The City That Banned Gas Drilling

Anecdotal impressions of Pittsburgh may be changing, and we have City Council to thank for that.

I was in Buffalo, New York over the weekend where most people I talked to hadn't been to Pittsburgh yet and didn't seem to have many impressions of this city 3 1/2 hours South.

Yet shopping in a local fashion store, I heard something new to me. "You're the city that banned gas drilling." Well, yeah, back in November, the city of Pittsburgh did ban gas drilling within the city limits, dismissed as a token effort by most around these parts. But up in Buffalo, one business proprietor says that inspired other cities to realize they could do the same thing. Buffalo enacted their ban last month after Pittsburgh paved the way.

Now that's a legacy we can be proud of.

Onorato's Last Stand On Property Tax

Dan Onorato is in his final year of office as Allegheny County Executive. He has stated that 1 of his top 3 goals in this final year is to stop court-ordered property tax reassessment. Gas drilling on airport land and increasing flight traffic round out the list. Securing funding for Port Authority didn't make the cut.

Allegheny County Council President is also begging the state to hold off on property tax reassessment.

Mr. Fitzgerald, D-Squirrel Hill, proposed a resolution that urges the Legislature to adopt a statewide moratorium on court-ordered reassessments and calls on new Gov. Tom Corbett, a Shaler homeowner, to support it.

So what are their arguments against reassessing?

1. Other counties don't have to reassess regularly, so why should Allegheny County? The State Supreme Court has come down in favor of regular reassessments as being the only fair method to calculate property tax. It's only a matter of time until fairness becomes the standard across the state. Why fight a losing battle? Why aren't our Legislators standing up and insisting that instead of a moratorium, the state forces regular reassessments for ALL counties? Then we wouldn't have to worry about unscrupulous folks fleeing the county for lower taxes, and we would be complying with the law.

2. Property re-assessments simply generate a windfall for local governments as property values overall tend to increase over time. Another bullshit argument. County Council member/scofflaw Chuck McCullough has introduced legislation to "soften the blow" of Property Tax reassessments by generating a "bill of rights" for property owners which would prevent egregious assessment appeals and phase in any tax increases. I say take it a step further and force municipalities to lower their millage rates to keep the total revenue stream consistent over time. It's very simple math.

3. And the most ridiculous?

As Mr. Onorato did last week, Mr. Fitzgerald said he doubted that a reassessment would bring tax relief to homeowners in struggling communities. If property values go down in a neighborhood, he said, a school district may have to raise millage to compensate.

Perhaps it's true that some struggling communities like Wilkinsburg and McKeesport wouldn't significantly benefit from a reassessment. But they also wouldn't be harmed! And more often you have struggling neighborhoods or corridors within a municipality, especially the city of Pittsburgh where the poorer neighborhoods of Homewood and Allentown (amongst many others) would clearly benefit over those more affluent neighborhoods such as the South Side and Squirrel Hill.

Why all this anger about property reassessments?

Because people who live in expensive houses in this county are being systematically under-taxed. Find me one house in Allegheny County that costs more than $200,000 and is being assessed for anywhere near its value, and I will be shocked. Yet every single house on the City of Pittsburgh chopping block is being sold at significantly less than its assessed value (often about 10% of its assessed value). All of these houses are in "struggling" neighborhoods. As a matter of disclosure, I am in the former group; though my house cost significantly less than $200,000, it has a street value of significantly more than my assessed value.

So why do I care?

Because the success of the city relies on the success of all its neighborhoods. As long as the status quo remains, then our poorer neighborhoods will continue their everlasting decline and the schism between the haves and the have-nots will only increase in the city creating more and more friction and violence. Let's put a halt to widening the schism based on unfair practices. Let's vote for people who stand up for equal rights even when their pocketbooks are on the line.

New Years Resolutions

While most of us make New Year's resolutions to lose weight or save money, some folks in our community decide to run for office.

Of note:

• County Controller Mark Patrick Flaherty is eyeing the County Executive seat
  
• Chelsa Wagner has decided on a run for County Controller
• Valerie McDonald Roberts has also thrown in her hat for County Controller
  
• Bruce Kraus will be running for a second term as Pittsburgh City Councilor - District 3
  
• Lucille Prater-Holliday is running for Pittsburgh City Councilor - District 9
  
• Anyone else?
  

