Yet Another Snow Day

On Monday, I thanked professionals and neighbors alike for their hard work during this storm.

But not everything was hunky-dory in Pittsburgh during this storm.

Businesses are suffering because people can't drive or ride to them. Schools are going to be extending their school year and/or eliminating holidays after 3 days of cancellations. Those who showed up at their office jobs spent hours in the car or on a bus to get there. My neighbors shoveled out 2/3rds of my street realizing that a plow would never appear, and there are countless other stories like this.

Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak of the South Hills (the hardest hit and probably least-plowed area) will be heading up a task force on the handling of this storm.

What will she discover?

That even when this storm showed itself to be the big ugly monster it is, our esteemed officials continued to treat it like an average storm. They did not pull out all the stops until well into Monday, and by then it was too late. Saturday morning, the state of Pennsylvania declared a state of emergency, but the city of Pittsburgh didn't declare an official state of emergency until more than 48 hours later. Pittsburgh's utter lack of strong leadership made itself apparent this weekend. We will survive this storm, but its poor handling is making it all that much harder for our businesses to stay in business, for our students to learn, and for our workers to work.

5 Reasons to Vote Today

1) It's good practice for real elections.

2) You get to wear an "I voted" sticker (just don't stick it to any valuable clothing and certainly don't sue the city if you do.)

3) You can write in whomever you want, so even if you don't like any of the candidates running, that shouldn't stop you.

4) Lots of people in other countries can't vote. It's a valuable right that you should exercise lest it be taken away. After all, it's kind of a joke to spread democracy and condemn dictatorships when you're not practicing it.

5) Enjoy the fresh air and walk to your polling place. What else do you have to do?*

Ultimately, I don't care who you vote for. It's so much more valuable to have an informed, active electorate than for my preferred candidate to win. But in case you were curious, I think Kevin Acklin would make a mighty fine mayor of our city.

*Of Note: I am not voting in this election because I'm in Buenos Aires, and it's hard enough to send postcards, let alone absentee ballots from Argentina.

On Mayors and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Regarding last night's debate:

"While reporters shuttled between the mayor and Mr. Acklin, Mr. Harris, who turned in a solid debate performance, was largely ignored by the media."

A reminder to the Post-Gazette: You are the media. If you think Mr. Harris is a worthwhile candidate, you can choose to not ignore him. But the Pittsburgh Comet will be happy that at least the status and validity of the race wasn't questioned by the "media." Kudos to Bram over at the Pittsburgh Comet for putting up some very thorough and compelling entries regarding this race.

Now, skip on over to "Green Is Good" and check out my interviews of Kevin Acklin, Franco Dok Harris, and Lindsay Baxter (acting as a stand-in for the current mayor). The interviews are focused on the candidate's green opinions from public transportation to pollution, so there will be no mention of John Verbanac.

Dread Lord Zober Goes To Church

As you all know, awesome Pittsburgh blogger, Pittgirl unveiled herself yesterday, shedding the cloak of anonymity and putting her job at risk to continue the noble effort of blogging with snark. You can find her at That's Church. The backlash she was most afraid of "Lukey" and his puppetmaster, the "Dread Lord Zober."

Zober and Ravenstahl were in a forgiving mood yesterday. "In the interest of moving Pittsburgh forward, Dread Lord Zober and I have decided to let bygones be bygones and let this one slide. And that's church," Ravenstahl said in a statement.

Of course, it would have been interesting to see the public backlash if she had received the ire of the current mayor. Would the city's love of Pittgirl (i.e. Your Majesty) override their contentment with the status-quo-democratic-mayor? Clearly, Mayor Ravenstahl didn't want to find out. Or maybe he just has a sense of humor. If so, thanks to Ginny for unveiling that.

Disappointing

Dear Kevin Acklin,

Please publicly renounce your campaign supporters who are disputing Harris's petition signers. I am one of those signers (a valid one as far as I know). I signed his petition because I want more choices, more voices, and more ideas in this election. When I was asked to sign the petition, I confirmed that I was a voter in the city of Pittsburgh.

In entering this Fall's mayoral election, you are fighting an uphill battle. Your supporters would be much better serving your campaign in phone banks and knocking door-to-door. Instead they spent a pathetic number of hours scrutinizing the competition by analyzing the 3,270 people who are happy to see another name on the ballot.

Sincerely,
pghisacity

Welcome to the Race

Yesterday, Franco Dok Harris officially announced that he is running for Mayor.

