Another Dr. Francis (sp) Barnes, but this is inbound

HARRISBURG: The Pennsylvania Senate unanimously approved Francis V. Barnes, Ph. D., Tuesday evening. Dr. Barnes was Governor Rendell’s nominee for the Commonwealth's Secretary of Education. Barnes, who now becomes the state's first African American Secretary of Education, will lead the state’s 501 school districts, and implement the Governor’s Block Grant Funding Program that allocates $200 million in the 2004-05 school year for districts to implement research-based programs to boost student achievement such as full-day kindergarten, pre-kindergarten, smaller class sizes, tutoring and English as Second Language programs. He brings a wealth of experience to the position, having served in rural and urban school districts across the Commonwealth.

Check the search engine box for "Frances Barnes."

Dated Dean. Married Kerry. Woke up with Bush

Dean's Democracy for America seeks to elect progressive-leaning candidates and train grass-roots organizers.

Notes: Dean's roller-coaster campaign started with soaring polls, but crashed. Dean, an 11-year Gov., shouts a Boston Yahoo! ad. Supporters have cheered the ad, reveling in its irreverent self-mockery. Or, William Shatner land? Next could be Sedatives or Throat lozenges.

Politicians as pitchmen: Bob Dole for Viagra; US House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill for American Express; Geraldine Ferraro for Pepsi; Ann Richards (TX) Mario M. Cuomo for Doritos, Sophie Masloff for Used Appliance Warehouse. None have won political positions after cashing out.

Wonder if Dean-supporters would be fertile land for fund-raising letters?

Wonder if the Democrats who cannot give up feel the need to scrub undemocratic Democrats from bankrupt landscapes?

U.N. highlights sport as unifying force

I'm not much of a fan of the U.N., but I am a big fan of sports. Pittsburgh is, so some like to say, a "sports town" too.

Sports Illustrated article is interesting.

If you thought the United Nations and Secretary-General Kofi Annan were all about brokering peace deals and lobbying world leaders to play nice, brace yourself for the international body's venture into the sports field.

Anyone But Murphy

With the funky frames in the City Paper's web site, we put this article here in its full splendor.

Added Feature - 11/11/2004

Best mayoral candidate: Anyone But Murphy
A conversation with Nick Kratsus of Bethel Park, a 25-year-old University of Pittsburgh student, founder of the Yinzer Party and possible candidate for mayor.

Writer: MARIA NICOLE SMITH

What’s with your shirt?

Well, it says "Murphy Sucks." It’s a shirt I actually picked up Downtown when I was coming home from a Pirates game. We’re thinking about possibly printing them up -- our own version for the Yinzer Party. In fact, our slogan may be "Murphy Sucks." Our current slogans are "Stop Mayor Murphy’s Weapons of Mass Taxation" and "The Regime Now." They might be changing.

Why are you interested in running for mayor?

I thought the stadium situation was a crock! Everybody voted against funding them and then the mayor going and inserting that 1-percent sales tax. … I watched as he tried to develop Fifth and Forbes avenues. One can look at the Lazarus -- that was a total mess-up. Lord & Taylor is leaving. Obviously Mayor Murphy is an idiot when it comes to finances.

There’s not even a commercial movie theater Downtown.

There’s nothing. There’s no grocery store. Soon there will be no buses leaving in the evenings and on the holidays and Sundays. What the hell is that? We’re supposed to be building up the city of Pittsburgh, not building it down. We can not only fix the problems Downtown but also fix problems throughout the city.

What are your plans for the city?

You need to have fiscal responsibility with the budget. You need to lower taxes. You’re not going to be able to tax yourself [to] prosperity like the mayor’s doing. You have to raise public awareness. You’ve gotta fix the school system. You’ve gotta work with the county. I honestly believe the city and the county need to be merged.

The formation of the Yinzer Party got you some media attention.

