Accusations of Nepotism Ring Hollow in Themselves

Reform However is Always Welcome.

As you know, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl nominated State Rep. Adam Ravenstahl to the board of the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN), a move which has raised hackles among good government watchdogs and the Mayor's political foes.

City Council will eventually vote on whether or not to confirm the nomination. It almost always confirm nominations. (Anyone remember them rejecting a nomination?)

Councilor Doug Shields asked for an advisory opinion from the State Ethics Commission (LMAO), which has already gotten back to him to indicate most likely that no, sorry, we don't issue ethics advisories on things which have already taken place, among the many other things we do not do. File a complaint instead, and we'll be sure to not act on that for a different reason.

Councilor Bill Peduto had better luck with the City Ethics Hearing Board, which will consider the matter on Friday 6/11 at 10:00 AM in City Council Chambers. It is not known yet whether any high-profile players will be in attendance.

Now, in addition to the vagaries of the City Code and how lawyers will sell interpretations to it, here is something else the watchdogs / foes would be well-advised to consider:

ALCOSAN - State Rep. Harry Readshaw
Equipment Leasing Authority - State Rep. Dan Deasy
Parking Authority - Dan Deasy
Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission - State Rep. Jake Wheatley
Sports & Exhibition Authority - State Sen. Sean Logan
SEA - State Sen. Wayne Fontana
Stadium Authority - Jake Wheatley
Urban Redevelopment Authority - State Sen. Jim Ferlo

Based on a quick review of the websites of our more important commissions and authorities, that is the list of politicians that have been appointed to boards that one could argue they have no particular business upon. The list is incomplete as I don't know the names of all the political chiefs of staff and others who answer directly to a political officeholder. I didn't include the Comprehensive Municipal Trust Fund because you don't even want to know.

So this kind of thing has been a trend. Why?

A seat on the Alcosan board is widely considered a political plum because members have contact with engineering and construction firms that tend to be campaign contributors. (P-G, Lord)

Politicians frequently desire to protect and strengthen other politicians -- sometimes because political deals have been made, sometimes to extend goodwill, sometimes to encourage political stability, and sometimes to help somebody to which they are particularly close.

Is there any harm done? That depends on what you think of the performance and decision-making of our boards and authorities. And on how seriously you take this:

A "mad as hell" grand jury that investigated the Bonusgate scandal issued a list of recommendations improving a state Legislature they condemned as "broken," but was skeptical that any of the proposals would ever occur in a system so rife with corruption.

"The current operational structure and ingrained procedures of the Pennsylvania House Democratic and Republican caucuses are irretrievably broken and in desperate need of systemic change," the grand jurors wrote.

The self-serving culture of the Legislature's caucus system and patronage is so entrenched, the grand jury wrote, that the only way any change might take place is through a constitutional convention. (P-G, Mauriello)

It could be argued that chipping away at the political privilege of state legislators on the local level is one way to begin having a direct effect on "entrenched" webs of incumbents, whom some consider far too important to Pennsylvania to risk facing the voters on a level playing field and to even consider replacing with nonpartisans.

Adam Ravenstahl campaigned more than anything else on a promise to "fix Harrisburg" -- the problem with which, he contended, is too many "self-interested politicians". Withdrawing his name from consideration for this board appointment and declining to take advantage of the big sewers cherry would be a meaningful first step.

In the event that does not occur, the Council could make reference to the many deep frustrations voters are nursing against the culture of Harrisburg and its imperious, out-of-touch incumbents -- not limited to "Bonusgate" matters -- and actually begin taking upon itself the task of cleansing rank and obvious political backscratching from Pittsburgh's own boards and commissions. This would be a long-term process that, if taken seriously, would make reform-minded Councilors appear less as though they themselves are reacting out of petty political jealousy.

Having made that policy decision, there will still be this:

"Rep. Ravenstahl represents the people who are affected by Alcosan's location the most," said mayoral spokeswoman Joanna Doven in an e-mail. "There has always been a meaningful effort to have representation from the North Side on Alcosan's board as quality-of-life issues such as odor and traffic affect residents near the operation." (ibid)

There are lots of community-minded North Siders who have no particular use for campaign contributions or political favors. Some of them probably even have useful experience or qualifications when it comes to managing sewer systems. Finding one shouldn't be a problem.

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Let's Talk About Electronic Billboards! *

See also Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. The meeting continued thereafter, largely comprised of question & answer and some comment.

NOTES:

The Department of City Planning developed in Aug. '09 draft amendments to the City's Code regulating what we know as electronic signs and billboards. It then forwarded these draft proposals to Clarion Associates and Clanton Associates, who collaborated to produce a review of these revisions. These works were presented at a public meeting this week.

The Department's final draft, based on their consultants' input and others, will be presented at a similar meeting at the end of the summer. Then it will face a hearing before the Planning Commission, followed by consideration by City Council and then the mayor for signature.