All of the odd-numbered Pittsburgh City Council seats are up for grabs this year, so expect to see more announcements soon.

And if you're fed up with the way things are going? Maybe your New Year's Resolution should be to run for office, too. If so, check out the "How to Run for Public Office" workshop on Saturday February 5. Or next year, check out Coro's annual 12-week course called "Running for Public Office."

Dedicated Funding Streams 101

You may (like me) have spent the last week gorging on Christmas treats and entertaining travelers stranded in Pittsburgh because of the crippling East Coast snowstorm. However, Pittsburgh City Council has been spending their holidays coming up with last-minute solutions to avoid a potentially disastrous state take-over of the city's pensions at the end of the year.

The latest political buzzword is "Dedicated Funding Stream." The idea is as old as dirt, though. Many of us set aside money every paycheck to contribute to our 401Ks. That's a simple dedicated funding stream. Instead of getting your whole paycheck, plopping it into one big checking account, then deciding how to divvy things up, you set aside a fixed percentage every month to your future retirement that you can't change without lots of annoying paperwork.

Allegheny County's Drink Tax
Back in 2007, County Executive Dan Onorato and his council passed the extraordinarily controversial Drink tax, dedicating 10% of every tipple consumed in the county to pay for the County's share of Port Authority expenses. Now, when it's time to pay Port Authority, the Council doesn't have to slice a piece of the budget pie - that money is already set aside.

City Council's Proposal?
Pittsburgh City Council wants to dedicate future parking rate increase profits to funding the Pittsburgh pensions. I, for one, am a fan of this method. Much like we don't sell our house and put the profits in our 401K and hope for the best, just to get all our savings wiped out in a bad market downturn, we regularly contribute to our future, exercising "Dollar Cost Averaging." If you need an extra reminder why plopping a giant wad of cash onto the problem doesn't fix the problem, you need to only look back to the year 1998 in Pittsburgh. That's when then-Mayor Murphy sold over $250 Million in bonds to shore up the pension fund. All that money has since disappeared in stock market dive after stock market dive while the city continued to contribute the minimum amount possible each year.

What's Next? Will Harrisburg also jump on the dedicated funding stream bandwagon? One can only hope. As it stands now, the Pennsylvania state legislature can barely pass budgets on time while it attempts to divvy up its giant general fund. Most of the time, Port Authority gets the shaft. Let's take the control out of the hands of selfish state legislators and add some transparency to the budgeting process instead of last-minute shady deals to pass the budget. Heck, maybe the Federal government could even learn some lessons here? If I can manage my own budget, surely our governments with their teams of Ph.D. degree-holders and economists should be able to as well.

Downtown Parking Thanksgiving

Mr Benter of the Benter Foundation got fed up with searching for parking downtown, so he directed his foundation to spend $175,000 to develop ParkPGH. Currently, the application-website tells users the availability of parking at 8 downtown garages in the Cultural District.

In January, ParkPGH will add a ninth location, the parking authority garage at Ninth Street and Penn Avenue. At that point, the system will encompass 5,300 spaces -- 25 percent of Downtown garage capacity.

If I'm doing the math correctly, that means there are 21,200 parking spaces available in downtown parking garages.

The system potentially benefits 2 million annual Cultural District visitors and about 150,000 daily Downtown commuters.

So we have 21,2000 parking spaces available downtown for 150,000 daily commuters. That means the vast majority of downtown workers park elsewhere and walk or take public transportation downtown.

On Tuesday night, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission narrowly voted to bail out Port Authority with an extra $45 Million they had lying around - on the condition that Port Authority still implements some cuts in March. When Port Authority enacts its slightly less catastrophic 15% compromise service cuts in March, at least all those stranded downtown workers will be able to watch the parking garages fill in real-time on their iPhone.

And to make it a parking trifecta this week, Pittsburgh City Council is fast-tracking a plan to lease our parking garages and bail out the city's own pension fund. The good news? The garages will only be leased for 40 years (instead of 50) and the city will be eligible for profit-sharing from the garages. The bad news? They're still leasing the parking meters and giving up control over parking throughout the city and not ultimately solving the city's long-term pension woes.

