Business Casual Friday - Stanley Cup Preview Edition

Just a little something that combines the Penguins, John Williams, and the non-CGI portions of George Lucas:

Episode VI: The Penguins Return (Crawl)



The digitally remastered version will enhance Gary Robert's scariness.

Mayor Seeks Guidance on Attending Stanley Cup Games

Saw this in the P-G this afternoon:

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl wants to attend the Stanley Cup Finals, but isn't yet sure how that can happen.

"I'd like to go," he said of the Saturday night face-off between the Penguins and the Red Wings, in Detroit. "I have asked [the city Law Department] for guidance" on whether he should pay for tickets, travel and lodging out of personal funds, campaign money or otherwise.

He has ruled out the use of any public money on what, arguably, could be called official business...

The correct answer is: Buffalo Blues* in Shadyside with 200-300 of your fellow yinzers. As "way cool" as it may be to go up to Detroit, it would certainly be a whole heck of a lot more populist of Luke to sit elbow to elbow with guys discussing the intricacies of the hooking calls and calling for another "Ahrn".

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* Any sports bar (or any other bar for that matter) in Pittsburgh will do. I just don't want to catch him stealing my seat.

Future Committed Resource Allocations

I was checking out Mike Madison's post over at Pittsblog today regarding Municipal Bonds, in which he sort of sums up things that Mr. Briem and Mr. Fester have been saying for quite some time now.

Of course, the scary part of this whole thing is not that the City of Pittsburgh is going to default on its current debt or even that the outlying municipalities are going to default on their current debt* or even that Lamar gave a toaster oven to the Mayor's wife's cousin, but that the City of Pittsburgh needs to continue to issue debt in the future in order to do... you know... *stuff*.

There are roads to fix, buildings to knock down, streetlights to hang, and so forth, all of which are paid for by taxes, yes, but, and this is the nuanced bit, paid on the municipal credit card with its bondholders and over the long run.

Now, this is fine, usually, but with a continuing pension obligation, nervous markets, and rumors of a return to deficits within a few years (despite this year's surplus), you have to wonder what the City's capacity for long term borrowing will really be in a few years... or if it'll have to either (a) find new revenue streams or (b) push these expenses off of its books to... well... somewhere.

But this isn't necessarily a financing discussion; it could just as easily be a foreshadowing of further reductions in City services... which may lead to a further decline in population... which reduces the tax base... which means the City can borrow less... which further reduces City services...

Yikes.

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* Speaking of which, Team 4: you did a really shitty job with presenting those statistics. I mean, sure you give some wacky decimal debt service to expenditure ratio and a hard number for total debt service, but you don't break down things like terms, or rates, or even give the population of these municipalities to give anyone a real sense of how serious those problems are. I mean, hell, $495K in debt annual service sounds like a lot of money, but that works out to about $150/person in Edgewood, which seems reasonable. Of course, the data (and the story) that's presented doesn't get into those kinds of details that would make the information less sensational and more, um, useful.

For shame! Seriously. For shame.

On Green Grass and Fences

For all of our hand wringing around these here parts, it's usual to read an article about how Pittsburgh is a downtown economic development "winner." That seems to be the case, however, at least according to the Kansas City Star, which compares its own $4 Billion investment in its downtown with places like Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City and Denver.

Overall, The Star analyzed the downtown progress made in Kansas City and 13 peer cities. The downtowns were compared in 16 statistical measures, but these comparisons have limitations. Some national statistics only measure the first half of this decade. Plus, different downtowns are in different stages of rebirth, with some starting earlier than Kansas City did.

Given all that, The Star’s analysis represents more of a snapshot than a complete picture.

That snapshot, though, shows Kansas City’s downtown progress below average in more than half of the comparisons with its peers — measures such as new bars, new hotels and office vacancy.

Basically, even with $4 billion invested in downtown so far this decade, we still don’t measure up all that well with other downtowns.

The best line, however, comes at the end from the Mayor of Kansas City:

“Pittsburgh’s a winner,” Funkhouser said. “We’re not close to Pittsburgh. It’s got a vibrant street life.

“It’s what I hope we’ll be like.”

The grass is always greener, I suppose.

