How civil was a Sun­day de­bate be­tween the four can­di­dates for Pitts­burgh City Coun­cil in a March 6 spe­cial elec­tion to re­place Dis­trict 8’s Dan Gil­man? Civil enough that even the Re­pub­li­can hope­ful didn’t come to ar­gue.

The can­di­dates largely echoed each other’s con­cerns about is­sues like snow re­moval and the pres­ence of lead pipes in the city’s aging wa­ter sys­tem. Mostly, the au­di­ence of over 200 at Chatham Univer­sity’s Eddy Theater heard dif­fer­ences of style and tone — es­pe­cially over how to keep the city af­ford­able even as it grows.

Res­tau­rant owner Sonja Finn, the Dem­o­crat in the race, sounded the most pop­u­list note.

“We are fo­cus­ing on build­ing the city as a play­ground for rich, young pro­fes­sion­als,” she said.

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To com­bat dis­place­ment, she backed fur­ther pro­tec­tions for rent­ers and some form of rent con­trol — though she later agreed that state law pre­cludes im­pos­ing such a pol­icy.

Ms. Finn also stressed her cre­den­tials as an in­de­pen­dent.

“Are you send­ing your rep­re­sen­ta­tive to city hall, or are you let­ting the mayor send his rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Dis­trict 8?” she asked in her clos­ing re­marks.

The ques­tion drew mur­murs. Mayor Bill Peduto is back­ing Erika Strass­burger in the race, as is Mr. Gil­man, who left the seat to be Mr. Peduto’s top aide.

Inde­pen­dent can­di­date Mar­tin Healey, a busi­ness­man who has been ac­tive in LGBT causes, spoke force­fully, if vaguely, for causes like mass tran­sit. And he ex­pressed con­cern that the city did not re­ceive enough fi­nan­cial sup­port from sub­ur­ban com­mut­ers who rely on its ser­vices.

“How is it help­ing us when we have a huge cost to cover here?” he asked.

Mr. Healey also ex­pressed mis­giv­ings about Mr. Peduto’s re­cent move to cre­ate a nom­i­nat­ing com­mit­tee to se­lect board mem­bers for the trou­bled Pitts­burgh Water and Sewer Au­thor­ity. Sup­port­ers say that ap­proach will de­po­lit­i­cize the agency, but Mr. Healey said, “All the sud­den, city coun­cil has noth­ing to say about who is on the au­thor­ity.”

Ren­nick Rem­ley, a Pitts­burgh Bal­let Theater ex­ec­u­tive, may have had the tough­est sell: He was, af­ter all, the Re­pub­li­can at an event hosted by the de­cid­edly lib­eral 14th Ward Inde­pen­dent Demo­cratic Club. Mr. Rem­ley sought to dis­arm the au­di­ence, be­gin­ning his open­ing re­marks by sing­ing, “One of these things is not like the other.”

Mr. Rem­ley said his party af­fil­i­a­tion would help the city’s re­la­tion­ship with Re­pub­li­cans in Har­ris­burg, who have blocked lo­cal ini­tia­tives.

“I ac­tu­ally know how to speak Re­pub­li­can,” he said.

He had a fa­mil­iarly con­ser­va­tive take on a hike in the re­alty trans­fer tax that fi­nances the city’s $10 mil­lion af­ford­able hous­ing fund.

“I don’t think we’re go­ing to convince young fam­i­lies to move to Pitts­burgh” when other com­mu­ni­ties have lower rates, he said.

Ms. Strass­burger, who was Mr. Gil­man’s chief of staff, touted the of­fice’s record, point­ing to ini­tia­tives like es­tab­lish­ing lac­ta­tion rooms for nurs­ing moth­ers in city build­ings. She hailed the hous­ing fund and af­ford­able-hous­ing re­quire­ments for tax-sub­i­si­dized de­vel­op­ment.

“Af­ford­able hous­ing should not be a lux­ury,” she said.

“I have a vi­sion for Pitts­burgh,” said Ms. Strass­burger, who is run­ning as an in­de­pen­dent. “It is clean wa­ter and clean air for ev­ery­one, [with growth] that is in­clu­sive and eq­ui­ta­ble.”

The other can­di­dates oc­ca­sion­ally strug­gled to demon­strate fa­mil­iar­ity with top­ics like the struc­ture of city coun­cil and the size of the city’s school dis­trict.

“This is for you,” said Mr. Rem­ley, hand­ing over the mi­cro­phone af­ter he, too, flubbed the lat­ter ques­tion. Ms. Strass­burger an­swered 25,000 — within a few hun­dred of the dis­trict’s cur­rent en­roll­ment.

First Published: January 29, 2018, 12:52 a.m.