So in summary, thanks to Mr Benter for actually getting something done. Thanks to the Southwest Pennsylvania Commission for stepping in where the state repeatedly refuses to tread - even if the money comes with strings attached. And thanks that I'm not a Pittsburgh City Councilor stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Pittsburgh Council Wants You

Last week, Pittsburgh City Council wandered around to Downtown, South Side, and Oakland for public hearings. Monday night, they will visit the North Side to share their side of the pension woes and the mayor's attempt at a stop-gap fix at the expense of the citizens.

As it currently stands, Mayor Ravenstahl is ready to give away the bank to the highest bidder. That means tripling most parking meter rates over the next 4 years, meter enforcement till 10PM everyday including Sundays. That means no more free ride in city downtown parking garages.

I attended last week's South Side hearing to voice my opinion and listen to others. The resounding responses? 50 years (the intended lease agreement length) is a very long time. One of the plan stipulations is that the City of Pittsburgh will pay the lessee if a parking space is out of commission for 22 days in a year. One speaker aptly asked "What if we had locked into a plan 50 years ago?" We'd be paying some company a fee for not using those covered-up trolley lines if you ask me.

Residents also fervently proclaimed that leasing the parking garages is bad business. The city is selling low right now because the city is at a disadvantage. And what is the lessee going to do? Make a steep profit off of higher rates that we've been too afraid to implement ourselves for fear of driving away business. Why not raise the rates, put the profit towards the pensions, and cut out the middle man? Pittsburgh City Council is leaning towards a plan that will issue a bond to increase the contents of the pension fund and retain control over the parking situation. They would continue to raise rates, but since the city would still ultimately be in control, they could respond to suffering businesses and residents if the rates became too unwieldy. That sounds like good business to me.

So why am I telling you this? In order to pull off this coup, 5 city council members need to stand up to pressure from Mayor Ravenstahl and our Harrisburg Legislators. City council is only willing to do this if we insist on this plan. So let your city councilors know that you support them standing up to Harrisburg and Mayor Ravenstahl. Let them know that it's bad business to hand away our assets and lose control of our streets. Will this still mean increased parking rates? Yes. But it also means that the increases will be with the success of the city in mind - instead of a big conglomerate that just wants to profit off of our residents in a time of need.

Luck and Parking

Over a year ago, back in the heart of the recession, when the Pittsburgh parking garages were added to the chopping block, I begged the powers-that-be to hold off instead of risking a fire sale in light of the poor economy. However, it turns out I was wrong. The snail's pace of government has brought us full circle to the tail-end of the recession. Combined with the Pittsburgh's international exposure during the G20, we have managed to wrangle up 7 solvent international companies to bid on lease of the garages. Impressive timing or good luck? I don't know. But full steam ahead to see what the bidders have to offer.

As to whether leasing the garages is a good idea? I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. And with a variety of folks interested, I'd say the odds are pretty good that we can strike a bargain that doesn't immediately screw downtown commuters while giving a much-needed infusion to the pension fund. If Mayor Ravenstahl and Pittsburgh City Council can continue the good cop/bad cop routine for this whole process, we may even come out ahead. How about for a few extra million we let them install those fancy credit-card accepting parking meters like they have in Mt Lebanon? Then no one will have to carry any quarters around unless they're headed to the casino.

Two Snow Stories

What do people respond to? News and information.

Given the age of Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging, people expect information to be flowing constantly. As long as you have electricity and an internet connection, you can send out information on all these mediums and more.

Throughout snowmageddon, the Port Authority operated a twitter feed under the name @pghtransit. This user often gave updates people didn't like. The news was for a a few days really shitty with only a small fraction of Port Authority buses running. But @pghtransit continuously responded to folks, gave updates, and referred unknown questions to someone who might know the answers. When the Port Authority website was buckling under the weight of thousands of extra users, @pghtransit replicated service updates to the Port Authority blog. Port Authority gained countless amounts of goodwill through this storm.

On the other hand, the city of Pittsburgh claimed the city was plowing at full capacity and shut the hell up. The one access point users had to the city? 311 (when the line was open) which is by its nature a one-way street. There are no personal follow-ups from 311. The one response format? Press conferences from Luke Ravenstahl who assured us that he was doing better.