If I understand correctly...
Use caution from here on out:

City Planning's proposal would allow off-site electronic signs such as electronic billboard advertising ONLY in areas zoned for industrial use AND NOT where they would be visible from the rivers. A zoning map reveals that the bulk of industrial zoned area is actually right along the rivers. The Golden Triangle, and by extension the Grant Street Transportation Center, would not allow for these types of electronic signs under the proposed rules.

The consultants made clear in the report that one option the city "should seriously consider" is declining to allow electronic signs at all. They cited this as one trend among cities. However the Planning Department does not recommend this.

Legally, banning all off-site electronic signs would be a surefire slam dunk, yet more permissive but creatively restrictive legislation becomes dicey when a community desires to ban certain types of content, to limit the privilege to certain types of users, or to somehow control for aesthetics. (There was some discussion in the gallery of utilizing "sight lines" in guidelines and getting the Art Commission to play a role.)

As far as legislative options and customization, the much-celebrated lighting consultant encouraged everyone to measure and to think about light deeply and properly. Superior technology was showcased to measure "nits" of luminescence with precision and reliability, and we were warned to mind tricks that the brain plays in interpreting brightness and thresholds of distraction and irritation. This seemed to be the area toward which creative thinkers were encouraged to tinker.

The man from the Planning Department and the legal consultant both agreed that the City code as it exists is "silent" on regulating electronic signs. A surprising variety of others in the room agreed and no one disagreed.

The newly proposed rules contain two definitions, each of which expand upon what is now just one:

“Electronic Sign means any sign with text or graphics generated by electronic components, including but not limited to light emitting diode (“LED”) and plasma displays, or any other past or future technology.”

“Electronic Message Sign means a sign with changing text or graphics generated by electronic components, including but not limited to light emitting diode (“LED”) and plasma displays, or any other past or future technology. Electronic message signs shall provide information such as current date, time, weather, and news updates or any information permitted in a business sign, as defined herein. Electronic message signs shall not contain any text or graphics permitted only in advertising signs.”

The new verbiage about "any other past or future technology" appears to address all the rampant confusion some perceive to be in our code. And our consultants understandably comment:

It is not clear why a separate definition for "electronic message signs" is proposed but not for other types (e.g., there is no definition of “electronic business and identification signs”—they are simply assumed to be business and identification signs that are electronic). Either each type of sign should have a separate definition for an electronic sign of that type or there should be a general statement in the definition section that one form of any type of sign can be electronic.

One can surmise from this that the Planning Department believes it is important for its interpretation of the present code to remain consistent with that which was explained in public by previous planning officials -- and it is continuing to frame new legislation to pay heed to this classic interpretation.

It is unclear whether some of the types of review which exist in the present code -- conditional use approval by City Council, for example -- would withstand a legal challenge.

*-UPDATE: It appears that the new regs would have electronic advertising signs be approved as Special Exceptions by the Zoning Board of Adjustment. It does not appear that anything like Conditional Use approval involving either the Planning Commission or City Council would any longer come into play.

An attorney for Lamar commented that the proposed regulations are illegally restrictive and subjective. One should wonder what he thinks of the evidently even more restrictive regime his client currently operates under through this purportedly "silent" code.

Even more speculative:

It's conceivable that the regulations Pittsburgh traditionally enforced on electronic signage have always been legally flimsy. Given the expense of the technology and full cost of fighting and losing in court, it was simply never challenged. However once a single advertising company bought up almost all of the billboard stock in the City and began asserting a right to transform them to electronics, neither the City nor the company desired to go to court to actually test their legal bluster. So instead they amicably managed the tension by making off-record "deals" with one other which reduced or cut out: some vintage billboard stock, all other electronic advertising vendors, many political challengers and most due process rights of citizens.

Now however we actually have to come up with enforceable rules with which to govern ourselves -- and it seems as though the city's planning department is intent on allowing more electronic billboards than we have now with less review, while still barring them from a large portion of the city and from a lot more places than the company claims and/or feels to which it has a right.

RACE TO FILL LEAKY BUCKET: Council Purchases Advice from a Group of Financial Scholars *

Folks at Pitt and CMU must be all, #headdesk#, but at least the Council is acknowledging it ain't all that scholarly itself.

Council gave Finance Scholars Group preliminary approval Wednesday to analyze ways to generate money for the city's ailing pension fund. The study will look at the mayor's proposal of a long-term lease of the assets to a private company; the outright sale of parking facilities; privatizing the Pittsburgh Parking Authority with revenue sharing; transferring the parking assets to the pension funds; and issuing bonds. (Trib, Adam Brandolph)

$250,000 paid for with the budgetary equivalent of couch-cushion money. Happens all the time (helps to be in the majority though).

As to the mayor's lease proposal, the vetting of which by the city's Finance department and transactional middlemen at Morgan Stanley received precious little acclaim:

In a letter Wednesday to pension fund solicitor Frederick Frank, Mr. Dowd said he wants council and the public to have an immediate look at a draft of the agreement that would spell out lease terms, including operating requirements and parking rate increases. Mr. Ravenstahl has offered only to make documents available sometime this month.

