Thursday, May 25, 2006

City Council 'consultants' funds build political support

This is what I mean by calling the miss-spending by those on City Council a "WHICH Hunt" -- rather than a "WITCH Hunt."

They all are guilty as the day is long. Guilty of fumbles in public trust. Guilty of padding their own "nests."
City Council 'consultants' funds build political support: "An activist wonk. A tree trimmer. Some buddies who can do office work. A political backer. All have been considered professional services consultants under Pittsburgh City Council's loose spending guidelines.

Councilwoman Twanda Carlisle, whose spending has been referred to county prosecutors and the State Ethics Commission, is council's top spender on consultants. Since 2002, she has steered $134,300 to two dozen private individuals for services, including a half-dozen who were also involved in her 2003 election campaign.

A review of other council members' spending shows that none steered as much money to consultants as she did. But most, at one time or another, have used city funds to pay a friend, buy something for a key community group, or even retain a lawyer to intervene in a private legal fight. The funds have served to build political support.

All council members interviewed yesterday agreed that more controls were needed, but defended their own spending."
We don't need anything more in terms of "built in controls" that go beyond the city's charter. We don't need a third or fourth oversight group as we already have TWO and neither of them are doing a good job.

What we need is already built into the city charter and has been DEAD. The city is to have a "Ethics Review Board" -- but Mayor Murphy saw to its closure. It was shut down as new appointments were never made to the five person board.

This is the same ploy that crippled the "Citzens Police Review Board." They kill the body by starvation. Don't feed it new members and appointements.

Yesterday a KQV Poll asked about the re-creation of the Ethics Review Board and a huge majority of listeners (both callers and with the on-line clicks) wanted it to come back. The numbers of the poll won't be released until the end of the week, if you didn't catch them on the closing comment at 7 pm. (sadly)

The City's GOP Committee wrote a letter to new Mayor, Bob O'Connor, in January 2006 asking for him to restart the ethics board too. That was the right thing to do -- as we have a new administration. We need the new mayor to fix ills of the past administration.

But there has been no reply on this topic, to the best of our knowledge.

Bob was part of the problem when he was City Council President. That's when the ethics board died -- also on his watch. So, I do hold out hope -- as I'm thinking about the positive. But, I'm not holding my breath.

Paul Sentner, an activist who helped to put an end to the ugly "WE HAV" program, emailed me today with another great idea. He'd like to see KQV Radio take up the cause of getting an Ombudsman put into the fabric of city and county government.

The new County Charter had an Ombudsman component that was taken out of the plan at the last moment before it went to the people for ratification. That quick switch was under the watchful eyes of Michael Lamb.

Meanwhile, Bill Peduto is all hyped about sharing his "template" for revealing how his office spends its taxpayer money, nearly $100,000 annually, or nearly a half-million dollars per term.

That was above and beyond the cool $1-million each office got as part of the "neighborhood needs money" from not too distance years. The City's Republican Party, and I too, had called for the ending of those pork accounts as well -- years ago.

The neighborhood needs money SCAM was (and is to this day) a joke. It is the personification of a big fat corruption, cronie, $9-million ploy to make the rich richer and the poor poorer -- all while keeping power right where it sat.

If any news organization wants to do a real investigation, begin to look at that money and miss-spending. Then perhaps the investigators (legal authorities) could put a few others (WHICH ONES) out of office and into the limelight of public review and eventual convictions.

First things first: Re-start the ethics board.

If William Peduto really wants to be candid with public disclosure on spending, he needs to re-awaken a past project I was involved with -- campaign finance reform. An advisory group was pulled together in 2004-2005. We had meetings. We issued a report to the councilman. But, the report was never made public. He sat on it. He didn't do anything.

Part of my suggested solution that came about as a result of those discussions is a transparent PAC account. PAC accounts need to be transparent, just as office accounts. And, citizen / voters need to see these funds come and go as well. And, the transparent PAC account goes way, way, way beyond what is being suggested as a 'template.' We should see real-time movement of money, not just what someone types into a computer form.

Cooking the books will be harder with Transparent PAC Accounts -- and TRANSPARENT Officeholder Accounts.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This spending wouldn't be so out of hand if there was a city controller actually doing the job of auditing accounts and reviewing expenitures and contract performance. There is a lot of blame to go around betwwen council and the oversight boards but it's the controller's job to check in to this spending.

Mark Rauterkus said...

Right on!

I sense that this could be enough for some reformer to run on for the next controller's election.

Tony Pecora (present controller) is such a nice guy... just what Pittsburgh dose NOT need.

Tony P got handed that job when Tom Flaherty got elected to the bench as judge.

Mark Rauterkus said...

By the way, I don't want to be a candiate for Controller. No way.

I would not mind being on a committee for a candidate to run against the sitting controller however. I would love to get with others to raise a candidate or two -- on for the D primary and one for the general election.

Mark Rauterkus said...

City Council 'consultants' funds build political support

Thursday, May 25, 2006
By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Chart:
City money, consulting fees




An activist wonk. A tree trimmer. Some buddies who can do office work. A political backer. All have been considered professional services consultants under Pittsburgh City Council's loose spending guidelines.

Councilwoman Twanda Carlisle, whose spending has been referred to county prosecutors and the State Ethics Commission, is council's top spender on consultants. Since 2002, she has steered $134,300 to two dozen private individuals for services, including a half-dozen who were also involved in her 2003 election campaign.

