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The Busman's Holiday: Ethics Board, The Lost Letter

This is great watchdog efforts by Bob Mayo of TV 4, WTAE. He is doing his job. But, perhaps Bob didn't get the memo: The Pgh Ethics Hearing Board moves slower than some galciers.

The Busman's Holiday: Ethics Board, The Lost Letter Ethics Board, The Lost Letter

Great stuff. Give it a read.

Bob's post today (Friday the 11th) is a cliff hanger. He'll post his letter from the Ethics Hearing Board on Saturday. Can't wait.

Well, yes I can wait. I don't have my expectations high. But, this is starting to 'snowball.'

School District spin about the strike

I take this with a grain of salt. A strike would be a pain. But, the strike would be short term when contrasted to the major projects and problems that now swirl around the district and the city. We need a Vo Tech High School -- and there is no plan, yet, to get one.

Schenley High School opened 90 years ago. Now it is on the copping block because of some plaster problems due to water damage in the past. Those are big problems -- not a teacher strike of a few weeks.

PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING 341 S. BELLEFIELD AVE. PGH., PA 15213

For Immediate Release Contacts: Lisa Fischetti (412) 622-3603

District Responds to Public Requests for More Disclosure on Contract Talks

Next Bargaining Session Set for Monday, January 14

PITTSBURGH, JANUARY 11, 2008 – In response to numerous public inquiries for disclosing more information about the status of teacher contract talks, Pittsburgh Public Schools is providing comment on the status of contract talks and facts around the key issues being discussed in negotiations with the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT).

A day-long bargaining session between the School District and the PFT was conducted today through state mediators. The negotiations process began more than one year ago in accordance with bargaining law.

The next bargaining session is scheduled to take place on Monday, January 14. Superintendent Mark Roosevelt and the District's Board members will be available to attend bargaining sessions next week, as appropriate.

"We are doing all we can to not interrupt the school year and the process of improving academic achievement for our children," said Superintendent Mark Roosevelt. "We fully recognize that our teachers and staff are the key to student success and a better school system. It has been and continues to be our goal to reach a contract agreement as soon as possible. We are working very hard to balance the academic and financial challenges of our system throughout the bargaining process so that a strike can be averted," added Roosevelt.

"In my view, a teacher strike would damage the hard work that teachers, administrators and staff have already undertaken in our quest to advance public school education in Pittsburgh. This is a pivotal time for our school system and City as we must make decisions that will have long-term economic and social impacts for our region. The Pittsburgh Promise scholarship program, for example, is a tremendous step in the right direction. There's heightened accountability for performance by principals, who now are all on performance-based contracts. These are important examples of the many things we are doing to set the District on a course for success. We value our teachers and support their right to be fairly compensated. But as I have stated previously, we will not support a contract settlement that would require a tax increase," Roosevelt added.

The key issues or topics being discussed in these contract talks include: (note: these facts do not include any positions on current bargaining discussions)

1. Wages – From 2001 to 2006, there were three contracts reached with annualized wage increases that averaged approximately 3.7%, inclusive of 'step' wage increases. According to Public School Teacher Settlement Data provided by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, average annual salary increases for teachers in the current 2007-08 school year is 3.73% (including step wages) at Pennsylvania school districts with approved contract settlements.

2. Post-retirement healthcare cost – The cost of retiree health care has increased by more than 100%, from $5.3 million in 2004 to a projected $11.8 million in 2007.

3. Length of work day - Teachers in the Pittsburgh Public Schools have one of the shortest work days among all school districts in Pennsylvania. The current work day is 7 hours and 6 minutes.

4. Severance – Severance pay for unused sick leave.

5. Term of contract - The previous three contract settlements were 2.5 years, 2 years and 2 years, respectively.

"We are doing everything we can to help resolve these issues remaining on the table," said Mark Roosevelt. "We're attempting to balance the interests of the District, its teachers, students, parents and taxpayers. I have heard from many parents who are concerned about the prospect of a strike and the safety of their children, particularly in single-parent families where the parent works during school hours," concluded Roosevelt.

Theresa Colaizzi, Chair of the Board's Negotiating Committee, stated, "We must remember the world is very different today compared to 30 years ago when there was a strike in Pittsburgh. Then, many people may have been inconvenienced. In today's world, families will literally be incapacitated if there is a walkout. We recognize the need to settle the contract with the common goal of balancing the community's interest and the District's financial and academic goals," added Colaizzi.