Ah, yes. I almost got interviewed with Mike Pintek on KDKA. I was also approached by WYEP. I wrote an op-ed in The Pitt News about how I believed I could help the city. I pledged that if enough people want me to run for mayor, then I will run for mayor. It’s better than what we have now.

Who are some of your supporters?

Right now, I have a total of eight e-mails [from supporters]. I also have people who said they would support me if I asked them to. My mom said she’d help me out. It’s a grassroots effort.

In all seriousness, are you running for mayor?

I have no plans to honestly do it, but if 10,000 people sign a petition and want me to do it, I’ll do it.

To Jack Shea -- the mix from Les Ludwig

Jack Shea, President of the Allgheny County Council of Labor, is to be commended, with the others, in their attempts to convince City Council to vote against Act 47. They held a meeting yesterday at the Teamsters 249 Union Hall.

We have spoken out against the Act 47 along with the ICA.

Whatever efforts were decided upon, house to house, face to face campaign, hopefully these efforts will have the desired effect to convince City Council to vote against Act 47 and ICA by more than a single vote majority as a message to Harrisburg.

But what then?

How is bankruptcy to be avoided with the dangers that are part and parcel of this course of action in terms of unions and city destruction?

Jack, there is a potential answer that is more than a stop gap grant or as council members said, "We were repeatedly asked in Harrisberg, 'What's the number of dollars to avoid bankruptcy for Pgh?'"

This is not a reasoned approach but rather a Dutch Boy Solution resulting from the pressure of the moment.

Jack, it's your power to call upon leadership in every county of our state to ask -- or may demand -- those union leaders support because if not drectly then indirectly they will be threatened by what happens here in Pittsburgh. These county union leaders should call and email State Represenatives, State Senators and the Governor to pass the Insurance Tax increase to at least 4% for the benefit of Class 1 and 2 Cities. (The tax is presently 2%.)

This tax increase puts Pittsburgh in the black before the cuts and would allow a cooling off period to the next session of the legislature. Can we deffuse the heat. Learn from the suggested cuts and move a funded Pittsburgh and Phila forward to a successful recovery.

The legislation, in our view, should call for long-term commitments of help, but only until these communities can pay their way again.

Also, the legislation should stipulate those specific economic conditions that would allow the help to start and stop automatically so that the current pressure for a solution does not reoccur.

Jack, please, if you agree, copy to all the union leadership in the state.

More details at the Wiki, Platform.For-Pgh.org.

Flaherty says plan to abolish row offices is Onorato power grab

PG.

Undemocratic Democrats: Bahh, humbug.

Tom Flaherty has got to go too. Onorato wants to be the boss of everything. Meanwhile Flaherty is good for nothing.

A great quote: "Nobody's pants are on fire." Our pants were on fire in 2001 when I last ran for mayor. Our pants are not on fire, except that the city is running out of money next month. Sure, the pants are not on fire. Rather, the city is three steps beyond toast. I wish our pants were only on fire.

Murphy is spending on stadiums again

PG: Slots-for-arena plan worth a look, Onorato says In an interview last week, Murphy said he would like to see the winning bidder dedicate a portion of its slots revenue to help build a new arena, whether it's the Penguins, Forest City, Stabile or someone else.

Mayor Tom Murphy gave us the stadiums despite the will of the people and the outstanding $40-million still due on the now gone Three Rivers Stadium.

Next, Mayor Tom Murphy wants to spend a good chunk of the gambling income for a new hockey arena.

No way. That gambling money is sure to provide some income. However, gambling is not going to materialize to such grand form as they have projected.

We have to stop miss-spending on big-ticket items. The new hockey arena should not get a dime of public funding.

Lawmakers oppose $144 occupation tax

PG:
"That is the worst of all worlds," Roddey said.

Sigh. One trend in Pittsburgh that I've pondered and am now putting into the Platform for-Pgh deals with our decisions and method of making community choices. Often, we out-pace the worst by a step. Now it seems as if the best choice isn't the only one to blow our doors off -- as we are neck and neck with the worst.

