Council pushes through various bills before deadline

As the second best source for local news reported, Pittsburgh City Council, mistaking itself for a group of drunken college students, today started it's end of the semester rush to finish all of it's work, in the hope of passing Introduction to LED Billboards, Public Expenditure Analysis, Environmental Sciences, and Zen and the Art of Rhetoric. In all, I think everyone is just shooting for a C+ Average.

Anyway, amidst the flurry of bills that were introduced there were a few that the P-G missed:

* A bill to require the Historic Review commission to mark the location of all the former Isaly's as a Pittsburgh way finder system.
* A bill to not go for it on 4th and Goal.
* A bill increase the minimum drink limit at Council to 4.
* A bill amending the capital budget by diverting $6,000 from Mainstreet improvement on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill to Mainstreet improvement on East Ohio Street in East Allegheny.
* A bill re-amending the capital budget by re-diverting $6,000 from Mainstreet improvement on East Ohio Street in East Allegheny to Mainstreet improvement on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill.
* A bill re-re-amending the capital budget by re-re-diverting $6,000 from Mainstreet improvement on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill to Mainstreet improvement on East Ohio Street in East Allegheny.
* A bill re-re-re-amending the capital budget by re-re-re-diverting $6,000 from Mainstreet improvement on East Ohio Street in East Allegheny to Mainstreet improvement on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill.
* A bill amending the capital budget by diverting $6,000 from Mainstreet improvement on Broadway Avenue in Beechview, $3,000 to Mainstreet improvement on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill and $3,000 to Mainstreet improvement on East Ohio Street in East Allegheny.
* A bill amending the City Charter making the Councilperson representing Beechview give the Councilpersons representing Squirrel Hill and East Allegheny a foot rub.
* A bill telling the Councilpersons representing Squirrel Hill and East Allegheny to shut the hell up.
* A bill to why don't you make me shut the hell up.
* A bill to oh, on it's on now.
* A bill to throw a right, a left hook, a right jab, to pull hair, to kick in the crotch, and to bash the Councilperson's head off the table.
* A bill to pick up the Councilman's teeth off of the Council floor.
* A bill to call the ambulance...

* A bill to make December 14 Chocolate Pudding Day in the City of Pittsburgh.
* A bill to end this list of bills.

In all, it was one of the more exciting meetings.

Bored of Review

And in the center ring between the World's Fattest Nun and the Rare Two Trunked Elephant, we have this:

Pittsburgh City Council today delayed a confirmation vote on Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's nominations to the Citizen Police Review Board until it can take up legislation clarifying the nomination process.

The decision came after about 20 residents demanded council take action to protect the board's independence -- and after a debate over Council President Darlene Harris' authority.

When Mrs. Harris announced she had decided to delay a confirmation vote on the nominations, council members Bruce Kraus, Bill Peduto and Doug Shields challenged her authority and demanded that council take a vote on postponing the confirmation proceedings.

Strangely enough, her Authority is entire made up of Ravenstahl Appointees, including the Mayor's Brother, Cousin, Former Brother-in-Law, his Chief of Staff's second Wife, and his Realtor

Council recessed its meeting for discussion with the city solicitor's office. Afterwards, council voted to delay the confirmation proceedings until July 27.

Mr. Kraus, Mr. Peduto and Mr. Shields shared Mrs. Harris' desire to delay confirmation but objected to her unilateral approach.

Mr. Kraus preferred a bilateral approach, Mr. Peduto a trilateral approach, and Mr. Shields a dodecahedronical approach.

"Where did you find that authority?" Mr. Shields asked her. "I'd like to see where it's written that you have the authority to do that."

"And moreover, where did you find Waldo," the Councilman continued, "And Bobby Fischer? And Mr. Goodbar?"

On June 18, Mr. Ravenstahl proposed replacing five of the board's seven members. He proposed nominating two members to new terms.

He also proposed nominating three to five, a quarter past six, and 25% off with a purchase of equal or lesser value.

More tomorrow if I'm still loopy from the heat.

Council President Orders Change of Paint Colors

In a stunning turn of events, Council President Darlene Harris has ordered the maintenance staff of the City Council building to change the paint color of the 5th floor outside of council chambers from "off cream governmental white" to "official cream-white".

"I have been agonizing over this decision for the last seven months," said the Council President at an early morning press conference, "and I feel that this is will be the biggest decision that I will ever make as Council President."

The Council President had originally ordered the area outside of Council Chambers to be painted "off governmental white" several months ago, after an intense series of internal meetings. After a few months, however, the Council President had second thoughts and order her staff to re-examine the previous decision. After personal intervention from the Council President herself, the decision was rescinded and the "official cream-white" was re-established.