If elected mayor, he promised to say "yes" to enhancing economic opportunities, fighting crime, investing in education and fixing the city's infrastructure.

Is he also going to say "yes" to higher taxes? I know it's early, but I'm really curious as to where this money is going to come from. I want someone to say "yes" to implementing Controller Michael Lamb's audit recommendations. Let's use the money we have smartly instead of making lots of new grand plans.

Too Close For Comfort

Yesterday, I headed over to visit the Mattress Factory (one of my favorite museums in Pittsburgh). I skipped their fabulous annual Urban Garden Party to attend their free Sunday Community Garden Party. Unfortunately, as I was arriving a 22-year old Wilkinsburg man was on his way to the hospital after being shot around the corner from the museum. He died at Allegheny General Hospital at 3:08pm. Respectfully, the museum closed its doors, and I walked past cop cars to get back in my car and head home.

I've questioned whether to publicize this sad event or to let it pass. I don't want to deter folks from appreciating the thought-provoking exhibits and fun parties that the Mattress Factory specializes in. However, it's important to realize that the North Side is a dichotomy. The lovely houses of the Mexican War Streets intermingle with the gang violence of Allegheny City. If we don't force ourselves to look at the problems, we will never deal with them. The most unfortunate of these monthly tragedies are when the victims are innocent, like 12-year-old Jolesa Barber.

These dichotomies are found throughout Pittsburgh, so I don't mean to single out the North Side. The Waterfront development contrasts with Homestead's problems. On the South Side we deal with the dichotomy of drunken college students and senior citizens, but at least both sides tend to steer clear of guns. East Liberty is being splintered into East Side which has even spawned a documentary, "East of Liberty." But appropriately, filmmaker Chris Ivey is moving onto the North Side.

And if you think that people on the North Side don't care, you need to watch this video:

Act 47 = Higher Taxes?

The most important thing going on in the city of Pittsburgh right now is the Act 47 plan which will determine how we fare financially for the next 5 years.

Of course, it's also the thing the city has the least control over.

Kinda frustrating.

State overseers give us a 300 page book detailing all the things we can and can not do. City Council has until June 30 to approve it. If council doesn't approve it, they need the approval of the state overseers to change it.

But the main problem (as I've ranted previously) is that many of these guidelines involve changes to state law, and the state lawmakers have repeatedly spoken against any new taxes:

State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, said there will "need to be some adjustments to the Act 47 plan," but that legislative approval for such changes "will be a difficult challenge."

"I don't think it's rhetoric, I think it's a proposal legislators should be vetting," said Sen. Sean Logan, D-Plum. "We need to take another look at the city's finances." Logan said the city must demonstrate it has shed as much fat from its budget as possible before it can make a compelling case for additional tax money.

"If he thinks taxes are the first option, he's delusional, in this economy," said state Sen. Jane Orie, R-McCandless. "If you think other legislators across the state are going to agree to raise the city of Pittsburgh's occupational tax to $145, you're out of touch."

And what happened last time?

"The suburbs don't want to carry the burden for what's happened in the past in the city of Pittsburgh," said Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline.

That sentiment pushed state lawmakers in 2004 to strip the first five-year recovery plan of provisions that would have taxed city nonprofits and pegged the EMS -- then known as the occupation tax -- at $145, said Councilman Bill Peduto, the council finance committee chairman.

Such dramatic tax increases failed then, and they're likely to fail this time, he said. City Council has scheduled the first of two public meetings about the recovery plan for 1:30 p.m. today. A vote on it could happen by the end of June.

So, if just like last time, the state refuses to give the city the ability to raise taxes on parking, commuters, and non-profits, who does that leave paying the taxes?

City residents. Welcome to Taxburgh. The question we need to ask Harrisburg: Are the commuters really that much more hard up than the residents of the city? And are they really only getting $52 in benefit from working in the city? I understand the sentiment to punish the people who made the mistakes to get the city into this mess, but a lot of those people now live in the suburbs. And a lot of city residents (including myself) only moved to Pittsburgh in the last few years. So give us a break.

And where's the mayor? On vacation. I'm glad I'm not an elected councilor right now. That's because unless a miracle happens in Harrisburg (or we can sell off the parking garages), the plan calls for default tax increases in the city over the next 5 years. And you can bet after 5 years of taxes, we'll have a whole new set of councilors.