Now the conversation deals with "the mix." There is a mix of taxes all about to swirl around and come out in the wash. Occupation tax, pinch of parking tax, deed-transfer tax, place-holder taxes, jumps in property taxes, commuter tax, service cuts, garbage tax, increased fees, payroll taxes on for-profits, grants from the state, grants from the non-proftis, privitazations, and so on.

The final mix, whatever it is, is in the hands of state legislatures now. Right.

The chair of the ICA, William Lieberman, said, "This is a working document that is not meant to be definitive."

This is important for all to understand. Many around here have been thinking that the oversight folks are here to solve the problems. Wrong. The oversight folks are here for oversight. That's about all they can do. And, oversight is no little feat given the city's ways under this mayor. Oversight isn't for fixing the problems. Oversight isn't a solutions provider.

The fix from these ills we now suffer is going to come when we oust the existing administration and put new leadership into place on Grant Street.

Phone book Recycling

The collection of telephone books is currently in progress, (October through May 2005). Bring old phone books to one of the following City of Pittsburgh drop-off locations. Hours of operation are Monday through Saturday (except holidays), between 8:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Additional telephone book drop-offs are located at, Construction Junction, Home Depot and Giant Eagle stores (during regular store hours).

Telephone Book Drop-off Locations

2nd Division, P.W. - West Homewood/East Liberty near North Point Breeze on Dallas at Hamilton Ave.

3rd Division, P.W. - Melanchton Ave., off the 5200 block of 2nd Ave. in Hazelwood

5th Division, P.W. - Hassler St., off Herschel St. next to Herschel Field in the West End off Steuben St.

Environmental Services Building - 3001 Railroad St. off 30th St. in the Strip

The Home Depot, East liberty at the corner of Penn Circle-North and Highland Avenue

Construction Junction In North Point Breeze at 214 North Lexington Avenue

Giant Eagle Southside at 2021 Wharton Avenue

Giant Eagle in the Crafton-Ingram Shopping Center

Giant Eagle 5550 Center Ave in Shadyside

Giant Eagle at the Waterworks Mall on 915 Freeport Road.

Old phone books are made into new phone books, animal bedding, pizza boxes, egg cartons and more.

For more information contact the City of Pittsburgh, Recycling Division at 255-2631

Political Books

Some suggested reading notes are within the comments. Please put in your notes too.

Catherine spoke to the musical students and faculty at CMU about hearing protection. This was a technical talk with 150 or so in the audience at the lecture hall.

URA stops development

Trib opinion: "Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy is a control freak who is out of control."

New Homes Being Built As Part Of South Pittsburgh Revitalization Efforts

South Side Local Development Company Announces: Fifty New Homes Being Built As Part Of South Pittsburgh Revitalization Efforts: "About the community planning process Hardy notes, 'Community leaders quickly recognized that to reverse several decades of disinvestment requires an initiative of significant scale.

Here is another instance of that subtle but important distinction between wholistic vs. holistic. The tone is for the whole ball of wax.
Wonder if the community planning process is online? Can you find it? Did one need to go to Georgia to learn of it?

School overtime

The Allegheny Insitute and TV 11 News blasted to the Pgh Public Schools. See the PDF formatted Policy Brief on PPS's Excessive Overtime.

So as to not rehash what is already said, I'd like to extend the conversation to additional slants and stories behind the overtime.

1.

We have a city finance watchdog who has duties with city government and the school district. Our city controller is Tom Flaherty, Dem, machine politician and head of the county Dem party. He should be on this. He isn't. He is absent again in matters of financial concern. Tom Flaherty is part of the problem in the city. He has been here through it all. His voice is generally absent.

2.

