City hall hobbled by brain drain, reads the headline of a P-G article by Rich Lord.Although many city offices are feeling the squeeze, the Law Department is really operating on a skeleton crew: fielding a team of 11 where there was once 17.
Ravenstahl is interviewing candidates for a long-overdue permanent City Solicitor -- though presumably, that appointment must wait until an Equal Opportunity Officer comes on-board. That is just this close to happening.
Two years of tumult and austerity have prompted a flight of professionals from Pittsburgh government.
The article focuses on the austerity of budget constraints and oversight boards, while overlooking the tumult. It could be that working for some city departments is getting to be like playing ball for the Pirates.
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Nevertheless, and damn the torpedoes: the city plans to hire a full-time "bike and pedestrian coordinator" early next year, says the Trib's Kacie Axsom.
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The Penguins and the City hosted a tour of the new arena development site, reports the Trib's Andrew Conte.
"We recognize 50 years ago a project was done here with the Civic Arena that didn't have community input and that had some devastating consequences for the community," said Penguins President David Morehouse. "We want to make sure we don't repeat those mistakes."
Rather than simply avoiding new mistakes, there are many who believe this new project must seek to actively remedy the historical ones.
The P-G's Bill Schackner version has this:
Penguins President David Morehouse, among those at yesterday's tour, said he understood residents' suspicions. He said the previous development "was a travesty for a neighborhood that was thriving." But he said the new project would create thousands of jobs without dislocating people.
Again, stroke stroke stroke, and nothing affirmative. No assurances that those jobs will be decent union jobs, nor that any Hill residents will be offered them.
We remember an episode of On-Q during which Dan Onorato spoke convincingly of the need to give the Hill District a serious piece of this pie.
We wonder, is the County Exec going to be involved in this process moving forward? Because believe it or not, the Comet cares about people even more than geese.
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The Trib's Joseph S. Mistick serves up some red meat for the Luke-bashing base. He accuses our Mayor of being -- um, how to paraphrase -- oblivious. It's a fun read.
He also offers confirmation of the Luke vs Dan feud, suggesting that the former is wrong on consolidation -- without suggesting that we must resort to the extreme Louisville model.
But seriously, Joe: how exactly are Onorato and Doyle "working hard to transform their party?" Transform it into what? Inquiring minds want to know.
Yes, inquiring minds do need to know what the transformation of the Democratic Party is! Is the endorsement process going to be revitalized to an open primary like it should be? Or will the fees for the endorsements go up again and losing democratic hopefuls subject to throwing more money away for a chance to run for office? Is D party deliberating for political jobs to have actual qualifications? The Democratic Party might get marketers/committee people to convince the public that they are transforming without giving a real clue to what the transformation actually is. Can the Democratic Party spell integrity and ethics?
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