A Bureaucrat's Aside Re: District 6 Transition

As today is one of the last days for Councilwoman Payne, I got to wondering:

Given the animosity between Ms. Payne and former Councilman Sala Udin, and
Given the fact that Ms. Payne is probably going to challenge Rep. Jake Wheatley for his State House seat, and
Given that the incoming Councilman Daniel LaVelle was an aide to both Udin and Wheatley, and
Given the well known animosity and rancorous election between Ms. Payne and Mr. LaVelle's supporters...

Do you think Ms. Payne will "drop a deuce" somewhere in the office, just out of spite?

ADB's Best of 2009

So as the year is winding to a close, we figured we'd write a post of all of our favorite posts from the previous year, which is, in no way filler because we're too hungover to come up with something new.

The posts that generated the biggest response was the four part G-20 Guide to Pittsburgh (I, II, III, IV), which nearly broke my visitor counter. Our favorite line of the whole series was:

At some point, steel happened and it defined the Region; then it stopped, which also defined the Region.

which was also very much enjoyed by a member of dead tree media (who shall go nameless for now).

To be honest, though: the initial idea was to be a post along the lines of "Dan Onorato Announces Pittsburgh Rules for G-20 Visitors," and was going to detail penalties for not observing the Pittsburgh left, stealing parking chairs, or wearing Cleveland paraphernalia. We started to write the post and then decided that the format was too restrictive, and opted for the travel guide instead. Then the damned thing near exploded.

But some of our other personal favorites:

Doug Shields Bows out of Mayor's Race (If you've been to a Council District 5 Public meeting, you'll be shocked to know that this is not a transcript.)

Angry Drunk Bureaucrat Slams Dowd's & Ravenstahl's Half-assed Campaign Finance Proposals (ADB is still running for Overlord, thankyouverymuch)

Zober Begins Work on Volume 5 of Enemies List (We got a few comments praising this post from people who have since disappeared under mysterious circumstances.)

Your Millenarianism for Today (Fun Fact: PA Liquor Control Laws were written by Moses.)

Anthony Coghill Wants to Show You His Crotch (At the heart of this blog, you will find a snickering 12-year old.)

Victims 2009 - Part 2 (If for nothing than the oblique Star Trek reference.)

Sneak Peak at Web-based Permitting (We worked very hard on the picture and crashed Photoshop three times.)

Adding to the Noise (The line "No more evil subsidized corn, Agnes" tickles us in a place that is both pleasurable and creepy.)

PA State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe Believes Dwarves Are Stealing His Socks (PA Politicians be crazy.)

And our least favorite post of the year?

This one, actually... as we felt it was a cop out and merely filler for the weekly quota.

2009 Burn List

As far as you know, we have a friend who every year assembles personal do-dads, newspaper clippings, photos, letters, etc. and ceremonially burns them over the remnants of his Christmas tree on December 31. In the spirit of the New Year, it is a cathartic chance to start afresh, free from the burdens of the previous year and to start fresh anew. Around here, we have plenty to throw onto our virtual fire:

* G-20: Good grief. If there was one Pittsburgh-National-International story that we got sick of during the year it was the G-20 brouhaha. Even though it only lasted for a few days, we were stuck with, not only the barricades, the traffic restrictions, a dead downtown, security up the wazoo, police overreaction, and pseudo-anarchists with unfathomable rage towards pancakes, we got hammered with nausea inducing, feel good Pittsburgh stories from the media telling us how great we were and how awesome it is in Pittsburgh. Perhaps it's our deep seated Catholic guilt, our annoying Protestant work ethic, or our lingering zen-like stoicism, but frankly we got tired of it and we just wanted to get back to our regular lives.

* The Great Recession: Of course, even if we wanted to get back to our regular lives, we couldn't as about 10% of us had been laid off. We watched friends and relatives struggle with trying to find a job, barely holding on to the ones they had, applying and reapplying for unemployment, losing their houses, or going bankrupt. We'll admit that once or twice we tasted the cat's food, you know, just in case we were going to have to resort to eating it somewhere down the line. Hopefully the worst has past.

* The Health Care Debate: Nothing this year brought out the worst in the country than the idea that people probably shouldn't worry about going broke trying to live. It has been a debate that, in more civilized times, would have been about the costs of Federal Government intervention versus the benefits of providing long term cost controls to the Citizenry, but instead devolved into petty partisanship, name calling, lies, and assorted blubbering craziness (both real and feigned). At the (near) end of the rancorousness, we sadly saw some of the worst aspects of our system exposed and came to the realization that a lot of the people we put into higher office are not just douchebags, but ultra-mega douchebags.