The storm of overtime is an artifact of closing so many schools with so little time. After the closings were announced, I raised objections. They tried to do too much in too little time. For example, South Vo Tech High School closed. It served 450 students in grades 9-12. Final word of the school's shutting came around May. Expected freshmen, then in the 8th grade, were already recruited to the school. They needed to enroll in their high schools long before they found out South was going to be gone. All the students in the other three grades had to scramble to other schools. And, all the other schools had to absorb the wave of new students who were displaced at South. Transcripts had to shift, guidance offices need to adapt, I.E.P.s needed to be managed, so on and so forth.

Evolution is a good thing. We could have migrated the kids out of South upon graduation. We could have staged the shut down over three or four years. The school board and the administration jerked the students, their families and their staffs around because of the abrupt closings.

The school board has seen the light in my remarks, however. A couple of months ago they released a statement saying that the policy to shut so many schools so quickly would get more consideration. They are thinking again for the next round. But, time will tell.

Generally, those in power need to act quickly and do so behind a veil of smoke. The school board and superintendent think of this as pulling teeth. Do it quick, hard and it is going to be painful. But, it will be over and we'll not see our power erode. That's wrong. They don't want to have organized opposition. They know parents and families move slowly. They need to outrun the volunteers with their staffs and agendas and don't really want input and compromised positions.

The bigness works for the school district and so does FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). Above all, so does swiftness of action.

For these reasons, among others, parents and citizens can't go into a slumber -- ever. And, we've got to be our own best watchdogs.

As mayor, I'd strongly encourage school closings to be a staged process and a multi-year ordeal. If any school needs my help, I'd be available to listen, investigate, publicize, and speak loudly.

The city has a legacy now of miss-treatment to residents by jacking up taxes by 34% and knowing it will be suicidal. We toy with the deed transfer tax with an increase in 33%. We put parking tax to the roof, without time to even change the signs and rates. And then we knock the kids out of Rec Centers without warning. Then schools close, seemingly, at a drop of the hat. The people of Pittsburgh are getting jacked around, pulled all over the place, and it happens with litle warning. It is like the crew is falling overboard and the skippers are just darting around the rocks.

Summary: we jack around our residents, the students, and the employees. That is no way to be effective.

3.

The overtime is often a ploy to boost retirement. The county police do it too. Same with coaching. A union teacher needs to pad his or her pay check in the twilight of the career to qualify for more upon retirement. So, teachers often coach three sports and opt into summer school to boost the take home pay. That's okay if they really care about the kids. And, if teachers come in and take away jobs from others who are already doing a wonderful job, that stinks. Teachers generally don't get overtime, but the motivation on the job is to spike those income averages.

Furthermore, Pittsburgh has a serious debt problem. A good bit of the debt is devoted to pension payments. Our pension payments are high because we paid a lot of overtime in certain key years to certain key employees, and for years to come we'll pay the pension based on those higher numbers.

Do the math. A person who retires from a $45K job gets a pension that is much less than another who had overtime to push the amount to a $80K job. Then you can compound that increase by 10 or 15 years and notice the difference. Those overtime pay amounts become precious dollars.

Too bad I don't get overtime for blogging.

4.

Shows that we are not with our house in order. Part of that order is management, supervision, hands-on oversight. The board members need to ask hard questions and hold the administration's feet to the fire. But, the administration needs supervision.

Begins to look a lot like "band-aids" ... Everywhere we go

PittsburghLIVE.comA $17 million gift from the state to tide over Pittsburgh could become part of the Legislature's bailout plan to keep the city from sliding into insolvency.

The only thing worst than band-aid philanthropy is band-aid politics. I guess it is not in their character to step up and lead. Jeepers. We'll just need to elect some new leaders.

Reading between the lines it is now fair to say that Gene Ricciardi is NOT going to be running for mayor when he sings this tune. "Restructuring the city's antiquated tax system is "our highest priority," said council President Gene Ricciardi."

Fast Eddie is a leader, in his desires, it seems: "Rendell spokeswoman Kate Philips said it's premature to comment on a proposal until the governor has had a chance to review it. Rendell "wants a long-term plan that doesn't need to be revisited every year," she said.