Welcome To Pittsburgh, Zimbabwe

Courtesy of nullspace, I learn that Ravenstahl officially has both the Republican and Democratic nominations for mayor.

Personally, I think attempting to get both nominations undermines our democratic process and shows that Ravenstahl has no respect for democracy and due process. Not too much of a surprise.

Was he really concerned that Josh Wander would mount a fight against him?? Josh only has 90 fans on facebook. Well, at least if someone accidentally presses the wrong button on the new-fangled voting machines, it won't matter. I'm really curious to see how many people vote for the Republican Ravenstahl versus the Democratic Ravenstahl? Is that a statement to make?

Tomorrow

Tomorrow's my birthday, so how about as a birthday present the good folks of Pittsburgh vote for Patrick Dowd as democratic candidate for mayor?

Thanks!

Biking For Mayor

Even if biking is not your thing, it is still worth-while to peruse Bike-PGHs mayoral interviews. The candidate responses are classic.

Robinson: Terse and to the point, but I think most of us would like to see her giving some longer answers as she is still the unknown quantity in this race. Still, I agree with her ideas. Let's kick some cars to the curb and get some bike lanes on 5th and Forbes in Oakland.

Ravenstahl: Repetitive. Can he be more boring? In answering almost every single question, he manages to mention the bike coordinator and the 2 bike lanes that have been striped in the city. Good things yes, but I'm not satisfied.

Dowd: Well thought out answers. And he bikes to work on a regular basis. I especially like his idea of a city-run network of urban bike rental. How about some city bike lockers while we're at it?

Kudos to all the candidates for taking the time to respond to Bike-PGH.

Bike-PGH can't endorse a candidate because they're a 501(c)3, but I have a strong feeling that if this survey is any indication, the members of Bike-PGH will be voting for Dowd.

Parking Garages Versus Port Authority

Brian O'Neill makes a very important point about parking garages in his latest editorial:

"Suburban commuters, the people most affected by any uptick in parking rates, have no vote in the mayoral election."

He makes that note near the end of his editorial and then he drops it, but somehow I will make a whole blog post out of this one line because I think he's looking at the tip of the iceberg of this thinly-veiled city versus suburb issue. City dwellers love the idea of leasing the parking garages and dealing with the city pension problem with the profits. Why? Because city dwellers DO NOT USE the parking garages. City dwellers take the bus or walk to work. We were just rated the 10th best walking city in part because a whopping 12% of us walk to work, the most in the nation after Boston. Another 18% take public transportation.

So, how about the city sells/leases the parking garages to the county? The county can manage them for the good of the county residents and then the city doesn't have to be responsible for taking care of suburban commuters at the expense of our city pensions.

Of course, the county doesn't want to buy the parking garages. Why would they? The county [read: Dan Onorato] also wants to contribute as little as is necessary for the upkeep and running of Port Authority. The county [read: Dan Onorato] also wants to keep the status quo of unjust property taxes. And the people that live in the county? They tend to think this is all a city problem, and they bemoan us city-dwellers for continuously voting in inept government that they have no control over. Well, suburban commuters, you do not have a mayoral vote, but you do have control over your government. You choose to not live in the city, you reject consolidation between city and county, and you vote for people like Onorato who undermine your cause by furthering the fractions between city and county despite boasting about the 2 municipality functions he's managed to merge.

And how did the city get in such poor shape? It seems to me that for a long time people thought it was easier to leave the city instead of help fix it. They were right. It was easier in the short-term, but now we're all paying for it - whether through higher taxes or parking rates. The big problem is that right now, the only one who's really profiting from it all is private parking garage owners.

How about the city offers to eliminate the dreaded parking garage tax, offers to keep ineptly running the parking garages (with their incumbent city pension issues and nepotism) and instead institutes a low wage tax on those suburban commuters? Is there any concession on the city's part that would make this palatable? County membership on the Parking Authority board? A citizen watchdog board made up of both city and county residents?

Let's work together to solve these issues. Let's all elect officials who will actually work together instead of giving lip service to a joke of a consolidation plan. Let's make Pittsburgh and the region stronger instead of just tearing each other apart.

4 Reasons to Vote for Ravenstahl and 1 Reason Not To

I have a confession. I voted for Lukey last election. I didn't think DeSantis was the person for the job and I'm still not convinced he was. He was different from the status quo, but different isn't always better. I also didn't watch last night's debate - though I hope it's available on youtube sometime in the future, and my excuse for this one is that I'm in Peru. As an aside, I also wrote this post while sitting on a bus in Peru, so please pardon the lack of supporting links.