* Local Politics: And at the local level, we had another year of Lilliputian politics in Pittsburgh involving an (effectively) uncontested Mayoral race, a County Executive intent on doing nothing that would jeopardize his run for higher office, local elected "leadership" that can barely find its own asshole with two hands and a flashlight, and the stinking suspicion that money and election contributions (rather than good policy) is what happens to be driving Pittsburgh Government. Perhaps it is too optimistic, but I would like a month to go by without a story about political indiscretions, rumors of bribery, grand jury investigations, or City Council Circus behavior.

* The Mon-Fayette Expressway: It's on my list of things to burn every year, but, as the folks in Harrisburg have lost the receipt, I can't even exchange it for something nicer or more useful.

Well, that's my burn list. Feel free to add more in the comments.

Merry Christmas!

A Bureaucrat's Aside Re: Tuition Tax - The Deadening

And so it came to pass that all that was wrong was now right and those that deserved to were certain to live a long and happy life.

Or did it?

There have been mumblings that the Mayor's Office was playing a high stakes game of chicken, in which the real goal was to get PILOT commitments from the Universities and from certain larger non-profits (like Highmark), which they did. Of course, that would mean that someone in the Mayor's Office was being particularly clever and was at least five steps ahead of the opponents at all time.

But, we know that this can't be true because, ipso facto people that work in local government are not very smart. Believe me; I am, frankly, dumber than a bag of rocks... and I like to think of myself as one of the smart ones 'round these here parts, because I recognize that I am, frankly, dumber than a bag of rocks. Other folks *cough* gastheif *cough* are not as blessed.

I'll tell you what's...er... telling though -- this picture of Lukey and Mark Nordenberg.



Notice the hand in the pocket (something that we've mentioned before). According to the Pop Up Video for Alanis Morisette's "One Hand In My Pocket" video, if someone always puts his hands in his pocket then this person might be lacking self confidence and so always feels uncomfortable around other people.

So, make of that what you will.

My One String Harp

If you've followed this blog with any regularity, you'll be familiar with my peculiar bugbear with regard to vacant land. If so, feel free to skip this post as it devolves into the typical rantings and raving you'd expect from someone who's obsessed with things like "tax increments" and "the name of Captain Picard's fish on Start Trek: The Next Generation."* If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, keep reading.

From the P-G:

Blight and abandoned properties are a "growing crisis," robbing this region of millions of dollars. So says a report just released by Sustainable Pittsburgh, the host of a summit on the topic last week.

Vacant and decrepit land is a regional liability in marketing and attracting investment, said John Kromer, a senior consultant at the Fels Institute at the University of Pennsylvania and the keynote speaker.

"If people actually knew how much money they are losing by not having these properties on the tax rolls it might spur them to action," said Ginette Walker Vinski, communications manager for Sustainable Pittsburgh. "If you make the economic case on a regional level, there's so much money we could be making..."

Mike Madison jumps in with a proposal over here, in which he argues for a University sponsored land banking system, which the City does not have at this point in any workable form (although several other Cities do... the land bank bit, not the University part, that is). However, the most important bit being

Most of that vacant land is taxable in theory, but there is no tax revenue associated with it. It's not being developed.

Which brings me to my one string harp:

Back in the day, when the Sabre Systems property assessments first came in, the Pittsburgh City Council, in an effort to cut off its nose to spite its face, eliminated the land/building split on property taxes. Up until this point, land was taxed at a higher rate than the building that sat upon it. When the land/building split was removed, the combined value of the land & building were taxed at the same rate.

So, what this means is that under the old system, if you had a vacant property with a low value, but you were taxed at a really high rate; under the new system you have a vacant property with a low value with a really low rate. If you are a rational actor, therefore, under the new system it is in your best interest to keep a property vacant or a low value building in a state of disrepair, else your taxes go up. Moreover, because I depend on tax money to feed my family, if you're sitting on a piece of vacant property for an extended period of time, you're still paying a really high rate to the City.

I would be curious, therefore, to see what the rate of vacant and abandoned properties was prior to the elimination of the land/building split and the rate is currently. My sense, from nothing more than driving down Fifth Avenue, is that the rate of vacant and abandoned properties has gone up.