Total cost for both the change and the change back is expected to be three quarters of a million dollars.

The Council President says that she's pleased with the decision, and says that she will devote the next three months towards the re-laminating process of Council chamber, which she terms "her highest priority" for the foreseeable future.

Location, Location, Allocation

One of the things you hate to hear if you work for government is "a hands-on elected rep." To wit:

For months, Pittsburgh Councilman Ricky Burgess has urged that scant city resources should go mostly to the neighborhoods that need the most help. On Tuesday, he plans to introduce bills that would write that philosophy into the city code.

He wants to change the way the city spends federal Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG, money. The city expects $16.5 million in such aid this year, and traditionally it is spread liberally, though technically it is to be spent only in low-income "CD-eligible" census tracts.

Mr. Burgess would concentrate the federal funds on the poorest areas. "It seems to me that CDBG dollars should always be used as significant enhancements for communities that are struggling," he said last week, and overall city investments should be "based on need, rather than on political power."

A plank likely to be controversial on council would redistribute the $675,000 fraction of CDBG funding that is split evenly among the nine council members. Now, each gets to dole out around $75,000 a year to community groups. He would instead give each council member control over around $99 in grant money for each census block -- a fraction of a tract -- that meets federal guidelines for distress in his or her district...

Now, we'll set aside for the moment the fact that Rev. Burgess would get $40,000 more dollars for his district under his new plan than under the existing plan and concentrate on whether this is effective policy or not.

First point, made by Councilwoman Rudiak:

She said some community groups in her district serve neighborhoods that are "at the tipping point" but not poor enough to receive CDBG money. She said those groups are frustrated that "we need to move backward [economically] before we can move forward" using the grants.

Which is a salient point: Carrick may not be in critical condition today (like parts of Rev. Burgess' district), but if one looks closely one can see that there's potential for the neighborhood to slide into oblivion. Astute folks from the South Hills will point out that the Carrick of today is pretty much the Garfield of 40 years ago. The question is whether good money should be spent on stopping the decline of a neighborhood versus trying to resurrect one. My guess is that the bang for the buck is in Carrick.

Second, and tangentially related: Council Districts 2 & 3 have a good mixture of fairly decent neighborhoods and fairly distressed ones. Council District 5 has predominantly choice neighborhoods, with one exceptionally distressed neighborhood. The need in those districts may, in fact, be as great if not greater than District 5 & 9, but because they are mixed in with "good" neighborhoods, they won't have as much funding available.

Third, the dangerous implication: what Rev. Burgess is proposing discourages Council Members from improving their neighborhoods' conditions. If I have $114,000 in CDBG money in my pocket as councilman and if I want to be re-elected, I'm going to want to spread that money around to as many groups/neighborhoods/people as possible. In fact, in order to assure that I get more money next time, I'm not going to want to give too much money to any one area, in the off chance that their condition improves, and it's no longer eligible for funding. My goal is to improve the condition just up to the point where it is eligible, but no more.

Perhaps that's a cynical view for an extra $40,000, but in a lot of these more distressed neighborhoods, even $5,000 can buy you a lot of good will with the voters. (And as these areas are defined by the Census, that's $400,000 over 10 years!)

This brings me back to the whole extra $40,000 for Rev. Burgess' district. Now, no one is challenging the need for improvements in District 9, but the question is who benefits under the proposed arrangement? Clearly, District 6 & 9 would benefit the most. This makes me wonder if Rev. Burgess would feel the same way if his district was realigned to include more affluent areas or if he was a Council Member at-large.

Anyway... I lost my train of thought here (I warned everyone about that). Chris Potter has some wonkiness over here that covers some of the same points, and some different ones, and doesn't use the word "oblivion".

Box of Rocks Elected City Council President

A bitterly divided Pittsburgh City Council reached a surprise decision in the race for its new president today, picking A Box of Rocks in a 5-4 vote.

The struggle for Council Presidency had coalesced around Councilmen Rev. Ricky Burgess and Bill Peduto, but when neither of them could muster the necessary 5 votes, both camps scrambled over the weekend to find a compromise candidate.

Council broke into two camps: one supporting A Bag of Hammers and the other supporting A Sharp Marble. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's office lobbied extensively for A Bag of Hair, in an effort to thwart opponents on council.

In early morning conferences, however, A Box of Rocks was identified as a potential compromise candidate and quickly garnered the necessary 5 votes to win.

Before election to council, A Box of Rocks was previously in charge of the City's "Lights on While No One's Home" Program, and more recently headed the "Elevator Short of Top Floor" and "Extracting Water in Boots with Instructions Written on Heel" Commissions. Representatives from the Sharp Knives in Drawers Organization, a City Government watchdog group, says that "A Box of Rocks provides the intellectual leadership that Council deserves."

