Candid, Closed, "C-R-A-P" - 2.5 hour overlord huddle without sunshine

KQV Radio is reporting about a closed door, two-and-half-hour meeting among the ICA (Oversight Board), Act 47 stewarts (another oversight board) and the mayor (toast).

What's up with that?

Who voted for them?

I was going to make a new logo for the campaign anong the LIFESAVER theme. Perhaps it should be a miner's helmet with a built in light.

Sadly, the canary croaked and our supply has done run dry.

Then Commonwealth Court says that the meeting can be closed. They deny a request by the news media to witness the huddle. What's up with that squared?

Attitudes set altitudes. Their approaches are in serious ruts. It's no wonder that Pittsburgh is in the toilet.

Closed door meetings stink.

Squabbling city fiscal boards meet The state's top economic development official, Dennis Yablonsky, told reporters after the 2 1/2-hour session that officials from the city's fiscal oversight board, the Act 47 recovery team and the Murphy administration all agreed to communicate better in the future.

Now that I've taken a walk and cooled a bit, here is my take on these matters.

Fact: the Chair of the ICA didn't show to the meeting. IMHO, he would have known full well that the meeting was illegal and shameful. Perhaps this is why Roddey is moving off of the board too. People with good credit to their names don't want to be associated with loosers and their trivial games.

As a sidebar, that thinking is the prime reason one of my sisters gives me for not being so supportive of my past or present runs for public office. She doesn't want to see her brother associated with that hopeless slime. That isn't her direct quote.


Can you say "flip-flop?" Commonwealth Court Senior Judge James R. Kelley denied the motion, saying the meeting was being held to 'develop an organizational strategy' regarding government business, which is allowed to be private under the Sunshine Act. In a footnote, the judge said the oversight board could be cited for contempt if it is proven later that the Sunshine Act was violated.

I've got to get the ruling of the judge. Perhaps the PG will post it to its site?

Note how the oversight board lawyer is referring questions to his attorney. It is a bad sign when one attorney calls another and they start passing the buck downstream. Mahone, the oversight board's lawyer, would not discuss the meeting, which was held at the offices of his Downtown law firm, Reed Smith. He referred questions to his attorney, Ed Diggs of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, who also would not comment, but instead watched over reporters as they stood outside the Reed Smith offices, waiting for meeting participants to emerge. It is another bad sign when attorneys are babysitting reporters. Do they need a lifeguard? Do they need a rescue tube?

In the next graph two people are saying the same thing, but it differs with what was said by another. But, neither are quoted directly.

Yablonsky and oversight board vice chairman John Murray, the Duquesne University chancellor and law professor, also said the meeting was not subject to the Sunshine Act, not because it was a strategy session, but rather because it regarded legal and contract matters exempted by the open meetings law.

This week's gold star for reporting goes to Tim McNulty. Hats off to the PG watchdogs and organizational efforts to file something to the judge in advance. That must have taken quick action. I'm pleased at the efforts there. Thanks so much.