Our city council should have take up some pumkin, apple and sweet potato pies to ulock the doors to the Gov's office. Perhaps I'll do that myself.

Now at 31 pages

The goal is 20 to 30 solid platform planks by January 1, 2005.

City budget unity fractures as competing plans are introduced

City budget unity fractures as competing plans are introduced: "
For a third year in a row, Murphy is trying to get state lawmakers to help him balance the budget, which sets tax rates and pays city salaries and other bills."

This is a key to my platform for Pittsburgh. I will never do anything like what has been done by Tom Murphy in the handling of the budget. The budget is perhaps the most important duty for the mayor. His failures at every turn with the budget make him a worthless leader for our city.

As part of the positive side of the agenda for dealing in a more productive, open and democratic way with the city's budget, I'll host and organize annual citizen budget building sessions throughout the summer months. We'll have citizen budget summits on a regular basis. We'll have work sessions in community centers, spreading out the facts, figures, history and priorities.

Other cities have budget sessions with citizens. We'll start with an overview of what is done elsewhere.

Budget in council's lap

Tony gets it right. Well done!

PittsburghLIVE.com On the revenue side, the revised budget adds an additional 0.5 percent to the city's 1.5 percent realty transfer tax -- an increase of 33.3 percent.

The mayor's revised budget is technically balanced by a proposed 34 percent increase in property taxes. However, Murphy has vowed not to impose such a steep hike on city residents, calling it 'suicidal for our city.'

Open letter to OpenDebates.Org

This letter was sent to those at OpenDebates.Org.

I've followed your story. I've helped with some blogging. I think you are doing the right things. Now for some ideas:

Why not take 10 to 20 cities and help in 2005 with their democracy and debates for their Mayor's races?

It might be great if you had forums in various cities, and I would PUSH you to make Pittsburgh, PA, one such city. Then you could show the world how a real debate with real candidates and issues, should occur. You can tape the event, review it, offer analysis, and trouble-shoot -- both the process and the event itself.

If OpenDebates.Org wants to aspire to leading the national debates with the presidential race, we need you to prove yourself, be seasoned, be in the marketplace, and be with all the credit due to the task at hand.

Pulling together a debate is no easy matter, as I've done a few of them. I've been on both sides of the microphone. This is exciting, worthy and serious work.

Let me know if you want more insights and info. Please let me know how might I be able to push these matters to othes?

Market House Soccer winding down

The indoor soccer season at the Market House is about to conclude. Our family fun night with a parents game, pizza, trophies and a special guest, Riverhounds Head Coach, is Thursday, Nov. 18.

We launched the season in September with a lot of help from a crew of volunteer parents. John S. has been a tireless leader and most dedicated to the effort. He has done a wonderful job. I'm just there to coach and lend a hand here and there. The others are really working hard.

The Marke House had been closed for the prior year. Now we play and organize without any staffers. The costs went up quite a bit.

For the kids, the program has been much as it was in the past. This is a great program for the tykes and wee players, without a doubt. The liitle kids are so fun to watch, ages 4, 5 and 6. Most of them have not been on a team in the past, to say the least. All the ages have fun and get a nice experience, team play, some skills and new friends.

I took a few photos the other night and I'll try to get some more. If you're with the media and have room to cover something other than the kick-off to "sparkle season" -- give me a call. Our light-up night comes on the faces of the kids, not with some tall downtown buildings.

The indoor hockey, often called, "deck hockey" starts in January. The first night to sign-up is the family fun night. We play on the gym floor in sneakers. Kids often bring their own helmets, but some are provided. The little kids use our sticks, older kids bring their own. Kids have their own shin guards and gloves too.

We need more players, and a high school league, 3 on 3, is slated for Saturday mornings.

Parents and volunteers are also welcomed, for coaching and other duties. The play is on Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays.