Pride & Penguins

Today was the Pride Fest parade in downtown Pittsburgh - it garnered 5,000 folks - a respectable 30% increase over last year's attendance.

How many multiples of 5,000 will show up for the Penguins parade tomorrow? If the shenanigans on Carson St the past two nights are any indication, I think downtown will be pretty damned crowded.

Personally, I feel I should support the rights of my gay friends as much as I support the Penguins.

So: Go Pride!

To the Underdog

As if anyone didn't know, tonight, the Penguins face Detroit for the Stanley Cup. As was shown in the Super Bowl, being a more successful city (in terms of population, jobs, etc.) doesn't translate to higher odds of winning sports championships. (Of course, baseball is its own beast.) When Pittsburgh was facing Phoenix for the Super Bowl, there were a lot of city comparisons and inevitably Pittsburgh came out on the bottom. Now, the tables are turned, and Pittsburgh is the top dog with Detroit's economy making Pittsburgh look like the best city in the world. It's all relative. And you have to wonder how much officials are worried about the cost of victory parades.

I will be rooting for the Pens tonight. As a transplant, I took longer to come around to rooting for the Pens than the Steelers, but here I am with a plastic penguin sitting on my front porch. However, I'm not rooting against Detroit. They've had too much shit hit the fan, and they have a great hockey team. (Plus, my brother is a die-hard Red Wings fan.) And if there are any Red Wings fans around tonight, try not to give them too hard a time.

All that said: GO PENS!

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.

Breaking News: Duplication in City Services

Yet another audit has emerged by my favorite controller, Michael Lamb. He says that there's waste in the Housing Authority and the city would save money by such measures as:

"The authority could use the city's computer backbone, purchase utilities jointly with the city and county, better collaborate with the city on public works and senior and youth services, and join the city's recycling program."

Seriously, the housing authority doesn't participate in the city's recycling program??? What novel ideas.

Why do I feel like every time Mr Lamb does an audit, he says a lot of the same things? Do all the authorities think they're unique? That it's okay for them to waste taxpayer money? These are basic tenets and every single authority in the city should be merging these basics. The city needs one tech support team, one billing department, and one account with utility companies.

There have been a lot of audits over the past year and I'd really like to start to see some results. I have a feeling that if all these audits were promptly responded to that the Act 47 problems would diminish.

This is Consolidation?

This past week, County Executive Onorato announced the appointment of a sustainability manager for Allegheny county.

If this man is actually serious about city-county consolidation, couldn't he have worked with Mayor Ravenstahl to perhaps create a partner for the city sustainability coordinator, Lindsay Baxter, instead of attempting to re-invent the wheel at the county level? In a time of contraction of jobs and supposed efforts to reduce duplication between the city and county, our illustrious leaders are showing that they have no desire to change going forward.

As a kicker (as the PGH Comet noted), the Allegheny county position is also being paid almost double the salary of the city coordinator - $85,000 starting salary versus $45,000.

Scorecard?

Pittsburgh - 2 for being ahead of the curve and more economically minded.
County - 0 for duplicating services and wasting taxpayer money. Dan, next time, look before you jump on the bandwagon.

When the green stimulus funds were announced and given directly to cities and counties, Dan Onorato said: "That allows us to be creative." A little too creative if you ask me.

Bus Changes Coming

Did you head downtown yesterday to voice your concerns about and enthusiasm for the upcoming Port Authority changes? Neither did I. But you still have at least one more chance to let your voice be heard - Monday night in Oakland.

Among the proposed changes:

1.) Eliminating some of the 15,000 stops. Currently, the bus stops are way too clustered. The new plan: "On some routes, the proposed changes call for stops a quarter-mile apart -- a 15-minute walk at a moderate pace." (I know they're accounting for Pittsburgh-level fitness and terrain here but a "moderate" pace makes you walk a 20-minute mile - or about 5 minutes for a quarter mile - a very reasonable time to be expected to walk for public transportation.)

2) Reducing the ridiculous and confusing route variations. "For instance, the 46G Elizabeth route, which currently has 36 variations, would have just two."

3) Making the 28X an actual airport express by eliminating the time-consuming detour through Robinson. This one deserves the most mention because it could make the service a lot more appealing to every level of airport rider. I'll happily pay extra (it's only $2.60 right now to get to the airport) for more added convenience.

To see how you could personally be effected, check out: Concept 1 & Concept 2

Personally, I'm a big fan of Concept 2 which puts a highlights on our existing light rail services and increases the frequency of existing light rail service. We barely have any light-rail in our city, and as it stands now we're barely using it. Let's maximize what we have, integrate the new North Shore Connector into existing routes, and keep building.

If all goes well, these changes could be voted on as soon as September.

See you Monday!

Silver Lined Economic Clouds

Right now, at the state level, serious debates are occurring over funding for everything from entrepreneurial initiatives to arts programs to museums to public television. Almost daily, I get an email imploring me to contact my state representative and fight for money to save all of these valuable state donations.

Back in March, I read in the Post-Gazette that the Fort Pitt Museum was on the chopping block. They reported that the state spends $500,000 per year to run the museum. This month, many organizations have stepped up to say they can run the museum for half as much state funding, thus saving tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Why wasn't this done years ago? That's a serious question for which I would like someone to be accountable. But clearly, it took an economic crisis for us to rethink how our taxpayer money is spent. Maybe we need one of these crises every few years because our legislators can't be bothered to keep themselves in check.

I hope over the next month, as the state budget process unfolds, we find more of these public-private partnerships to save the state money and run our facilities more efficiently. (I'm sure someone can come up with an idea for the state liquor stores.) Making decisions which will save us money now and in the future will only help the city and state. It's just a shame that it takes a downturn for us to make some smart decisions.