You do the math and other tidbits from the PFT with boss of city school's counterpart

Luke Ravenstahl, Mark Roosevelt, a few students and a ton of media folks came together at 11:30 on the South Side at the offices of the Pgh Federation of Teachers to celebrate a $10,000 check for Pittsburgh's Promise from a 4,000 member organization.

After the formal presentation, in the lobby of the building, Mayor Luke stood his ground and took 15 minutes of questions from a hoard of journalist about yesterday's decision by the judge regarding the ongoing court case that pits the city against one of its top female commanders on the police force.

I learned nothing. Furthermore, I didn't hear what I wanted to hear in the post-game nor in the main event.

Luke should say, "Yesterday's decision by the judge is behind us. The Commander is back on the job today. We've settled the matter. Everyone is back to work. We are all trying to make this city a wonderful and safe city to live, work, and raise our children. The Commander is going to be compensated from the past mistakes. I'm sorry that this has been such a distraction."

As a taxpayer, I don't like seeing a police commander in a court battle with my mayor. This is a lose-lose deal. Money is going down the drain to attorneys and not headed to education or recreation or street repairs or police detectives.

Luke should make this go away right away. Say, "Sorry." Fix the problems. Be prudent. Insist upon a high threashold before court.

Luke seemed to want to hold his ground. He even said he'd welcome the deposition. He feels he is above it all. He feels that the problem was put on his desk and he walked into this as part of the transition.

This is a rookie mistake from a pinch-runner without a warm-up. Not a show-stopping big-hairy deal, if it ends now.