Pittsburgh Pist-Gazette: Patrick Dowd On The “Politics Of The Middle”: Patrick Dowd On The “Politics Of The Middle” By Bram and CharFellow bloggers talk to Patrick Dowd. Long posting. Nice insights. My comments are over there and posted in these comments for my records.
Enjoy.
Great work bloggers. Keep it up.
Fantastic opening season Mr. Dowd.
Now if you only had the time to get into saving Schenley, working on Vo Tech plans and urban recreation -- we might be able to die more slowly with the bleeding of our young people in the city and region.
Posts
1 comment:
reposted from the comments at the other blog:
Mark Rauterkus said...
Just starting to read....
It was posted above in the wonderful blog posting:
-- quote starts --
"They said, ‘Grow some balls. Take action.’ One of my colleagues told me that. I mean it was offensive to me and I was just completely shocked. I don’t think that we should be out investigating."
-- end quote --
It would be very, very funny if the one gay guy on council told another to 'grow some balls.'
I'm not sure who said what -- he said / she said. It is fuzzy, by design, it seems.
So, we are left to wonder.
But, "over reaching" is part of the mode of operation that drives much of the 'folly.'
May 27, 2008 10:28 AM
Mark Rauterkus said...
Quote: "But there were lots of people with lots of reasons not to get involved."
Yep. Smokey city legacy. Blow-back is a bitch.
Frankly, this is one reason why we need to get a lot of folks to serve ONE term. We need a smarter collection of candidates. But, then we need citizen candidates who go into office for a period of time and then buzz back into the private sector.
Far too many are into the politics because of the 'job' and its paycheck. These are lifelong jobs to them.
May 27, 2008 10:34 AM
Mark Rauterkus said...
Here is a classic Kraus move:
--- snip --- DOWD: “But when one of my colleagues throws a definition of a sign to someone across the table and says, ‘Point. Tell me what a sign is.’ That’s not how this works. That’s not how it should work.” -- end snip --
Over-reaching. Not doing the job he should be doing. Playing gotcha games about the most elementary issues of life.
Again, I'm not sure if Kraus did this passing of paper. But, he did it with the city's attorney on the paying of the bills. "Read the first line of that paper." Kraus couldn't even point out the first line for George S to read.
Dowd is different.
Dowd gets it. Dowd has the capacity to understand and be understood.
Sadly, Dowd is going to need to pull the weight of many of the others at most turns into the future.
May 27, 2008 10:49 AM
Mark Rauterkus said...
Patrick hits a home run, again, with this baseball story:
“When you have five bad pitchers, do you hire a sixth pitcher or do you fire one and put in another? Ultimately, the problems that you have with a solicitor that works for both the mayor and the council …
I don't want city council to hire its own attorney. I don't want city council to sue another branch of the city. No infighting. When that happens, taxpayers / citizens / public becomes BIG TIME LOSERS. The only winners are the lawyers.
Fire George Spector. I said that months and years ago. But no... Just last week Bill Peduto told me, after I made the suggestion again, that there are some good people in the Law Department. I said, they are not 'good enough.' Peduto has been waiting, and waiting for decisions on matters concerning campaign finance reform. The law office stonewalls certain topics.
Council can flatline the law office budget to ZERO for six months.
To fix the city, some deconstruction must occur. Building more heft on the crumbled, existing, is sure to crush worse.
There is NO conflict of interest with one law department. When lawyers fight within the city, THAT is a conflict that must be avoided.
No lawyers is better than two. We'd win by subtraction first.
Dowd gets it. That's what it means when it comes to getting things done. Get resolution. Resolve things efficiently.
May 27, 2008 11:06 AM
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