So why would I consider voting for Ravenstahl again?

1) Publicity. Pittsburgh suffers nationally because of a lack of publicity. Lots of mid-sized cities share this plight. But Ravenstahl seems to appeal with some sort of national boy-wonder charisma - getting lots of media attention with his stunts. Is there anyone else running for mayor who has the ability to launch us onto the national stage? When's the last time a former president fund-raised for a Pittsburgh mayor? Of course, if he were running against John Fetterman he'd be dead in the water on this count. Maybe after John fixes Braddock, he can move on to Pittsburgh?

2) Grand Ideas. Ravenstahl has lots of grand ideas. He says things off-the-cuff like windmills and redd-up, government transparency and sweeping crime-fighting programs. It's good to have these grand ideas. However, our incumbent has failed on follow-through on most of these items, as many will state and I assume brought to light in last night's debate.

3.) Pittsburgh Promise. One particular idea that seems to have been successfully accomplished during Luke's tenure is the Pittsburgh Promise. While it's funding is currently shaky, it is there and it has already assisted hundreds of Pittsburgh high school students with their college education. This is a very worthy goal.

4.) 311. I admit it. I'm lazy. I hate looking up phone numbers and scrolling through lists of archaic city departments. It's so much easier to call 311 and tell them my problem. Unfortunately, as it stands 311 is a one-way system and needs to be improved upon. If a problem is not resolved to your satisfaction, there needs to be potential for feedback. Currently that is not happeneing and there are lots of 311 calls repeated wasting the time ofo ur citizens and city workers and ultimately our tax dollars.

Why I won't vote for Luke (again)

1.) Superficiality. Luke favors the superficial rather than the down-and-dirty. He'd rather pay millions for security cameras or buy $250,000 of trashcans to install on streets littered with relics of old trashcans than deal with major issues the city faces like PWSA bonds, the pension crisis and crime. Instead, we get witty press releases and manicured joint statements with Dan-the-tax-man. Voting for Luke is like voting for the football captain as the home-coming king back in high school.

Carmen Robinson, one of his adversaries, skewers the mayor on his stance on crime. A former police officer and current lawyer, she's someone who knows a thing or two about crime. She thinks security cameras are a waste of money and wants more better-armed beat cops walking our streets. Sounds good to me. Thanks to the Comet for his solid interview of Carmen.

Councilor Patrick Dowd, the mayor's other adversary in the up-coming election, wants to deal with the pension crisis and the PWSA. I could go on about him and why I like ideas, but I've already done that.

Councilor Bill Peduto has grand ideas that are well-researched like commuter rails and energy efficient street lights, but he's decided to stay out of the ring this time around.

I want a mayor and council who work together to create a stronger Pittsburgh. I don't want a mayor who looks good, but fights with council, says rash un-researched ideas, refuses to compromise, refuses to admit his mistakes and certainly doesn't learn from them all the while profiting from his status as mayor while Pittsburgh stays on the same path.

Reality Checks

I'm a big fan of www.factcheck.org which I used extensively during the recent presidential campaign.
Since copying is the biggest form of flattery, I've decided to do a little fact-checking myself.

From a recent Ravenstahl campaign announcement (courtesy of the Busman):

"Pittsburgh needs leadership, not a desperate politician willing to do or say anything to get elected. That's why and how he's run for four political offices in the last 8 years with no accomplishments to show for it. While he's talking and done nothing, I have submitted campaign finance reform pending before Council and I am reforming Pittsburgh's decades old procurement practices. Politics as usual from Dowd. Try again, Pat."

Let's get this straight. Back in June, Ravenstahl vetoed the campaign finance bill that City Council passed. Councilman Dowd voted for this campaign finance reform bill. At the time, Ravenstahl said: "It provides an unfair competitive advantage for the wealthy and will have a chilling effect on the labor movement. It will inhibit the ability of challengers to mount successful campaigns against incumbents." Six months later, in January, Ravenstahl and Onorato co-introduced a joke of a campaign reform bill that is clearly too late to affect this year's election, and has ludicrously high limits. Now, "Mr. Ravenstahl said previously that the proposed campaign finance bill will make substantive changes and could hurt incumbents like him." So which is it? Will Ravenstahl, the incumbent, be hurt or helped by campaign finance reform? We're supposed to believe that Ravenstahl will veto a bill that will help him, yet be a proponent of a bill that will hurt him. Ha.

