P.G. Sittenfeld

Alexander Paul George "P.G." Sittenfeld (born October 1, 1984) is an American politician who is a member of the City Council of Cincinnati since 2011, when he became the youngest person (age 27) ever elected to the position. He is a Democrat. In January 2015, he announced his 2016 bid for Ohio's U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Rob Portman. On March 15, 2016, Sittenfeld lost the Senate Democratic primary election to former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland.

Sittenfeld was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. His mother, Elizabeth "Betsy" Curtis (Bascom), is an art history teacher and librarian at Seven Hills School, a private school in Cincinnati, and his father, Paul George Sittenfeld, is an investment adviser. He and his sister, author Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld, attended Seven Hills School. His father is Jewish and his mother is Catholic, and he was raised Catholic. He attended Princeton University (Bachelor of Arts in English and American Studies, 2007), where he was elected president of the freshman class, and then attended graduate school at Magdalen College, Oxford (receiving his Master of Studies in English and American Studies, 2009) and the City University London (Master of Arts in Nonfiction Creative Writing, 2010 with distinction) as a Marshall Scholar. He worked as a summer intern at Google and Time.

Sittenfeld is co-founder and assistant director of the Community Learning Center Institute in Cincinnati. He also worked at DataRole, a technology startup company in downtown Cincinnati.

Cincinnati City Council

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In 2011, at age 27, Sittenfeld became the youngest person ever elected to Cincinnati City Council. He received the second most votes of the 23 candidates.

He was re-elected to the council in 2013 and was the leading vote-getter among the 21 candidates.

Gang of Five

In 2018, Sittenfeld was caught leading the "Gang of Five" a group of five city council members who met via secret text messages attempting to undermine the elected mayor and bypass the public meetings and debates the members of the minority of council and the public believed were legitimate meetings and debates.

In March 2019, the Gang of Five agreed to turn over their text messages in order to settle a lawsuit filed by a local anti-tax activist. Among the text messages were juvenile discussions of city employees' sexuality, messages mocking members of the public who attended council meetings or contacted the city council. . The text messages were made searchable and posted on the website of the law firm that brought the suit against the Gang of Five. The Agreed Entry resolving the case has been made available online at the Scribd website.

In June 2019 additional text messages were released as a result of a lawsuit filed by Sinclair Media reporter Angenette Levy in which it was revealed that Sittenfeld encouraged the then city manager (Harry Black) to gin up racial tensions to avoid being fired. This release also included text messages in which Sittenfeld discussed his concern over Black's need for counseling, and Sittenfeld and other council members discussing the Black's habit making late night drunken phone calls to city officials and reporters. Text messages also revealed that Black had engaged in efforts to suppress dissent among city employees, including chastising a city employee after she testified before council about the death of a teenager when 911 operators and Cincinnati police were unable to locate the teen. Despite all these concerns, Sittenfeld opposed efforts to fire Black.

The Gang of Five's efforts cost the City approximately $500,000 as it resulted in additional costs to fire a city manager, and costs to hire outside lawyers to defend the lawsuit and ultimately in paying the fines and attorney fees as part of the agreed order resolving the lawsuit. Another lawsuit for additional records is pending before the Ohio Supreme Court, State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Cincinnati, Ohio Supreme Court Case No. 2019-0599.

U.S. Senate campaign

On January 22, 2015, Sittenfeld announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat held by current Republican United States Senator Rob Portman in 2016. Sittenfeld lost in the Democratic Party primary to former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland.

Throughout his primary campaign, Sittenfeld focused heavily on gun control issues, claiming he would support reforms such as a federal ban on assault weapons and more comprehensive background checks for gun purchasers. On January 28, 2016, Sittenfeld announced a proposed amendment to the Ohio legislature to restore home-rule authority on gun control. His proposal would allow city governments within Ohio to enact their own gun control laws, a power which was removed by a 2006 state law.

Sittenfeld serves as a board member of the Freestore Foodbank and Breakthrough Cincinnati. On June 4, 2016, P.G. Sittenfeld married Dr. Sarah (Coyne) Sittenfeld.