A review of other council members' spending shows that none steered as much money to consultants as she did. But most, at one time or another, have used city funds to pay a friend, buy something for a key community group, or even retain a lawyer to intervene in a private legal fight. The funds have served to build political support.

All council members interviewed yesterday agreed that more controls were needed, but defended their own spending.

"I use this money any way I can to assist the residents in my district," said Councilman Jim Motznik. "I'm not going to change anything I do."

Each council member has a budget of $77,000 for staff, and $8,000 for various other office expenses, mostly for consulting. Under current rules, they can freely shift money from staff to consulting, though most do not.

They had a total of $99,445 each for staff and office expenses in 2003.

Mr. Motznik has been the most creative spender.

Since 2002, he has paid a total of $19,300 to Jack Carabinos, who has done everything from maintaining databases to cleaning community center bathrooms, the councilman said. Yesterday Mr. Carabinos was circulating petitions to get street cleaning services for part of Brookline.

Mr. Motznik has hired lawyers to help residents get a day care center to move its Dumpster and to prevent construction of a cell phone tower. When he found out that John R. Boyle of Carrick had been trying for 50 years to get a neighbor just across the city line to remove a fence from Mr. Boyle's property, the councilman paid attorney Robert W. Kennedy Jr. to sue to have it moved.

Last year, Mr. Motznik paid Gary's Tree & Landscaping $1,000 to cut down three dangerously leaning trees from a neglected property on Fordham Avenue in Brookline.

Mr. Motznik said the people who the lawyers and tree trimmers helped weren't his campaign supporters before. "They're all supporters now," he said.

In 2002 and 2003, Mr. Motznik hired Prime Solutions Capital Corp. to "do some research and financial analysis for me," he said. The wife of that firm's owner was a contributor to his 2001 campaign.

"I don't have a work document," he said of the firm's output. "I would go to their offices with a proposed budget, and we talked about what could be changed."

Councilman Len Bodack paid Robert Kramm, a longtime Democratic Committee member, $28,000 in consulting funds in 2003 and 2004 to staff a satellite office in Lawrenceville and visit senior citizen centers. Mr. Kramm helped seniors fill out applications for tax relief and rent rebates, and brought back complaints about trash, drug activity, noise and sewer problems, the councilman said.

Mr. Bodack also used $4,675 from the consulting fund to buy a photocopier for community group Lawrenceville United. He could have tapped other city funds that are often used for community groups, he said. "I guess [the consulting fund] process was quicker than going through the neighborhood [funding] process."

After Council Finance Chair Doug Shields took office in 2004, he paid Reed J. Millar, who was his campaign manager in 2003, $2,375 to do office work. "He was never getting a campaign check and a city check at the same time," Mr. Shields said.

His main consultant, Connie Sukernek, previously worked for then-Councilman Bob O'Connor, now the mayor. She is frequently seen working in his council office or in the Council Chamber.

"She has an incredible wealth of talent with media relations and for writing," Mr. Shields said.

Councilman William Peduto admired community activist Pat Clark's work battling then-Mayor Tom Murphy's Downtown redevelopment plans. So he made him a consultant, charging him with increasing young people's involvement in public policy.

For $11,500 over three years, Mr. Clark managed the Guyasuta Fellowship. Under that program, Mr. Peduto paid eight young people to do studies of everything from transportation to art, all of which are posted on the city's Web site. The eight fellows were paid from $400 to $3,238 from the consulting budget.

Mr. Clark became a political supporter, helping Mr. Peduto's 2005 mayoral bid. So did at least one of the fellows, Khari Mosley, now director of the Pittsburgh League of Young Voters.

Council President Luke Ravenstahl has proposed reforms that would require temporary employees and consultants to document their work and prevent the shifting of salary money to consultants. Council may vote on the proposal Wednesday.

The reforms wouldn't bar things like the $6,010 he paid to Ryan Connelly, who he describes as "a longtime friend," for office work in 2004 and 2005. He also paid Anthony Beatty, son of a Democratic Committee member, $4,210 for work as a summer intern in 2005.

Ms. Carlisle has not yet agreed to detail what the 24 consultants she hired since 2002 did, citing the legal inquiry. Council members Dan Deasy, Jeff Koch and Tonya Payne, all inaugurated within the last year, have racked up little consulting spending.

Like most council members interviewed, Mr. Ravenstahl did not believe there should be regulations on who council members hire as consultants. "We know who we need on our staff and in our office," he said.

Nor did he believe there was anything wrong with paying from council's budget for work done outside the office, or writing checks from the consulting fund to community groups or Little Leagues, as some council members do. "Those expenditures, for the good of the community, should continue," he said.

On that point, there's no consensus. "All that money is geared to the function of the office, and the office only," said Mr. Shields.

Councilmen Shields, Peduto, Deasy and Ravenstahl have said they will post their spending records on their Web sites by the end of the week.

(Rich Lord can be reached at rlord@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1542.

Anonymous said...

It's funny. Yesterday I posted a comment that there was only one person who could beat Fontana and today you take a shot at Mike Lamb.

Mark Rauterkus said...

Lamb got a few write in votes on May 16.

I didn't take a shot at him -- but did point out a fact in history.

What does Lamb say about "oversight" now?

Lamb could beat Fontana like a drum.

I offered him my spot in the 2005 race -- but he would have needed to pull out of the race for mayor and jump out of the D party for a few months.

I was on the ballot and would have gone to work for him to win that election.

Didn't bite.

Mark Rauterkus said...

I have to eat my words.

I do WANT to be a candidate for controller.