This is What the Overlords Look, Sound Like

Just so you're aware if you ever run into one. Apparently big chief overlord George E. Cornelius, the state Secretary of Economic Development, was personally working the halls yesterday. And Council President Shields says he got a call late yesterday from the Governor's chief of staff -- so we're clear on who the real overlord is.



"Part of the plan is a pathway out of Act 47 oversight for the city. We want to see that happen by the end of the term of this plan" ... Dean Kaplan

LIVEBLOGGING FINAL ACTION ON ACT 47 *

*-UPDATE: By a 6-3 margin (Dowd, Harris & Shields voting no), Council passes an Amended & Revised 5-Year Recovery Plan with 30 amendments from the previous version, all of which are either crucial or meaningless depending on who you ask. Public safety labor leaders are not happy at all and the politicos aligned with them are not particularly happy either. But we have a plan and Pittsburgh will not crash into the sun, the end, unless Doug Shields sues everybody.

Follow along with my coverage via Twitter. Updates will appear in reverse-chronological order, most recent appearing on top of the screen. Keep refreshing. I'm sure @bobmayo will be providing coverage as well.

The changes that the 9 councilors are attempting to include in Pittsburgh's 5-year Recovery Plan can be found HERE. Overnight reportage has been quite interesting: see the Trib's Jeremy Boren and the P-G's Rich Lord.

Monday: Stay Cool When it Gets Hot

First of all, there's Wednesday:

Allegheny County Council will be voting on an amended version of Councilor Amanda Green's legislation forbidding LGBTQetc discrimination in employment and housing, between 5 and 7 PM at the Allegheny County Courthouse.

Amended version, you say?

Anyway, the ordinance was heard in the Government Relations Committee last week and an amendment offered by County Councilmen Burn, Macy and Robinson added a complicated loophole that will give some religious organizations preferential treatment by allowing them to discriminate.

Essentially, it creates a registry... (PghLesCor 1)

We know our friend Sue the blogger is known to take a harder line than most, but here is the ACLU's response to these developments:

There are a number of problems with Section 215-31(H)(1) of the proposed ordinance. These problems are so endemic that this section should be removed from the ordinance in its entirety. First, the language of this section creates a preference for some religions over others... (PghLesCor 2)

Four (4) problems are identified -- some of which point toward unintended consequences, most of which concern the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

I have thoughts:

1) The ACLU has interest and experience in seeing substantive legislation get passed and progress get made, right? I would not expect them to throw roadblocks in front of a new proposal for just any old reason.

2) I think we all remember the individual who spoke at the public hearing who was born "gender ambiguous", and the real travails of that person finding a job and a place to live. We in the United States do not stand pat on a simple right to life, but also stand upon rights to LIBERTY and THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Hard to pursue those without a roof over your head, a fair shot at gainful employment, and loving companionship come what may. Remember that not all of Allegheny County is dense with options for homes and jobs if one's nonconformities are abruptly "discovered" by an employer or landlord.

3) Religious and religiously-minded organizations have rights of their own, but once they start employing people, taking part in the regulated economy, accepting public resources ... well, even sorting through the applications for the registry sounds dicey. When it comes to fundamental individual rights, I'm more comfortable Keeping-It-Simple-Stupid.

Looks like this one got a tad over-processed in the old sausage factory. Maybe Democrats should capitalize on their majority and enact their immensely popular stated agenda with less fuss.

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Might want to pin this one to the cork board:

A pair of juvenile detention centers at the crux of a bribery scandal in Luzerne County also were charging counties like Allegheny and Butler too much for their services, according to a state audit. (P-G, Karen Kane)

Oh, man.

Counties were billed $314 a day for secure treatment and $255 a day for shelter services. Auditors determined the fees could have been $64 and $60 less, respectively. Mr. Zappala contended in his response to the draft audit that the lower numbers do not allow any profit margin. (ibid)

That, together with a few conspicuous expenditures, is what we know before any "extensive" audit is performed. Perhaps this proposed "extensive" audit might even develop into a "comprehensive" one.

Meanwhile, in DeWeeseville:

A state grand jury is poring over the contents of a recently discovered box of files from a Capitol office, a find that has triggered renewed prosecutorial interest in longtime state Rep. Bill DeWeese, D-Greene. (P-G, Roddy and Mauriello)

So what's up?

Sources close to the investigation say the documents appear to suggest widespread campaign activity inside Mr. DeWeese's Harrisburg and district offices during state work hours. (ibid)

Well, if you guys say so.

"It is totally appropriate and understandable that the attorney general's office would be speaking with staff people to learn what they can to respond to the allegations Mr. Veon raised in the 590-page document he filed," [DeWeese attorney] Mr. Cohen said. (ibid)

This is a clinic on how to act when you are under the microscope and so are others.

