Mayor Ravenstahl anxious to settle dispute with developer

Mayor Ravenstahl anxious to settle dispute with developer Mayor Ravenstahl anxious to settle dispute with developer

Mayor anxious. He should have been anxious a year ago. He should have been anxious two years ago. He should have been anxious when he was on city council too, when he was not getting anything done.

The homework is past due. The management and stewardship is far too late.

There is no dispute. There are facts. Continental is in dispute with the truth. Time is up. Continental might have an internal dispute because someone there lost a golden opportunity. Not it is gone.

The validity of the no bid give-a-way from the past is like water over the damm. Gone. That same water isn't coming back. The way to resolve the situation is to put the package together and put it out for bid again. Put the price at 10 times what it went for in the past, at a minimum. Otherwise, let it sit. Sell off some other side yards around town instead.

We don't have to fear a long legal battle as the catalyst for stalling development between Heinz Field and PNC Park. Nope. The development has already been stalled by Continental. They should have the projects done by now.

Note that the mayor is not urging the residents of the North Side and their allies to settle the deal. The mayor is leaving the residents and City Council on the outside. They are being excluded. And, Bruce Kraus says so himself. He isn't going to insist that the land be re-acquired from the SEA and put out for bid by the URA. There are a lot of thing he isn't going to insist upon.

The vapor of the year-round entertainment complex between the stadiums has already delivered a lot of pain to the local economy.

Continental has vowed to advance the projects is a joke. Continental is too little and too late. Contenental voed to advance the project when the deal was struck years ago. The whole outrage is because they already broke the pledge to advance.

Stadium Authority Executive Director Mary Conturo refused to say whether she believes that is so, arguing that to answer "tips our negotiating hand."

Many might think, again, that city council is powerless. Those would be the ones without the creativity. Power needs to be taken and it needs to be applied in creative ways.

For example, the stretch of land that had been squandered can be re-zoned next week by city council. Then we'll see who gets the upper hand. The SEA negotiations should be off.

Mr. Kass is right in this quote: He said. "We haven't done anything .... STOP THERE ... in violation of a contract and, furthermore, they haven't notified us that we were in violation."

Perhaps he meant to say, "We haven't done anything. We are in violation of the contract. Furthermore, we haven't notified anyone we were going to do nothing."

Mr. Ravenstahl asked that cooler heads prevail. But Mr. Ravenstahl -- the players are already cool -- as in cold -- as in frozen out -- as in moving slower than an ice burgh! Cool has won the day, the past month and the past year. Global warming is going to come and flood the lower north shore before they figure out that they want to do something there. Hell, the Rolling Stones are all going to be dead by the time a concert could be hosted.

This would be a nice quote from the mayor about the first week he was in office: "Folks need to sit down and figure out a way to get this done and figure out a way to move this forward," he said. Interim mayor could have said this too.

None have been winners in this deal, except the hand-picked developers.