Peter Francis Flaherty (June 25, 1924 – April 18, 2005) was an American politician and attorney. He served as assistant district attorney of Allegheny County from 1957 to 1964, a member of the Pittsburgh City Council from 1966 to 1970, the 54th mayor of Pittsburgh from 1970 to 1977, United States deputy attorney general during the Carter administration from 1977 to 1978, and county commissioner of Allegheny County from 1984 to 1996. Early life and education Flaherty was born and raised on the North Side of Pittsburgh. He served in the United States Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1946 during World War II, reaching the rank of Captain. Flaherty was honorably discharged and used the G.I. Bill to become the first in his family to attend college. He graduated from Carlow University in three years, then graduated cum laude from Notre Dame Law School and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar Association. He then established his own legal practice which included the Pittsburgh Steelers among his clients. In 1971, he earned a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Career In 1965, Flaherty led the Democratic Party ticket when he was elected to the Pittsburgh City Council. He was elected mayor in the 1969 Pittsburgh mayoral election, defeating Judge Harry A. Kramer in the primary election. In the general election Flaherty beat the Republican, John K. Tabor. Four years later, in the 1973 election, Flaherty was re-elected by winning the Democratic primary, the Republican primary, and the Constitutional party primaries. During his seven years as mayor, Flaherty reduced the payroll by almost one third, balanced the budget each year without a tax increase or any new taxes, reduced the taxes by two mils, eliminated the wage tax for three years, and left office with a substantial budget surplus and taxes lower than when he took office. He increased the amount of street repaving from less than ten miles in 1969 to more than 100 miles in his last year in office. This was accomplished in part by using city personnel and a city owned asphalt plant instead of continuing to contract out the work. Flaherty was featured in a book on city governing called City Money: Political Processes, Fiscal Strain, and Retrenchment by Terry N. Clark and Laura Crowley Ferguson, Columbia University Press 1983. Throughout most of his tenure as