Prevailing Winds

Honestly, it says something about City Council that they were caught off guard and sniped by the Mayor's Office at the last minute:

A proposed new development rule that had seemed well on its way into the city of Pittsburgh's code book was surprisingly derailed yesterday by a mayoral veto.

Some City Council members made a last-minute effort last night to override the veto, but the attempt fell one vote short of the six votes needed for an override...

Mr. Ravenstahl had said long before the vote that he did not "anticipate being a strong advocate against it." But at 3:54 p.m., his office sent over a veto message saying that the piece "has too many vague and ambiguous terms, needs additional input from the entire community, and, most importantly, has the potential to hurt Pittsburgh."

Because the veto came about eight hours before the end of the two-year council session, there was no way, under the city code, for the body to meet to vote to override. Special meetings can be called only with 24 hours notice.

Not having heard that the legislation had been signed as of yesterday when Jim Motznik resigned, I assumed that Luke was getting pressure from forces both inside and outside City government and was going to pull out the veto pen. Frankly, I was surprised that the Mayor sent over the veto message as early as 3:54 p.m. I can only assume that City Clerk Linda Johnson-Wasler was going home at 4, otherwise I would have expected the Mayor to wait until after Council was already (let's say) "filled with holiday cheer" at around 8 PM and completely unable to call any type of sensible meeting.

Although, I must say that the progress of this bill itself has been unusual all around: a major piece of legislation introduced after November elections with two lame-duck members, Council reluctantly giving it a public hearing, a domineering Council President railroading the bill through, infighting between council supporters of the bill, a reluctance by Council Members to hear possible side effects of the legislation, and a local union twisting thumb screws behind closed doors. Folks can call what the Mayor did "a blatant abuse of power," but something about how this bill came about does not sit easy in my stomach.

(That may be last night's mixture of pork, sauerkraut and champagne, however, which has been known to cause similar gastrointestinal... uh... issues.)

Now, personally, I don't think that this legislation is particularly well thought out to begin with and I don't believe that our elected officials have any clue as to what the bill will actually do to the City. Council is not known for thinking deeply about unintended consequences (or being intellectually curious at all for that matter), but I would recommend to them that they take this opportunity to have a real, in-depth analysis of what the consequences of this bill might be and then bring it back to the table. There may be ways that the City can effect the same desired outcomes which have not been considered by Council.

I mean, they don't want to be caught off guard again, right?

Here in My (Take Home) Car

OK, so on Friday the Mayor vetoed the Council Bill that would have cut back on take home cars, and then, in the same pen stroke, made the vetoed changes as an Executive Order. So it's abundantly clear now to those still not clear on the concept, that the issue was never really about the take home cars, but rather about who has the authority to manage the City: the Mayor or Council.

This issue, of course, has colored the last 4 months of the new Council and it seems that this will be a running theme for the foreseeable future.

So, at this point, Council could conceivably just let this whole thing blow over, chalk up a win, and get back to more pressing business... like a commendation for yours truly... but it could decide that it wants to override the veto, order the changes that are already in place, and thump their chests making a "Boo-ya!" noise.

And here's where it could get tricky: all the Mayor needs, it seems, is somebody with standing... say, a member of Public Works who had his car cut... to sue City Council for the change, arguing that they had no right to make the change, even though the changes have already been put in place.

The whole thing could end up in Commonwealth Court as a ruling on who has the power to do what under the City Homerule Charter... maybe even with City Solicitor George Specter representing Council, which would blow the strangeness quotient out of the water.

Given the current situation in Council (a lot of new members trying to assert their authority over everything), I don't think that this scenario is particularly unimaginable, even it is ridiculous and/or ludicrous.

Council has done plenty of strange stuff before. Like the epic Michelle Madoff/Ben Woods nude Jello wrestling.

That was weird.

Legion of Doom Elects Doug Shields as President

Metropolis (AP) - Despite a late push by the Ravenstahl administration, the Legion of Doom elected Councilman Doug Shields to the presidency of that auspicious body.

The vote came early today after the swearing in of several new members: Patrick Dowd, Ricky Burgess, The Riddler, Captain Cold, and Bruce Krauss. The vote came in at 19-1, with only Bizarro voting against Mr. Shields. Both Councilwoman Tonya Payne and The Toyman were absent.

Shield's election came as somewhat of a surprise to Grant Street as it was largely assumed that Jim Motznik had the backing of both Luke Ravenstahl and Lex Luthor. The schemes of the Supervillian were thwarted, however, when Gorilla Grodd switched his alliance late in the day Sunday; Luthor was likewise foiled by his inability to find support for the continuation of the Act 47 oversight and his Kill Superman agenda.

