PITTSBURGH -- Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is defending his decision to attend Mario Lemieux's charity golf tournament rather than going to a City Council hearing on the controversial promotions of three city police officers with alleged histories of domestic abuse.

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Bob Mayo's Blog: Past Mayors Braved Key Council Hearings

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WTAE Channel 4 Action News reporter Bob Mayo dug through the archives and found that Ravenstahl attacked former mayor Tom Murphy for missing a council session in 2004.

Today, Ravenstahl correctly notes that it is not standard practice for Pittsburgh mayors to come before controversial council meetings.

Though it's extremely unusual, there have been rare and dramatic cases in city history when it has happened.

Ravenstahl, a city councilman at the time, called it "shameful" when Murphy did not come before council to talk about Ravenstahl's bill to lower the city's parking tax in 2004.

"These are troubling times for the city of Pittsburgh, and for the mayor of the city or somebody to represent his administration not to come to the table on such serious issues is regrettable, shameful," Ravenstahl said in 2004.

Murphy and council members did face off in council two months later over the money crunch.

At that meeting, Ravenstahl cited Murphy's clashes with state lawmakers and asked Murphy if he'd resign.

"Basically throw yourself out there and say, 'I saved the city,'" Ravenstahl said in 2004. "If they say, 'We're to ask you to step aside.' It's not that I'm asking for that, I'm just wondering."

Murphy told Ravenstahl he'd quit only if people who were making personality clashes an issue quit too.

"That we would stand together and they would sacrifice their political careers with me, to say for the betterment of this region we would all resign -- if that would happen, I'd be happy to do it," Murphy said in 2004.

Then, there's former mayor Sophie Masloff, who chose to walk into a council hearing full of angry senior citizens to defend her 1989 tax swap plan to lower the wage tax while raising Pittsburgh property taxes.

"This was a very difficult decision for me to make, but one I knew I had to make if the city is going to survive and grow," Masloff said in 1989.

The late Dick Caliguiri made the most high-stakes appearance by a Pittsburgh mayor at a city council meeting when he faced down hundreds of police and firefighters in 1984.

Caliguiri surprised those packing the tense hearing, answering critics of his merger of police, fire and EMS under a single public safety department.

He said he was proposing "improvements which can mean life or death to our citizens and, yes, life and death to our safety personnel."

Ravenstahl's office said the mayor's public safety director represented Ravenstahl at the June 28 council hearing on the police promotion controversy, and it also said Ravenstahl's door is always open.

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