Pittsburgh City Councilwoman Twanda Carlisle has hired a political supporter who is at the center of an investigation into payments she authorized to outside consultants for questionable work. Sheryl A. Smith, 48, who received $30,800 as a consultant for Carlisle between October 2004 and April 2006, now makes $24,499 a year to run Carlisle’s office. Smith, who was hired July 31, attended Peabody High School in East Liberty with Carlisle and worked on her 2002 City Council election campaign. Smith, whose last known address is in Lincoln-Lemington, declined to answer questions Tuesday about the consultant payments she received or her new job. Neither Carlisle, who was in the office with Smith yesterday, nor her attorney, T. Brent McCune of the Downtown law firm Ecker Ecker & Ecker, returned calls. City of Pittsburgh lawyers on May 19 released a report detailing $177,000 in payments to Smith and two dozen other consultants and organizations. County prosecutors and the state Ethics Commission began investigating Carlisle for possible misuse of taxpayer money. “How is this possible• She’s under investigation for receiving money from Twanda Carlisle as a consultant and now she’s on the payroll,” said Phillip Martin, 50, of Homewood, who has filed an impeachment petition against Carlisle. “It just goes to show that City Council still is not governing themselves. They are still running amok.” City Council President Luke Ravenstahl said he knew Carlisle hired a woman named Sheryl A. Smith to work in her office, but he wanted to confirm her identity before commenting. Ravenstahl did not return calls later in the day. Martin questioned Smith’s qualifications and suggested her salary could be better used to fix a broken city water sprinkler that would let children cool off from the summer heat in Baxter Park at the corner of Frankstown and North Braddock avenues. Carlisle wrote in a May 2 e-mail that Smith “has been doing straight data base information.” Carlisle repeatedly has refused to comment further. Sister Patrice Hughes, a member of the city’s new Ethics Hearing Board, said Smith’s hiring could be cause for concern. Hughes is one of four recently appointed members of the long-dormant board, which City Council and Mayor Bob O’Connor resurrected in the wake of the Carlisle investigation. “It certainly gives the appearance of a conflict of interest,” said Hughes, who said she would look into the matter further, perhaps once the board meets for the first time after Labor Day. James Broussard, chairman of Hershey, Dauphin County-based Citizens Against Higher Taxes, said city taxpayers should be angry. “For one thing, it would seem to be one of the dumber things a person could do politically,” Broussard said. “If I were a taxpayer in Pittsburgh, I would see this as a bigger insult than the state (Legislature’s) pay raise was.”

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