County Executive Calls on Municipalities to Merge, Form Voltron

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato met with about 20 local lawmakers Saturday to include them in discussions about forming a giant Japanese mecha robot to defeat the rising costs of pension debt and the evil King Zarkon from planet Doom.

In April, Onorato announced his support for a city-county merger after a 13-member Citizens Advisory Committee led by University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg released a study recommending consolidation. The Advisory Commission was heavily influenced by the success of Lexington Kentucky, 450 hours of bootleg anime, and about three bags of pot.

According to the study, the Pittsburgh Region, was originally one unified piece but was tricked by the witch Haggar into landing on a black comet with nearly the gravitational attraction of a singularity. The Region was then attacked by Haggar, and somehow blown into five pieces, which formed the five lions.

Onorato said that the land, sea and air teams must reform in order to maintain regional competitiveness and to defeat the Drule Empire.

Republican lawmakers were skeptical.

"I think we need to be sure that there are no loopholes that result in communities having to pick up the debt of other municipalities," said state Rep. Randy Vulakovich, R-Shaler. "And we still have to be careful about the formation of the Drule mecha and the Dracotron."

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is in favor of a similar merger plan, based on The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, which he has dubbed "wicked awesome." Critics, however, have asked that he get off their damned lawns.

Discussions will continue in Harrisburg this week.

Philadelphia Mayor Nutter Loses Bet

(Reuters) Philadelphia - Fresh on the rout of the Flyers by the Penguins, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl wasted no time on making good on his bet with Philadephia Mayor Nutter by sending the entire Pittsburgh Pirate roster to the City of Brotherly Love.

Bets between municipal chief executives are not uncommon during high profile games, however, this NHL Eastern Conference finals was of greater importance because it was between the two largest cities in the Commonwealth.

Confident in his home team, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl used this opportunity to up the stakes with his cross state rival.

"We thought it would be a basket of ketchup or Primanti sandwiches versus a basket of Cheesestakes or something," said Mayor Nutter's spokesperson Douglas Oliver. "We were shocked when Mr. Ravenstahl put up the Pirates. We asked 'what would you get?' He said, 'We get rid of the Pirates.'"

Within minutes of the Penguins' shut-out, and even before the Prince of Wales trophy was presented, the entire Pirates roster was put in shipping containers and placed on a non-stop flight to Philadelphia.

Mr. Ravenstahl was proud of the move.

"It took bold, decisive leadership, but by the time Nutter realizes what's hit him, the Philadelphia Pirates will already be last in the National League."

Mayor Nutter has different plans for his new found team.

"I figure for awhile, we can use them to direct traffic or something. Eventually I hope to trade them to Des Moines for a half a packet of Lucky Strikes and a porno mag."

Edwards Endorses Obama

Invokes Landmark Supreme Court Case Bros v. Hoes.

Another, Another Aside

You're really starting to piss me off Blogger.

Another Aside

I caught this article in the P-G this afternoon, which I found interesting:

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's administration ordered the shutdown today of two Oakland apartment buildings that were plagued by long-running fire code violations, an aggressive new tactic in response to neighborhood concerns about persistently dangerous student housing conditions.

Using a power rarely invoked, the city's Bureau of Building Inspection gave tenants in the two buildings -- which have 12 apartments each -- until Monday to get out. They posted signs with the phone number of the University of Pittsburgh's off-campus housing arm, and reached out to Pitt to help relocate the students.

OK, that's not the interesting bit, this is:

Acting Chief of Building Inspection Dan Cipriani said his inspector cited the properties at 331 and 337 McKee Place in 2006 and is "getting no cooperation" in fixing the violations.

Did ya catch that? Didja?

OK, I'll add emphasis.

Acting Chief Dan Cipriani... Clear now?

Just so everyone remembers, the Mayor has 90 days to appoint full time heads of departments and Chief Cipriani's predecessor was fired back in September 2007.

So is the P-G just slow to update their Rolodex? Is Chief Cipriani still a temp? Did Council OK this? What am I missing here?

Business Casual Thursday

By now, everyone's seen the clip of Bill O'Reilly's f@cking outtake from back during his Inside Edition days. But it's really missing something... I don't know, how about:

Bill O'Reilly (The Remix)

Obviously this link contains not safe for work language and should not be viewed by those with small children, delicate sensibilities, or overzealous amounts of moral turpitude.