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AND FINALLY:

WPXI's Rick Earle did a report on the Lestitian and Mitinger removals, wherein he interviewed some folks during Wednesday's North Side bus tour. I recognized the fellow who got major league face time at the end of Rick's report as one of my personal favorite speakers at the public hearing on the Master Plan some weeks ago.

Here's that clip:



The North Shore Master Plan won its approval over the gentleman's objections -- but the amphitheater should again appear on the agenda on Tuesday, July 7. And of course development debates in Pittsburgh shall continue.

Act 47 Recovery: Still a Struggle for Unity *

*-UPDATE: This arrived at about 1:30 AM this (6/30) morning:


Um, fabulous. Now back to yesterday (6/29):


Note the verbiage. "Lacks a commitment" from the Coordinators to support the amendments. When I receive the e-mail blast I may update this post.

Another note: Some of you will recall that The Post-Gazette got queasy over these adult negotiations regarding our city's well-being. Part of this attitude stemmed from an a belief that the Council "gave away its authority" at some point or another; most of it came from skepticism about the amendments' costs. I can only reiterate what I wrote in my long Act 47 post -- few of them sounded anything like the budget-busters some insist on maintaining that they are. Many of them simply mandate forms of operational discipline and professionalism -- many look to be cost-savers, though those effects have not been exhaustively determined.

Now, if it comes to the point where an agreement is not actually reached tomorrow: here are the funds the Act 47 Coordinators may consider petitioning the Secretary of the DCED to withhold in escrow from Pittsburgh until such time it does adopt a new Recovery Plan:

* 2007 and 2008 Main Street Grants: $1,000,000
* 2009 Main Street and Elm Street Grants: $500,000 anticipated
* 2007 HRA Grant: $2,070,550
* 2008 HRA Grant: $6,711,600
* 2009 HRA Grant: $5,000,000 or more anticipated
* 2007 Enterprise Zone Grant: $95,000
* 2009 PEMA Grant: $3,000,000
* Future DCED grants
* RCAP funds
* Liquid Fuels funds
* Recycling grants
* Support for BBI training, energy conservation

For what it's worth, I personally cannot imagine that Act 47 would withhold money for training in the Bureau of Building Inspection (BBI) for example, given their own alarming reports on the subject. Councilman Dowd asserted that "the vast majority" of the above fall into the category of U.R.A.-distributed funds. It is not known to me at what time the U.R.A. would be regularly scheduled to be in receipt of such funds, or at what time they would thereafter disperse them.

Bus Tours Provide Food for Thought for Entire City

Northside United and its allies are making the case for a community benefits agreement to go along with a subsidized development project while hosting bus tours of the development zone and of nearby communities.

Post-Gazette reporter Diana Nelson-Jones sums up last Wednesday's experience as well as I can HERE.

The argument the coalition is making is neither simple nor absolute, so I highly recommend the two videos below (especially if you're not interested in reading). Both attempt to respond to the popularly held counter-arguments against pursuing CBA's.

Introductory presentations were made at the Letter Carriers Building. Here is Janice Parks, from the Young Men and Women's African Heritage Association:





Speakers took turns along the way, in the buses and during stops outside. Here is Ronell Guy, from the Northside Coalition for Fair Housing:




In addition to several residential communities, the tour featured the industrial park near Route 65, the site of the new casino, a stop at some of the green space between the stadiums, and a playground.

Here are some of my own observations:

As the bus wound through the streets of Pittsburgh's North Side, I was struck by how many doorways and windows are boarded up compared with how many have doors and glass in them. It's possible the tour route was designed for that effect, but the frequent and obvious signs of blight reminded me of my own North Side neighborhood of Deutschtown or East Allegheny. I thought we were the exception rather than the rule on the North Side. Now I'm not so sure.

Upon approaching Rivers Casino-area construction, one of the other tour narrators noted dryly, "Tell me if anyone sees a female, or any minority working these jobs." In what seemed like a 300-400 yard stretch driving past active construction, this blogger could not find one, and nobody else called bingo.

Councilman Bill Peduto, Council nominees Robert Daniel Lavelle and Natalia Rudiak, and staff representing State Rep. Don Walko attended the tour. Rudiak mentioned to the Comet that she "did a little research": turns out her home in Carrick (the Scranton of Pittsburgh) is worth roughly $30 per square foot. This came by way of contrast to the $10 per square foot rates to be found on Pittsburgh's North Shore.

About four or five times during the tour, the tour guides had to point out, "this is where [somebody] recently got shot".

The tour often summoned to mind old displacements and grievances stemming from the construction of Route 65, the construction of Allegheny Center, the construction of the Veteran's Bridge and the construction of already established subsidized developments in the area. While passing beneath some railroad trestles on the way out of the Shore area, intermittent past promises from city government to beautify the entryways and egresses were recalled to some cynical amusement.

There were brief speeches from folks with organized labor, from the green movement, and one from a consortium of neighborhood ministries who spoke of a new public safety effort called the Holy Ground Campaign. The Mattress Factory provided bottled water on a hot day.