This Blog Will Now Cost 10% More

OK, so the drink tax is now a done deal and only too late do I realize this was merely a trap to silence this blog.

On one hand you have a tax that funds the Port Authority; on the other hand, you have more expensive drinks at Gooski's, the Squirrel Cage, Penn Brewery, Mitchell's, Mullaney's, Piper's, D's, Big Jim's, Silky's, Sharp Edge (Emporium AND Creekhouse), Fat Head's, Ryan's, Kelly's, Buffalo Blues, and The Church. Your's truly is dependent on all of the above to power this blog.

Without the bus, I don't have the mind numbing tedium necessary to think up things like comparing the Mayor to a less competent George W. Bush without the whole "Male Cheerleader" thing.*

Without the drink, I don't have the fuel necessary to power my profanity laden rants and the protection necessary to keep the Downtown free WiFi waves out of my brain.

And, of course, I'm a contentious drunk, so I don't drink and drive... I drink and bus. [If you've never ridden the 61C and puked into the change box, well, you're a better person than me.]

But anyway, I'm not saying that the drink tax is directly aimed at me, but I have stocked up on beer, wine, vodka, gin, scotch, bourbon, port, mead, and sherry**, so I can exploit the "stay-at-home-and-drink-in-the-dark-alone" loophole in the law.

I hope you're happy, John DeFazio.

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* Give me a break... I got a ride home today.
** But no Jägermeister.... that's just nasty.

Political Obituary

It is with great sadness that we announce the political death of retired Allegheny County Sheriff Pete DeFazio from complications resulting from a macing.* He was 36 years with law enforcement.

Recently retired Sheriff Pete DeFazio is expected to plead guilty to one misdemeanor count in federal court tomorrow -- the culmination of a more than five-year investigation into corruption in the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office.

Mr. DeFazio, who retired at the end of October, will plead guilty to macing. That charge is defined as denying a benefit to a government employee for not contributing to a particular candidate or political party.

The former sheriff is not accused of pressuring any of his employees to donate money to his fund-raising campaigns. However, he is believed to have known about such a scheme and benefitted from the efforts of other officers in the department who did pressure deputies to donate.

He is to be interred along side the recently politically deceased former captain Frank Schiralli, former Chief Deputy Sheriff Dennis Skosnik, and former State Representative Jeff Habay at a minimum security halfway house.** Visiting hours will be from 1-3, Monday through Friday with conjugal visits on Saturday from 2-6 (no dudes, please).

Friends, family, and coworkers have been told, in lieu of flowers, to give $50 each to the Ravenstahl for Mayor campaign... or else.

Pete is politically survived by his brother and LensCrafters sideshow freak "Jumpin'" Johnny DeFazio.

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*We here at The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat were under the impression that a "macing" involved either a mishap at a Renaissance Faire or the culmination of a particularly unsuccessful date, as we have been involved in both.

**Mourners are invited to visit the currently under construction Cyril Wecht memorial designed to be the largest local monument to an indicted politician, ever.

I Shot the Sheriff (After My Property Was Put Up For Tax Sale)

Pittsburgh's Other, Other, Other, Newspaper of Record has this story on the recent move by the Allegheny County Sheriff's Department to advertise Sherrif's Sales in the Tribune Review, instead of the Post-Gazette. A clip:

~According to a Post-Gazette advertising official, the sheriff’s office never called to ask for a better price before withdrawing its ads.

~The Trib’s own general manager says his paper was just handed the deal by the sheriff’s office.

~While the Trib and the P-G have given similar amounts of coverage to recent indictments in the sheriff’s department, the P-G’s commentary has been more forceful and its investigative pieces more frequent. On Dec. 12, for instance, P-G columnist Ruth Ann Dailey wrote in a column, “Whatever the psychological motivations in the sheriff’s office, there were no checks and balances at work -- nothing to make potential wrong-doers think twice.” The P-G has even investigated whether the sheriff’s vehicles were washed too often, and asked in a Dec. 11 story about the office’s scandals, “Did the sheriff know what was going on? And if not, why not?”

~The sheriff’s office took an admittedly dumb gaffe personally, and the Trib was glad to gloat about it. A Post-Gazette letter announcing changes in ad rates was addressed to the late sheriff Eugene Coon and not Sheriff Pete DeFazio, who has been in office since 1997. “Gee, is that a slap in somebody’s face, too,” Fersch says. The letter was featured in the Trib’s Sunday Whispers column on Jan. 8.

The article then goes on to talk a bit more about how the Sheriff's Office is denying that politics played any part of it... yadda-yadda-yadda.

Those of you not familiar with Sheriff Sales can get this definition from Law.com:

n. an auction sale of property held by the sheriff pursuant to a writ (court order) of execution (to seize and sell the property) to satisfy (pay) a judgment, after notice to the public.