With Mr. Ravenstahl demanding a final vote on the lease plan in September, Mr. Dowd said, council needs information as soon as possible.

"This isn't a one-page document," Mr. Dowd said. "This is going to be hundreds of pages of complicated legalese."
Mayoral spokeswoman Joanna Doven said the draft agreement can't be provided to council because it's still being written. (P-G, Joe Smydo)

Cataclysmic deadlines is our specialty.

*-BACKGROUND: Some history on the dispute over the parking assets is HERE. It shows the mayor's concept has still other supporters. The paramount thing is to select a solution that will work for Pittsburgh.

For the President: An Onslaught of Crabby

PG+ appears to be free right this second. Go and read Dennis Roddy's journal entry entitled A Barrage of Nothing, inspired by President Obama's speech in Pittsburgh yesterday.

Now in my own view, Roddy expects a little much from our Presidents. I hope passionately for Presidents to not actively make very costly blunders, to refuse to sell out important government services and protections, and to try their earnest, intelligent, educated and creative best to massage and tinker around the edges of managing an impossible economy, culture and world as best they can.

However when Roddy concludes:

His speeches remain eloquent, but meaningless; so many empty box cars rolling past an audience waiting only for a chance to cross the tracks and resume such lives as fate has given them because the fates are all they have. Intervention, clearly, is not the forte of the man who has come to save them. (PG+)

I think two things: 1) It is a good thing for the administration that Dennis Roddy and PG+ live ordinarily behind a pay wall, where nobody will pass them about, where search engines do not tread and where nothing can ever go viral and 2) Obama needs to plug that hole, daddy, and within the month. That is if he desires to retain even the pretense of remaining Obama.

Wednesday: Whistlestop *

As you know, POTUS is popping in to town today. And via Early Returns:

WHO: Grassroots Tea Partiers
WHAT: Sidewalk Protest of President Barack Hussein Obama
WHERE: 5000 Forbes Avenue outside the University Center
WHEN: 11:30 a.m.
WHY: Our President signs laws that have never been read, based on Keynesian principles that don't work, that the nation does not want that are weakening our economy and business environment and saddling us with debt that we will never be able to pay.

President Obama will be bouncing in and out of the region in less than three hours. (* UPDATE: image left h/t WTAE)

Ravenstahl will greet Obama and Specter as they step off Air Force One at Pittsburgh International, and the three will ride into the city together, said Ravenstahl's spokeswoman, Joanna Doven.

The mayor plans to make the most of his face time, discussing some of the city's transportation needs and highlighting economic strides Pittsburgh has made, Doven said. (Trib, Wereschagin)

For more on the President's recent string, see link.

Neil Young is Working On a Perpetual Motion Machine.

And other tales. (Science project starts at about 23:45)

Bonusgate: Trying the Lock

As you've heard variously:

"If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted." (Justice Jackson, via CasablancaPA)

That is a danger. Is this really the most dangerous power of a prosecutor? And how much pause should that give us, given the prosecutor's most serious responsibility? Does the phrase "All come out in the wash" have any application here?

Daylin Leach, (D) King of Prussia

The state senator slams not just the reform ideas of the Bonusgate grand jury, but many common assumptions about our Legislature and its "caucus system".

Notion that legislators r except 4 rare exceptions corrupt in any way is plain false &thus any "reforms" based on this notion r ill-grounded (Post-Gazette)

That's how his op-ed would look were it a tweet (save for the obligatory #bonsugate hashtag) though it comes a bit fleshed out with criticism of a few of the grand jury's more debatable recommendations.

State Rep. Bill DeWeese, (D) Greene, also said something recently to the effect that life-altering remedies aren't all that necessary.

Tuesday: It's Like a Scene from "Avatar".

We've lauded this previously, but now there are wheelbarrows, woo-hoo!

The $621,000 roof project is the latest element in Allegheny County's "Green Initiative." It is being paid for with federal stimulus funds. (P-G, Barcousky)

I'd like to check this out. I wonder if they can rent the space out for garden parties and the such. At a premium. Why not?

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If the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania weren't so irretrievably broken, it'd be easier to get enthused about this:

Pennsylvania has received a $750,000 federal grant to pay half the cost of a study into improving Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg rail service. Right now, there's only one daily train in each direction (compared to 14 daily trains between Harrisburg and Philadelphia that run fast and nearly filled). (Brian O'Neill)

By all means, study. In the meanwhile, though it honestly pains me to say it, maybe we should turn westward to strengthen our ties to cities of the Gritty Belt? We're a bigger fish in that pond.

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Prevailing footprint legislation is now getting a look-see.

Rob Stephany, executive director of the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority, said he hasn't had a chance to review the bills, but has heard from one trade union angered with the diesel emissions component.

"They're upset because ... essentially they'd have to buy the equipment" at substantial costs, Stephany said. (Trib, Brandolph)

The trade unions would need to buy the equipment? I don't fully understand. At any rate, I presume the City and its partners could always track down somebody who already owns next-generation equipment. Yet another reason it's good to oft refresh our civic Rolodex.