Thursday: Something Happening In Pittsburgh

We write one positive article about our local government over the past year, and now yoink!

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Commission Chairwoman Wrenna Watson said Mr. Reidbord was present for all of an earlier hearing Dec. 11 where the master plan and CBA were discussed. She said much of the testimony at the Jan. 14 hearing was repetitive. "So he really did have the information to make an informed decision," she said. (P-G, Mark Belko)

#1 How did he know the testimony was going to be repetitive when he left?

#2 Hey, can we see the minutes from that meeting so we can judge for ourselves?

#3 Maybe the testimony would have been a little less repetitive if sixteen amendments to the Master Plan were presented by city planning before the public comment period, instead of immediately after?

#4 Since you voted "with the community" and against the master plan, Chairwoman Watson, why didn't you ask a single follow-up question of our City Solicitor? Why didn't any of the rest of the no-votes ask questions? What a missed opportunity.

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When it rains, it pours.

"They want to be a super-government authority under this guise of a non-profit and I don't think that's their role. The government has a role for planning -- the city, the county and the state -- and I think they're trying to usurp" that, [Barden] said. (P-G, Mark Belko)

You don't suppose Don Barden is reading the Angry Drunk Bureaucrat?

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Here's the payoff to the whole Agenda Committee gambit. Now it's a "joint agenda" between the mayor and council. No word on whether that made consensus more difficult to achieve.

One [plank] would have the mayor and council publicize "performance measures" against which nearly every city department and bureau can be judged. Excluded are the Planning Department and the Fire and Emergency Medical Services bureaus, all of which are being evaluated for possible structural changes. (P-G, Rich Lord)

How DeSantian.

So long as the public has free, timely and unfettered access to all the data and methodology behind these performance measures, this is a fine idea.

All the ideas in the agenda are fine ideas, IOHO.

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B'O'Neill covers the Valentines Day beat. Now that the project is wrapped up, we're going to take a guess as to who put this together, but you have to tell us if we guess correctly. Was it ... wait for it, wait for it ... the PROPELL PITTSBURGH COMMISSION? Matt H? Alik? Sonni?

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Matt H breaks down the ACDC endorsements. He includes this:

The most disturbing part of the day was when I heard that in the Presidential straw poll Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama 837 votes to 453.

And we say to you this morning, there is a coalition coming together in Pittsburgh that can transcend the politics of personality -- and will reach out across divisions based on race, religion, gender and class.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. They will only grow louder and more dissonant.