Why not have someone in the storm center sending out updates on Twitter? So simple. So cheap. Even Port Authority could do it. People don't need to just hear good news, they need all the news. To be fair, @nataliarudiak and @billpeduto did an admirable job of sharing their knowledge and complaining about the city services on twitter this weekend, but unfortunately, they didn't have enough information to actually be helpful to us folks trapped at home.

If you want Port Authority updates, go to twitter, their blog, or their website. If you want to know when your street will finally be plowed, I have no idea. But if you find out, please let me know.

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.

Pittsburgh Wages Need Some Redding Up

From the Post-Gazette (via the PGH Comet):

In 2001, council approved legislation mandating a $9.12 an hour wage plus health insurance, or $10.62 without, for virtually every worker whose job was paid, supported or subsidized with city money. "Everywhere that our shadow falls, we will ensure that workers receive a living wage," Mr. Burgess said yesterday.

But City Council then added a caveat that the rule would only take effect after Allegheny County adopted similar rules. County Council narrowly rejected an ordinance, rendering the city legislation dormant.

Back to the present:

All nine city council members are sponsoring a prevailing wage bill, backed by unions and community groups, that would compel employers at future, large, city-backed development sites to pay hotel, grocery, janitorial and cafeteria workers wages that match the averages of their peers in the city. It will get a public hearing at 10 a.m. Monday, and maybe a tentative vote Wednesday.

A competing bill backed by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl would apply a prevailing wage to the same workers, but at fewer projects, and only if the county passed similar rules. It also could get a first vote Wednesday.

I understand the desire to hitch the city buggy to County Council. We are, after all, in the process of consolidating city-county operations. But the interests of County Council are not the same as those of City Council. More importantly, the interests and needs of the county residents are not the same as the city residents.

To wit:


Data Sources: Allegheny County, Pittsburgh

On Council Presidents

"I have issues with both [declared contestants], to be honest," Councilwoman Theresa Smith said yesterday. Mr. Burgess seems too close to Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, she said, and Mr. Peduto seems too far away.

Councilman Peduto has shown backbone. He took a strong stance against Ravenstahl's tuition tax. However, he has repeatedly shown that when push comes to shove, he can work with Ravenstahl on issues from street lights to over-arching reform.

Let's give Peduto a chance to keep Ravenstahl on his toes and compromise when needed.

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.

Taxing Time

According to the Post-Gazette, federal tax returns filed by internet are processed in one day instead of 4 weeks. Talk about efficient. You can file your state taxes by internet or even by phone (if your return is easy). Yet, here in Pittsburgh, the city is in the taxes stone age. We can submit questions to mayoral debates by youtube and coming soon, we'll be watching city council meetings on the web, but to file our taxes and make estimated payments, we're limited to paper filing. Personally, I filed my state and federal taxes a month ago (before I left for Peru) and I got nearly instant notification that my returns were processed. I'm still waiting for a potential response from the city of Pittsburgh. I mailed the check and many forms and crossed my fingers.

With all the talk about efficiency and modernization in this city, how about an online filing of city taxes? I know all the information makes its way into a computer eventually (or should). Let's cut out the middle man who has to type it all in. The federal government has realized the cost savings of electronic filing and we should, too. "... e-filing also helps to hold down government costs. It costs the IRS $2.80 to process a paper return vs. 35 cents to process an electronic return." That ends up to being less than the cost of the stamp you'd use to mail in your return. Assuming the costs are similar and our more than 300,000 residents file taxes each year, then that works out to a potential yearly savings of $735,000 (300,000 times $2.45) . Even if only half of city residents file taxes, I could write the software for a lot less than that and give it away for free. I'm waiting for the day that consulting job pops up on the city of Pittsburgh's website, but I won't be holding my breath.

Or Why Councilors and Lawyers Don't Mix

Disappointed is an understatement for my opinion on County Councilor McCullough's fraud case. He allegedly spent tens of thousands of dollars of a 91 year old woman with dementia to use for his own political causes. This accusation was from April 2007 and the case was before a grand jury in October. Mr McCullough was actually elected to Council after this case was revealed.

This is pretty messed up. First, why did this case take so long to come to fruition? We're talking more than 18 months from the accusation to the arrest. Second, does this mean yet another special election? At what point will he be forced to resign in spite of being elected while the case was on-going?

