Priorities in the Face of G20

My street is on the paving list for this summer, but unless some hotshot is blindly following their GPS on the way to the South Side for a Primanti Brother's sandwich photo-op, no one of any political importance is going to drive down it this September. Does that mean my street is going to get pushed to the bottom of the paving heap? Should it?

"Mr. Ravenstahl said the city will plant trees throughout Downtown, and Public Works Director Guy Costa said sections of streets including 10th Street, Oliver Avenue, William Penn Place, Sixth Avenue, Forbes Avenue and Market Street will be repaved. Railroad underpasses on Penn and Liberty avenues will also be cleaned."

If these items were on a priority list already, I'm all for them. But let's try not to "reddup" Downtown at the expense of everybody who actually lives in the city. I understand that people want to get gussied-up and show off our fair city to the G20 officials that are stopping by. But Pittsburgh was picked for the G20 for its positives and its negatives, for its tumultuous history. Nobody expects to see an immaculate Disney World. Get an army of volunteers to clean up litter and paint over graffiti if you want, but leave the Department of Public Works to do their job. It's far more positive to stick to a sensible, fair plan of paving streets, fixing potholes, and painting sign posts, than to allow line-jumping for a one-weekend event. And it serves the residents of the city the most.

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:

Less Waste in a Bad Economy?

After recent glowing reviews from the New York Times to Cleveland, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette appears to be picking up the happy Pittsburgh glow.

Latest breaking news? We ranked 14th least wasteful city. Of course, this ranking is out of 25 cities, which puts us (barely) in the bottom half of cities, or 12th most wasteful city. To put that into perspective, Detroit comes in at number 13.

Clearly, we'll never beat New York City in terms of public transportation usage, but there are a few things we should improve on to crack the top ten.

1) More library usage. We have a great resource in the Carnegie libraries and some of them rival Barnes & Noble for atmosphere, yet somehow Pittsburgh ranked 18th in library usage. Save some money, and visit your local library the next time you want something to read or watch. If you do this, and you realize, you're saving oodles of cash while feeling better about the environment, take Brian O'Neill's advice and give a little back to your library.

2) Less driving. We ranked 25th out of 25 in terms of driving instead of walking when you're going less than 2 miles. Spring has arrived, so get out of your car and put your walking shoes on. If you start walking more, you might even find you look better in a bathing suit this summer.

3) More energy efficient light bulbs. As a city, we came in at a fairly respectable number 15 in this category, but it's a joke to switch over to LED street lights, while we don't even change the lights in our home. Manufacturers are practically giving these bulbs away now. With their new styles and wattage options, there's no excuse for you to not have energy efficient light bulbs in every room of your house. Here in Peru, every light bulb is energy efficient. They're not doing it to save the environment. They're doing it save money. So stop whining about your electric bill and change your bulbs. I literally cut my electric bill in half last year when I switched out most of my bulbs.

Kudos to the Post-Gazette for a positive headline. Try it again the next time unemployment rates re-surface. At 6.5% for February, Allegheny County is well under the state unemployment rate (7.5%) and the national rate (8.1%). The 7-county region falls in at 6.9%. Yet the latest headline for the Post-Gazette regarding unemployment? "Local jobless rate increases at fastest pace since '80s"

In summary, don't get too happy about our environmental progress, and keep those jobless rates in perspective.

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?

A Sign Of Worried Folks

The Steelers are going to the Super Bowl and Obama was inaugurated this week.

So what is the theme of the "most e-mailed" stories from the Post-Gazette?

Most E-mailed Stories

1. Filene's Basement in Waterfront reportedly closing
2. Mountain View Inn closing in Westmoreland County
3. Highmark merger called off
4. Old Navy closing Century III Mall store
5. Mountain View Inn abruptly announces closing

Ouch. I guess we do care about something besides football.

Pension Funds

Big News or not?

We all know pension funds suck right now. We are all scared to look at our 401ks. We all are freaking out over whether we're going to have a job tomorrow or next week or next month.

Let's take some perspective. A quick search brings up the following losses nationally.

Iowa state pension - 19% or $4 billion

Wyoming down 25% or $1.5 billion

State of Kansas employees down 27% or $4 billion

Locally in Franklin County, Pennsylvania:

"The pension fund, worth about $66 million at the beginning of the year, was worth about $51.5 million as of Sunday, according to Franklin County treasurer David Secor.

The county's annual required contribution to the employee pension fund will more than double in 2009, from an estimated $1.5 million this year to $3.5 million budgeted for 2009."

In the lovely state of Massachusetts - $14 billion loss

"The Massachusetts state pension fund may shift part of its equity-heavy $39.3 billion portfolio into cash after posting a $14.4 billion loss so far this year. The fund, which will distribute up to $900 million to retirees this year, has been forced to sell its most liquid assets, mainly US bonds, as it makes monthly payments"

Here in Pittsburgh - $124 million loss

"The city pension fund's investments had to earn 10 percent to keep pace with $6.7 million a month in pension payouts. Instead, they lost 25 percent."

We appear to be in line percentage-wise with the rest of the country. How have other cities with a similar pension value fared? Will this hit us even harder than other areas because we were severely under-funded to begin with? Is this a good opportunity to invest as much as we can in the city's pension fund? Is there going to be a nation-wide bailout of pension funds? These questions and more I'm hoping someone else can answer for me or at least discuss.