Usually this means a foreclosure on the mortgage, although I suppose that tax liens and water & sewer liens would also fit the bill.

I had heard about this change, and figured that the Sheriff was going to a cheaper provider (as is usually the case), although the article above indicates that price was never really a factor. The Sheriff's office is also required to notify you via certified mail, but that doesn't always work.

So, what's my point here? This: the Trib's subscription is decidely less than the Post-Gazette, although I find no reason to thoroughly back up this assertion. Therefore, tax sale announcements are going to be less widely distributed. Therefore, fewer people are going to show up at tax sales or be even aware that such sales are going on. Ergo, more property is seized and, more than likely, sold to an outside agency like GLS.

I'm also going to guess that the areas most likely to be seized aren't going to be in Fox Chapel or Shadyside, but rather the Hill District or Duquesne. Delinquency rates in low income municipalities and neighborhoods are appalling.

Lovely.

So words of advice: pay your mortgage, your taxes, and your water bills. If you don't, you may end up evicted... unless you read the Trib.

Pick your poison.

Flotsam and Jetsam

With Thanksgiving creeping up on me like some giant creeping thing, I haven't been able to put together a coherrant thought in about three days. So much the better, I suppose. Here are some uncoherrant thoughts and blatent misspelings:

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Thank you Dennis Skosnik for single handedly upping my sitemeter count by about 25%. I hope those of you that were brought here because of an indicted #2 man at the Allegheny County Sherrif's Office will stay around for the brutal mockings of local public figures and the damn good pie.

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I suppose I have to start serving pie now.

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Get well wishes to Public Works Director Guy Costa who is recovering from a brain tumor. Early rumors were that Guy was to either stay on in his role at DPW or was going to take over the highly sought after role of City Manager. We shall see.

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Speaking of which, as everyone heard, O'Connor asked for the resignation of all City Department heads. No word on whether this included Authority heads or not. This move, while not unexpected, is unusual in that O'Connor requested the resignation outright. Typically, I recall department heads "offering" their resignation out of courtesy rather than it being demanded of them. No word either on how this affects pension or unemployment benefits.

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Actually I could really go for some pie, now that I think about it... I wonder if there is any in the fridge...

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The neat thing about Pittsburgh is that if you know the people in charge, you see them all the time just hangin' around. Saw Bobby O outside the USX building the other day on a cell phone, looking semi-mayor-electish... but a lot shorter than I remember.

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ATTENTION PEOPLE OF PITTSBURGH: I HAVE RUN OUT OF PIE. PLEASE REMAIN CALM.

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And, of course now us Pittsburgh Political Junkies can get our own Trading Cards. Be sure to get your Dan Deasey rookie card; it'll be worth more than the Johnny DeFazio. [I already have three packages and, sigh, 3 Michael Divens. Anyone want to trade me for a Cyril?]

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That's all for now... time for pie.

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears...?

Two thoughts this morning as I look out over the increasingly bleak greyness that has enveloped this city like some sort of grey envelope:

 

First, I see that the Sherrif's Office of Allegheny County used deputies to perform landscaping work at the home of Chief Deputy Dennis Skosnik. 

Instead of going to work, he and another deputy planted bushes and laid seven to eight tons of river rock at Skosnik's house in North Fayette.

Gavin said he and three other deputies did more work at the house the following year.

The allegations came during prosecution questioning about a 2003 meeting organized by Schiralli in which deputies said Skosnik threatened to fire any deputies who didn't support Sheriff Pete DeFazio.

Absolute ridiculousness; doesn't the Sherrif's Office know that this is what interns are for?  A 30 year old Deputy can't be nearly as useful as a 21 year old Communications Major, who's only goals in life are attending a Star Wars Convention and rolling a 12 on D&D.  I'm using one as a foot rest right now, while another is transcribing this blog.  

 

Second, a big "Fuck You" to the residents of Summerset who don't want the intrusion of a busline into their neighborhood.  I've repeatedly defended the Summerset project as a good use of public resources as it reclaims property which otherwise would have sat unused and is now providing needed tax money for the City.  The residents, however, feel no need to be actually a part of the City and would rather just insulate themselves.  Are they afraid that their nice little gated community might be visited by, gasp, brown people... that is, brown people that aren't maids, gardeners, or nannies?  Are they afraid that the neighborhood will fall into decay like Squirrel Hill or Shadyside, also served by buslines.

 

While this may not be the most efficient use of PAT resources, as Port Authority spokesman Pat Grove said,

One of our lines, the 59U, will be extended to the South Side Works, but we don't poll the SouthSide residents to see if it's OK. These are public roads, these are city neighborhoods.

So Fuck You.