Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The Devil in the Budgeting Details

OK so there's this odd little kerfluffle going on in Council which piqued my interest:

Pittsburgh City Council president calls URA allocation attempt 'sleazy'

That headline buries this piece of information:

Council President Darlene Harris said the measure to transfer money out of projects in East Allegheny, Observatory Hill, Brighton Heights, Troy Hill and Squirrel Hill neighborhoods...
So it sounds like the URA is asking Council to reallocate money to other (as they said about the stimulus) "ready-to-go" projects.

So what are these mystery projects? I can't make heads nor tails of it, but it's on page 281 of the .pdf, and it's labeled as a "new" project, whatever that's worth. That makes it sound like a special allocation by the Council to the URA for specific actions in specific neighborhood.

Could it be that someone on Council has tried to squirrel away money for her or his district's pet projects and is not willing to let it go to other districts? Any idea whose Council District contains East Allegheny, Observatory Hill, Brighton Heights, and Troy Hill?

(Hint: I already mentioned her name.)

No comments: