all of the police officers were eventually acquitted in the case.

Many in the community never forgave Cranmer for his statements.

Cranmer went on to be elected County Commissioner in November 1995 in a landmark election and was thought to be a firebrand conservative.

Being a member of the first Republican majority in Allegheny County government since the Great Depression, Cranmer subsequently split with his Republican running mate Larry Dunn over major differences concerning the managing of the county government, and formed a close governing alliance with Democrat commissioner Mike Dawida.

This initiative was based upon a study set into motion by former county commissioners Tom Foerster and Pete Flaherty in 1995.

He was heralded as a "traitor" to Republicans by commissioner Dunn, who subsequently (unlike Cranmer), switched parties and became a registered Democrat to run for county controller in 2003.

In summary, the Post-Gazette stated "that despite the political suicide he brought upon himself, this was the turning point that helped the county recover from earlier mistakes".

As a commissioner he made significant changes to county government, reducing county taxes by 20 percent, reducing county personnel by 18%, merging twenty-eight county departments into six, creating the position of County Manager, an integrated county 9-1-1 system, and forming a joint city/county economic development organization.

The economic development organization is most notable for the coordination and construction of The Waterfront business/commercial/residential development with Continental Real Estate-Development, on the former site of the United States Steel Homestead Works.

He led an effort to establish home rule in Allegheny County, which created the position of county executive and county council after coming to the conclusion that a new structure of government was needed.