The Category: Canadian Jazz

The Kind: of music I want at my club.

Ravenstahl Ended All Police Side-Job Controls to Benefit "Detail Mafia" in 2006.

Son of the Nostalgia Zone

I mean, wow. It was all there.

If you don't today re-read the whole story, or at least the entirety of Part III: Capitulation, I'm afraid to inform you that you are still not a remotely serious trader in Pittsburgh news.

From all indications, every element of these long-planned and much-needed reforms to the secondary employment system are quickly unraveling within the Pittsburgh Police Department. We paid for a computer system to manage it, but it isn't being used. On those occasions where the system is used, its controls are being subverted by public servants who share passwords with each other, and who apparently face no significant consequences for doing so. We are have paid (and continue paying) two city employees to manage the Special Events Office, but it is being bypassed and becoming irrelevant. The old-style patronage system of cops staffing these off-duty details with their friends and supporters continues unabated. We have lost what could have been a vitally important stream of revenue. (PRP, "Adm. Richmond K. Turner", Feb. 12 2007)

Compare all that archival material with today: Pittsburgh police accounting gaps catch eye of FBI investigators, Moriah Balingit.

Interim Mayor Luke Ravenstahl replacing Police Chief Dom Costa with Police Chief Nate Harper during the height of a battle over Special Events oversight. Harper described as being more likely to "appease his peers and subordinates" by reversing reforms which strengthen the Bureau and protect taxpayers and residents. Encouraging the accrual of back room power to people such as the Mayor's intended nominee for Director of Public Safety, Dennis Regan, who had no experience in public safety but the right friends on the force. Not sweating consequences as long as he could secure his tenuous hold on power within that building through inside political deal making. All there.

And he scolds the rest of us for being political. What a phony.


The Admiral is haunting us from beyond Bloggers' End.

Board Membership: A Better Democracy, Please!

Happy Presidents Day. Texas Liberal.

Here's one fantastic idea:

Most members of boards and commissions are nominated and appointed by the Mayor and City Council. We must open up the nomination process and allow citizens of the city to submit their own choices to fill open seats on these boards and commissions. We need fewer connected insiders doing this work and more community leaders, professionals, and concerned citizens. (People for Peduto, daily ideas rap sheet #94)

Above emphasis mine. We need many and more community leaders and relevant professionals, not to mention a greater diversity of concern among all those concerned citizens on our crucial municipal authorities and boards. Well, less many if we can meaningfully consolidate the periphery boards. It's all part of a gravely important and timely doctrine. Pittsburgh needs to get its authorities and commissions working better for the people. For example, most of these important bodies have their own dedicated solicitors already. So why appoint so many attorneys? Nominate people with policy-relevant skill sets.

The proposal Councilman Bill Peduto is putting forward defines him slightly differently from not only Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, but from that lumbering lumberjack chief Executive of Allegheny County, Rich Fitzgerald -- who happens along with many others to support Peduto's mayoral campaign. Too much of any good thing, after all, would clearly be way too much.

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Katy Perry - Wide Awake (Official Music Video) by djfredyyoice