Now, I'm not saying that reinstituting the split is going to fix this property problem, but I am saying that it should provide negative incentives for people to leave property vacant.

But that's my one note tune and I guess I'm the only one singing it.

---
* A virtual cookie to the first one to know this one. No Googling.

Ravenstahl, Universities Reach Agreement

University of Pittsburgh President Mark Nordenberg and President of the ΓΟΠ Fraternity, Luke Ravenstahl, reached an agreement today that would not revoke the fraternity's charter in advance of the Homecoming Game.

"We do not think that it's right to extort money from the college," said Nordenberg at a press conference, "but fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life."

Both Nordenberg and Ravenstahl have been at loggerheads regarding the responsibility of fees in lieu of taxes for the Fraternity, as well as the presence of a dead horse in the President's office.

President Ravenstahl issued a statement saying, "The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests - we did. You can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America."

Details of the agreement were not released, but sources close to the story indicate that the Fraternity will be lifted from double secret probation and will be returned their stuff, even the stuff they didn't steal. In exchange, the Homecoming parade will not be disrupted by marbles, tanks, or Kevin Bacon.

The ΓΟΠ Fraternity has been accused with dumping a truckload of fizzies into the swim meet, delivering the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner, filling the trees with underwear every Halloween, and making the toilets explode every spring.

The Fraternity will be holding their annual Toga Party next Friday, which, they remind everyone, "will not be an orgy."

Details on the full scope of the deal are still forthcoming.

Greentree Man Accepts Responsibility for Muffed On-side Kick

Local Steelers fan Tony "Duckman" Sculluci issued a statement today apologizing for a failed on-side kick that nearly resulted in a loss to the Green Bay Packers yesterday at Heinz Field.

Mr. Sculluci had inadvertently allowed a friend identified only a "Joey" to momentarily place an Iron City beer onto his Terrible Towel, following a fourth quarter touchdown.

"We were all there in the rumpus room, and I had just finishing waving it and I put it down to grab some more nachos, when 'Joey' goes and puts his beer down on the towel. Next thing I know *BAM*! 9 Yards. I should have been more careful."

Insiders speculate that "Joey" is known Cleveland Browns fan Joseph Carey, a long time college friend of Mr. Sculluci, who may have purposefully placed the beer on the towel in order to guarantee a Steelers loss. Calls to the Carey residence were not returned.

Pittsburgh sports analyst and commentator Guy Junker says that this was probably not Mr. Sculluci's fault.

"I'm sure that the Steelers Organization appreciates the dedication of it's fan base and how personal they take the team's record, but one man's actions at home would not explain the poor execution of that play, especially considering the recent string of losses. If anything, it means that there are thousands of fans that are not wearing their lucky jerseys, aren't listen to the radio during the game, or haven't touched their Myron Cope bobble head doll prior to the game. Pittsburgh fans everywhere really need to step up their game."

A Steelers Nationwide alert has been issued by the Rooney Family. Steelers fans are encouraged to double their "fandemonium" and the team has shifted money away from the Offensive Line and Special Teams budgets to assist in these efforts.

Mr. Sculluci, however, remains penitent.

"I always knew that I had a mystical bond with my team, but I had no idea that it was directly connected to their ability to execute onside kicks. For that I am truly sorry."

Of Mice and Men

Caught this story in the Trib:

The cafeteria in Pennsylvania's Capitol was shut down and workers scoured the facility Friday after health inspectors found evidence of a rodent infestation and dishwashing water that wasn't hot enough.

The ground-floor cafeteria, a popular coffee and lunch spot for visitors to the statehouse and people who work there, was closed Thursday after state Department of Agriculture officials made an unannounced inspection.

"There were mouse droppings around the facility too numerous to mention," said Justin Fleming, a spokesman for the state Agriculture Department.

The droppings, which indicate the presence of live mice, are considered an imminent health risk, Fleming said. A leak that prevented the water in dishwashers from becoming hot enough to sterilize plates and utensils also was considered an imminent threat, he said...

The word "Under the Dome" is that the rats in the legislature were tired of the competition.

Rumors are that former Democratic Whip Bill DeWeese had been seen last week fighting a rodent for a piece of cheese. That rodent was later identified as Republican Minority Whip Mike Turzai.

The foul, disease filled festering vermin will be trapped and sent off to be used as snake food, while the mice will be humanely released elsewhere on Capital grounds.

Rule #35

*Creaks open ancient tome and blows away thick layer of dust*

Rule #35: It will always take longer than expected.