In a released statement to the press, Mr. Shields thanked his colleagues for their support and vowed that all will tremble before the Legion once their giant laser on the moon is complete.

Solomon Grundy, a frequent ally of Mr. Shields was ebullient about the vote.

"Me Solomon Grundy, is impressed with Doug's leadership on the Finance Committee and hopes that he will crush Green Lantern." Sinestro and Darlene Harris agreed with Mr. Grundy's Green Lantern policy, and will introduce legislation to that effect later this year.

Still, the lone hold out on Council, Bizarro, remained adamant in his opposition to Mr. Shields.

"Doug is worst candidate for Council. Me hate him so much. Doug need to learn how to speak up more often."

In a later statement, Mr. Shields reminded the press, "The Council President assumes the office of Mayor, should the Mayor die or leave office," adding "BWHAHAHAHAHA! HA!"

Dog Cat and not Fish Licenses

Fluffy and Mrs. Whiskers are going to do something secret in Bodack, Carlisle, Payne and Motznik's shoes: From the P-G:

A tentative Pittsburgh City Council vote on licensing cats ended in a tie today, setting up a final vote Tuesday that could go either way.

Council members Len Bodack, Twanda Carlisle, Tonya Payne and licensing bill sponsor Jim Motznik supported the bill. Members Dan Deasy, Darlene Harris, William Peduto and Doug Shields voted against. Councilman Jeff Koch abstained, meaning he's the swing vote on what has become a controversial issue.

"A lot of pressure on Mr. Koch next week," quipped Mr. Deasy after the vote.

Mr. Motznik argued that a $7 annual fee for cats that have been spayed or neutered, and $12 for those that have not, would allow the city to pin responsibility on owners of cats that cause property damage, and make it easier to return those that become lost and are captured.

"To me, it's a no-brainer," said Mr. Bodack. "It's something that's been needed for a long time."

Council President Shields countered that there's "a much lower level of concern" about cats than dogs, because the latter can cause injury.

Ms. Carlisle said that's an outdated perception. "That was yesteryear," she said. "In 2007, cats are more aggressive than they used to be."

Ms. Harris said she would prefer a one-time fee rather than "something you're paying over and over again."

"Twice in the last couple of weeks I've gone out to get my newspaper, and seen a cat on the porch," said Mr. Deasy. Nonetheless, they are not a big problem in his neighborhoods.

So, I ask you: where are these Council people living that they are frequented by cat attacks? Yellowstone? The Serengeti? Yusuf Islam's house? Is there a half-crazed Adam West standing outside their houses with a cat gun?

Council is wasting its time worrying about phantom cat attacks when it could be dealing with issues that are far more pressing and pertinent to the health and safety of this City: licensing lawyers.

Just yesterday, my neighbor was set upon by a pack of vicious litigators as she went outside for her mail. The pack would have chewed her wallet off if I hadn't had the good sense to turn the hose on them.

As I was riding to work, I saw two lawyers debriefing. On the street! Where children might see them! And there was another one digging through the trash looking for some pro bono work.

And if you go down to Legal Friends, you can see whole cages of them, disbarred and left to go feral. Those that can't be placed with a loving firm are forced to be euthanized.

This is truly a tragedy that we, as a society, should be able to fix.

Although, cats are waaaaay cuter.

Sticks and Stones

And then, there were nine.

Darlene Harris was sworn in as the newest member of Pittsburgh Council today, completing the transformation from feisty school board member to city legislator.

Her speech to a full Council Chamber, marked by tears when she thanked her 77-year-old mother, was shorter than most inaugural addresses. "Those of you in the room know that I'm a doer, not a talker," she said.

The 53-year-old Spring Hill native will serve out the remaining year of the term won by Luke Ravenstahl, who ascended to the mayor's office when Bob O'Connor died Sept. 1. She decisively won a Nov. 7 special election to the post.

*snicker* "Dooer" *snicker*
*snicker* "Poo-poo" *snicker*
*snicker* "Ca-ca" *snicker*

*cough*

Anyway, on council we now have the Book Thief, the Gas Thief, the Ditch Digger, the Other Ditch Digger, the Old School Hack, the Guy Who Won't Shut Up, Shadyside's Version of Otis, Tonya Payne and Darlene Harris.

The last two clearly do not convey the invective of the other noms de rigeur, and should clearly be abandoned in favor of epithets that fit Pittsburgh City Councilcritters.

I'm tentatively submitting for your approval "The Other Black Woman" and "The Troll", as possible monikers for these folks, but I'm willing to back down if more appropriate (and humorous) suggestions pop up in the comments.

Have at it!