Third, why did I have to like this potential crook? This is the only man who responded to my drink tax emails. This is the man who helped fight the legal battle that the drink tax collections are actually used for Port Authority. He is also the man who initially recommended lowering the drink tax to a reasonable percentage.

As 2 Political Junkies (and American law) says though, innocent until proven guilty. And at this rate, McCullough will be up for re-election before the case is finished.

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.

Mincing Words

The headline of the day:

Pittsburgh to use 45.3 Million Surplus for Debt

This article was found on not 1, not 2, not 3, but at least 4 sources.

Was this a public relations stunt promoted by the ICA to encourage Dowd to shut up? Why do so many people care about Pittsburgh's surplus last year? And how can you use a "surplus" for debt? Doesn't being head-over-heels in debt mean that there is no such thing as a "surplus"?

Let me put this in Joe Six-Pack terms.
When you get a Christmas-bonus, which do you do:
a) buy a flat-screen TV?
b) use it as a down-payment for your $400,000 McMansion summer home?
c) put it toward your high-interest credit card debt?

If you're Joe, you choose option a) or b) and you plunge our economy into a recession. If you're smart, you choose option c), and live to borrow another day.

Let's hear it for the news media advertising that Pittsburgh is choosing option c).

Though as I hear it, are we?

More Simple Math

I admit I don't know too much about the Mon-Fayette Expressway. Being a city dweller, it doesn't really affect me. However, I know that things like bridges and ports and sewers draining into the rivers do affect everybody. Plus, I can do simple math.

Cost of MFX: $5.2 Billion

Cost of EVERYTHING else the county and city wants: $2.2 Billion

That's an easy choice. (And you know the powers-that-be won't give us enough for both.)

Let's get EVERYTHING and bypass the MFX for now.

P.S. Mr Ravenstahl, can you learn to share? Would it have been very difficult to ask City Council to come up with a list of their top priorities and make sure that those items make it on the list? It's a big list. There's room for everyone to give some input. I'm sure that this process is a political mess around the country. That's to be expected - talk to anyone who's just one the lottery and has their friends and family knocking down the door. But let's try to make it as easy as possible.

Throwing a Dog a Bone

On rejecting Baba Ds application to serve alcohol at their restaurant:

I think it is a safety issue for the residents that live there, for the people that drive on the streets, for the students that are consuming all of this alcohol when alcoholism is a disease," said Councilwoman Darlene Harris. "And for us to allow more alcohol on that street, we're contributing to that."

Ms Harris, I beg to differ. For you to not insist on drunk driving laws being enforced, or public urination laws, then you are contributing to the problem. Rejecting Baba Ds is a bone that you're throwing South Side residents instead of actually attempting to deal with a serious problem.

Pittsburgh has a serious drunk driving situation throughout the city and it's magnified on the South Side. I walk home from drinking at the bars on Carson St (in an orderly fashion without stopping to publicly urinate along the way), so maybe someone else can enlighten me on the following. Where are the drunken checkpoints??? Where are the cops that check to see that every single car that crosses a bridge leaving the South Side (let's pick the Birmingham Bridge and 10th St Bridge) isn't filled with drunken imbeciles thinking they can drive?

If you crack down on drunk driving, there will be less drunken driving. If people are worried about getting caught, they will be much more likely to take a cab, take the bus, or have a designated driver.

While we're at it, let's encourage the bars on the South Side to take more responsibility. Let designated drivers into bars without a cover, give them free soda. Have deals with taxi companies. Force the bars to contribute a sum to Port Authority such that late night bus rides are free for everyone from midnight to 2am.

I don't think there's one person that thinks that Mallorca, La Pommier, or Dish encourages public drunkenness. Yet they all seem to have liquor licenses. Stopping Baba Ds from serving me a glass of wine with dinner isn't going to fix your problems. Addressing the actual issues will at least treat the problems.

Give Me a Break

There is a bi-partisan effort in Harrisburg to eliminate automatic cost of living adjustments (COLA) for elected officials. In Pittsburgh, the lone Reverend Burgess proposed to cancel raises locally and no other councilman can even bother seconding it for a vote.

Give me a break.

Yes, it's a token.

But I'm not getting a raise this year. Are you? Is your neighbor?

Not even brought to a vote in Pittsburgh City Council.

Thanks for trying, Burgess.