I've already done a report on what I think Dowd has done right over the past year. You can decide for yourselves if you think Dowd has "no accomplishments to show for it." Additionally, in the past week or so, he has also been continuously calling out Ravenstahl on issues from pay-to-play politics to the PWSA bond issue. I wish he hadn't waited until deciding to run for mayor to call out the incumbent, but it's better late than never.

Things Ravenstahl got right:
Pittsburgh does need leadership. And a lot of us are pretty sick of you, Ravenstahl, the desperate politician willing to do or say anything to get elected.

Happy Meals?

So McDonald's bathrooms downtown are hotbeds for drug dealing? Little Junior gets his happy meal while Mommy gets some Xanax? Seriously, I expect this story to come out of Cranberry or Wexford. I expected that the downtown McDonald's would be peddling heroine or cocaine. In Mt Lebanon, I'd expect to find high school students peddling marijuana in the bathroom.

Seriously, though, I'd rather that a restaurant known for its kid-friendly antics is not associated with drugs in any way even if they're just muscle-relaxants. When drug dealers feel they can peddle in the bathroom, it's a sad reflection on our own police enforcement. People have been complaining about drugs in the downtown area for years.

"I know that we do get complaints from pedestrians and other businesses about drug activity that's an ongoing thing down there," said city police Sgt. William Gorman of the Hill District station, which patrols Downtown.

But now that there's some "positive development" downtown?

"The continuing cooperative effort that has been under way to keep Downtown a destination for families depends in large part on there being confidence in public safety," Mr. Zappala said in a statement. "I and other officials will not tolerate any type of criminal behavior that erodes that confidence and interferes with the positive developments taking place Downtown on a daily basis."

Well, I guess it's better late than never.

But it definitely makes me take Carmen Robinson's words to heart regarding downtown development.

"It shouldn't be just lofts in the Strip District and where the Penguins are building," said Carmen Robinson, a Hill District attorney who also is running for mayor. She said any renaissance hasn't hit Lincoln-Lemington, Homewood, Brookline or Carrick, and vowed to back community benefits agreements guaranteeing jobs and investments to neighborhoods in which subsidized developments sit.

It's great to see police cracking down on downtown drug dealing, but it's sad to see the correlation between expensive luxury condos and police enforcement. Maybe when the "renaissance" spreads to Homewood and Carrick, the cops will clean up those drugs too?

What I Like About Dowd

After combing through the last year's articles on Dowd in the Post-Gazette, I've discovered that I do like what Dowd's been doing. That I had to comb through the Post-Gazette's online articles to discover this, I'm not too happy about, but hopefully this will save others some effort while Dowd and company complete his new website.

1) His role in the ICA/Debt Reduction debacle. He's taken a stand on putting our piggy bank in a safe place. That's cool. A real outcome remains to be seen. It surely helps my good opinion of him that my buddy Lamb is in agreement with him on this one.

2) His awareness of all those pesky city authorities and his consistent complaints that the city is not following its rules, especially regarding the very important parking authority status given the mayor's grand plan to lease the garages and potentially give us a respite from our very serious pension woes.

3) His class in cancelling a taxpayer-paid mailing with his face plastered all over it. If only Luke had shown that much class on trash cans. (Though I can see a lovely anti-Luke campaign involving "taking out the trash.")

4) His position on campaign finance reform. Dowd is one of the majority of council to vote for campaign finance reform. Unfortunately, the current mayor vetoed that bill. Maybe next year?

5) His negotiations with Lamar. The Post-Gazette gives credit for Dowd for settling with Lamar out of court and re-instating the proper board approval process. Also, I appreciate that while he joined fellow council members in appealing the original zoning board approval, he did so as a private citizen.

6) His grass-rootsness. This summer he planned a series of neighborhood meetings as coffee shops. His entire council campaign was based on "grass roots" support. He also appears to be quite popular on Facebook, which while not a ringing endorsement, shows that he has popular support and probably some charm and charisma to go along with it. If I may reach out to those supporters, I might remind you that you're not a private club. You might want to spread the word to folks outside your own circle.

I think all that adds up to looking pretty good on paper. So, why do you like Dowd?

Stay tuned. Maybe tomorrow, I'll address the incumbent.

She's Nobody's Boy

I have alluded to the candidacy of Carmen Robinson twice before, but now I've been moved to devote an entire post to her.

