THE PITTSBURGH COMET: ONLY 20 DAYS LEFT!

.

I don't even know how to begin.

I knew last year that nothing gold can stay and the Comet would have to wrap things up eventually -- its improbable, implausible, ill-defined work largely unfinished. A wise blogger once told me, "Three years is about good," and it's been a very good three years. But news kept happening and it didn't seem worthwhile to think about.

Firstly I have to thank the Burghosphere and its extended community for existing, participating and being so supportive. What we have out here will only get better and better. The prominence that this screwy little corner of the web attained has largely been a function of being in a fertile place during a very fertile time. I hope I have helped to inspire as high and worthy standards in blogging as I have attempted to in government itself. I know I can be a harsh taskmaster and not always remotely perfect, but the important thing is to set laudable goals and to pursue them in good faith.

It's also important to thank all the professional reporters, editors, public officials, candidates for office and tireless community members who may not participate directly but who have expressed their appreciation, either by telling me directly or by consenting to be interviewed or pitching stories themselves. When people are fighting hard for their communities and their idea of how the city should be, and they call me in a bid to try to make it happen, that is truly humbling.

Make no mistake and don't let anyone fool you. We are having an impact. We -- ordinary people living in and around this city with no special ulterior motives except that we live here -- are having an impact -- on people who represent about altruistically lifting up the commonweal yet have mixed and unfinished track records on that score. There is magic in words, in saying what you know and sharing how you feel. The pen is mightier than the dollar bill. It doesn't always win, but it is evolving faster.

##

I've been asked to relate some of my favorite stories and moments over the past three years. I know that I want to but don't know how much I'll get to. There has been a great mass of things I've intended to do and look into and explore that I've never gotten around to. It piles up after while.

I know where to start though, that is for sure, so I'll start there right away.

For about a week at the beginning of January of 2008, I became consumed by the story of the recreation of the Hill District. I've never done cocaine but I swear I felt like I was on it while I was writing that week. By the end of it, it all turned out to have a theme and a direction and even some artistic merit, to the point where it seemed like a series. Here is how it developed:

Hill District Makes Counter-Offer
Sing it Loud, Sing It Proud
Broadcast News
Imagine the Possibilities
Turning the Corner
How We Got Here to Begin With
The Scope of the Problem
Letter to the Penguins
Let's not forget where this began...
Never Jump at the First Offer

Please don't construe this as taking anything away from the many, many people who organized and spent far more time in pursuit of that same cause than I did. But given the reception that the push for public benefits to be delivered along with the new hockey arena had received until that time, when the mayor of the city suggested at the end of that week that "Seed Money" and support for a grocery store could be forthcoming -- I felt somehow that my yammering away at this keyboard was actually tipping the scales. If only to provide heart and inspiration to those directly involved.

Of course, that grocery store is in grave peril, and the "seed money" come to think of it was never spoken of again. And who knows what's up with the Master Planning process really.

That is the danger, and gets back to some of my guilt. Last night I congratulated some officials with whom I have had occasional differences, and most of them were extremely gracious, philosophical and convivial. I occasionally offered the line, "Congratulations, you outlasted me!" I hope I am not out of line when I report that one of them who was not so gracious responded, in chilling seriousness and perhaps before thinking, "Yeah I know, we like it when that happens."

Two years ago was one time when I outlasted them. Not only did the tone of the public conversation start changing around that point, but four months later, when an episode that is far better remembered occurred involving a development official, an advertising company and a press secretary, an actual formal Community Benefits Agreement was suddenly put on the table. A little more squeezing by all involved, a little luck, and it became a decent one that was acceptable to much of that community.

Of course, there were major problems with it -- problems which are only becoming more apparent. Let's keep looking at that and see if we can't get ourselves back in that frame of mind. Back to where we are demanding that our government treat us fairly and squarely, living up to its stated intentions beyond when cameras are rolling.

##

I would have liked every week to have been like that one week. Not Pat Ford week, or the other Pat Ford week or the one after that, but that Hill District week in early January of 2008. I would have liked on that and on all other occasions and issues to have been forever relentless, following up on every detail over months and years, keeping the pressure on and the masses entertained, and having the results be pyrotechnically apparent on the front page of the newspapers.

That's not the way it usually works though, and I want to impart that it doesn't have to at all. I've learned this. Even when we fall short or work slowly and deliberately, in the background, in the atmosphere, in the ether, we are having an effect.

If there's one lesson I want to impart, that is probably it. Thousands of people don't need to read you, you don't need to rack up tens and hundreds of comments, you don't need your name in the paper. You there, at your computer, knowing only what you know and feeling only how you feel: you are good enough to change your city, you deserve to be heard, and you can have an impact!!!

Indeed, for those in power who are less than perfectly scrupulous, it is ordinary people like you who are potentially most vexing of all.

__________
PS -- Lots of people are also asking me what I'm up to. I'd love to answer but I can't. Right now the answer lies somewhere between "I don't know" and "I can't tell you." When that changes you'll be the first ones to know.