Well, They Do Deal with Waste After All...

If you were reading the Post-Gazette this weekend, and not using it to make bio-degradable seed pots like I do, you would have noticed this article regarding a blast from the not so distant past:

The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority is preparing to hire another ex-member of Pittsburgh City Council.

Tonya Payne, who lost her 2009 council re-election bid to R. Daniel Lavelle and later sparked a police investigation into petitions he filed for another candidate, has been offered the vacant job of safety manager...

Makes you wonder what the job description was:

Reports to the Finance Director. Supervises employee health and safety issues to help the authority control workers' compensation costs. Applicants must have at least four years of City Council and abandoning community groups experience. Vendettas against former City Council members and members of the State Legislature a plus.

But wait! There's more:

If she takes the job, Ms. Payne may cross paths not only with Mr. Deasy but with another former council colleague, Len Bodack Jr., who lost his 2007 re-election bid and now is on the authority payroll.

What? Seriously? Is the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority the Pittsburgh equivalent of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds?* I almost expect Doug Shields to show up on the hold line while you're waiting to get account information.

Not the "the voice of the hold line", mind you. I mean, Doug will be talking to you for thirty minutes while you're waiting to find out you need a new automatic meter reader installed. For Doug, this would be termed "a short conversation."

Anyway, I guess it's comforting to know that PWSA is only hiring the best and brightest of people that couldn't get enough people to like them. If that's true, I can only assume that Tom Corbett is going to be up for the job of PWSA Executive Director in 3 years.

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* This is an incredibly clever reference, by the way. You should look it up on Wikipedia. You'll pretty much hit yourself in the face and go "Gosh! That's clever." Go ahead, I'll wait.