So far in the blogosphere, I can count the blog posts about Carmen Robinson on two hands.

They fall into 2 categories:
1) "Who is she?" (Back in December) From Matt H, Busman's Holiday, Burgher John, and Thoughts on Government.
2) "Hmm... There's another candidate. She seems cool." From Burgh Chair and Rauterkus & Running Mates

It appears Carmen is pretty busy. She may not be buttering up the blogosphere but she's attended the Pittsburgh Hip Hop Awards ("to a roaring crowd"), has thrown a fundraiser, and has a decent website with *gasp* information about herself and her candidacy. Yes, she has had a website with content up since at least December 27. As a note, Lukey and our-savior-thank-god-someone's-running-against-Lukey Dowd still do not have any content on their websites. On top of that, she has a judicial clerkship and is running her own law practice. But you should be reading about her yourself.

Snow Days

When does Lamb get to run for County Executive? Can't he run for mayor? I seriously love this man. He performs audits on the snow plowing in the city. How cool is that??? Of course, this is on top of his audits for Pittsburgh City Council and emergency services and who knows what else.

Not too surprising he found that lots of streets in the South Hills get the shaft because they simply don't exist in the plowing routes. Whoops. He did acknowledge (and I've seen first-hand report of this) that the city's new smaller-fleet is addressing some of the issues for these smaller streets. For instance, my street was plowed during the last storm - all the way down to the bottom - within 12 hours of the "storm" starting.

However, there is no two-way communication within the Department of Public Works. As far as I can tell, one calls 311, makes a snow removal request, and the request goes into the void of the DPW. If you call back, they make another request. This "strategy" back-fired for me 2 storms ago when the salt truck neglected to make it all the way down my street. It took them 5 days (and many 311 calls, emails, etc.) to return.

The jury is still out on this "storm."

Full Circle

So Luke has changed his mind on campaign finance reform. He and my best friend Dan are teaming up to pass a law in city and county council to limit campaign contributions.

The question on everyone's mind is why did Luke change his mind?

If this law had passed 6 months ago, Luke wouldn't have been able to save his pennies from the DeSantis campaign where he didn't even bother with television commercials. Now, there's no way in hell it will be preventing him from using his little "war chest."

And why should a man whose friends can convince Bill Clinton to have a little fundraising luncheon for him nowhere near an actual election care about individual campaign limits? $750,000 in one day on $500/plate sandwiches is enough for almost any local campaign.

My bet is on Luke ultimately running for the highest office in Allegheny County after his stint as mayor and leaving the city to hot-head Shields or Dowd whose claim to fame appears to be that he has held public office as long as the Mayor. I can't wait for these debates.

My questions?
1) If it's so important for us all to be the same, why not just follow Philadelphia's example?? Do individuals really need to contribute $4600 instead of $2600. They also have some pretty slick safeguards such as accounting for inflation every four years. Importantly, Philadelphia's law has already held up in court.

2) As Chris Potter says, why aren't campaign contributions posted online? Transparency had better be a part of this bill or the likelihood of its actually getting enforced are slim to none. And can we please take this as an opportunity to combine county and city forces to have ONE campaign contributions website?

My vote? If there is a multi-millionaire in the audience, give a million to Ms Robinson. Let's shake things up around here.

Disappointed?

Are you disappointed with the mayor's wish list for the city?

I understand your disappointment. There are no public transit initiatives on the list. And there are very few green initiatives. There ARE some crucial water and sewer improvements on the list.

In terms of public transit, it's important to keep some things in mind though.
Controversial as it is, we ARE currently working on the North Shore connector. There is a LOT of federal money contributing to that project. We are also working on Point State Park - which will be a major boon to the city when it's finished. I'm psyched about all the connecting parks that are in progress.

My question is why isn't Maglev to the airport on the list?? That is totally shovel-ready. A lot of money and time have been spent on this project already. I understand it's another controversial project, but it would clearly be a positive addition to the area (I refuse to comment on whether it's worth the money.)

In terms of becoming a city with nationally respectable public transportation, though, we need to connect Oakland and Downtown with something other than buses and cars. Light rail seems like the best option, but I don't know for sure. I'd be happy with a monorail if necessary. Unfortunately though as far as I know there are NO solid plans for this connection.

Also, there is a TON of resistance to the Oakland-Downtown line for some reason. I don't know why... It's disappointing to me to realize that that project is NOT shovel-ready.