This information and perspective is being shared publicly today as a result of growing public interest in the status and issues surrounding on-going contract talks. For more information and updates about PFT Contract Talks, please visit the District's home page at www.pps.k12.pa.us.

eVote Blog has been perking along

eVote Blog: "Let the recounting begin"

I run a number of blogs. This one is the main blog. But when it comes to the act of voting and more technical democratic process elements -- that goes to the eVote.blogspot.com.

They are going to do a recount in NH.

Pittsburgh Ethics board member Zacharias resigns - PittsburghLIVE.com

Pittsburgh Ethics board member Zacharias resigns - PittsburghLIVE.comA member of Pittsburgh's Ethics Hearing Board resigned today, citing personal reasons.

The five-member board accepted the resignation of Penny E. Zacharias, 33, of the North Side. Zacharias is a lawyer in the Downtown branch of law firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.

She wasn't even attending meetings. Good to have her resign.

I wonder how long it will take the mayor to nominate another person as a replacement. It has taken mayors decades to finally appoint people to that board. Tom Murphy never appointed anyone to the board.

Other board members are appointed by city council. And, city council has also failed at its job in the past, with this board as well as with others.

The starved to death treatment has been a mode of operation, in the past, with the Citizens Police Review Board as well.

If the other four people want to resign, that would be fine too. That board is not willing to be proactive and aggressive enough to make a difference in the realm of ethics in the city.

They admit that they need training. The employees need training too. Then the citizens need training as well. This board needs to get in the game and then get fit as issues play out. Training should not take the place of real action. Seems like they are happy ponder training as an excuse for real action. Training sustains the inaction yet kicks up some smoke and dust.

I don't want the Ethics Hearing Board spending money. Nor do I want them to be making money. They should not dish out fines, offer punishments nor think about incomes.

Finally, I don't want the Ethics Hearing Board to subcontract its duties to others. A recent aim was to form a committee and have them come up with a new policy or else a policy review for accepting golf outings. Tee it up as a board. Carry your own clubs. I don't want the Ethics Hearing Board to appoint others to do the heavy lifting (caddy) on policies of the city.

Does anyone know Penny's golf handicap?

PNC, Coro, Maxwell King, Tom Murphy

PNC, Maxwell King Coro honorees ... former Mayor Tom Murphy delivering the keynote address...

Barf.

SGB unleashes panther statues - News

Roar!

SGB unleashes panther statues - News After months of anticipation, outgoing Student Government Board president Shady Henien led a ceremony last night unveiling the 10 panther statues decorated by various student organizations.

Will these scare away the rats? What about pigeons?

Do they interact well with dinosaurs?

more school meetings

Hello Kathy and all,

I will not be able to attend the meeting this afternoon with Lopez due to another meeting commitment for my job that got scheduled yesterday. The good news is that meeting is about connecting racial justice issues such as Education and Employment discrimination to the Supreme Court advocacy work that I currently do in PA.

Below are a couple of questions I have that may or may not fit in today but thought I would share them with the group anyway just in case. I am also including background info I had sent to a smaller email lists that gives some background on why I am asking these questions and their relevance to our cause.

In light of the recent Supreme Court decision(more info below) that race could not be used as a factor in assigning students to school to achieve diversity, will the PPS consider using income status (free lunch) as a way to achieve diversity in our PPS?

Ability Tracking and selection into different academic programs? What role does it play in providing or not providing opportunities to all students?

What would happen if All students were tested to see if they were gifted but call it something else? Is this being done? If it is, what aren't there more students being placed and what is the connection between the Gifted Program, IB and AP?

What efforts have been made to ensure that the IS (International Studies / Frick Middle School) students who are now IB have been provided the necessary support in order for them to be successful? What will this look like in the future? Many of these IS students are African American which would help boost the number of students currently in the IB program and taking AP courses but what is the likelihood that these students will be able to achieve the college credits and pass the necessary test? What is being done to help these students be successful?

I will be at the Panera meeting on Sunday at 2pm and am speaker number 10 at the Public Hearing on Monday.

Here are a couple of links to good education articles and letters in the PG today.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848438-298.stm
Principals in city return to instruction

http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/letters/
Postcards from the edge of a strike

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848350-298.stm
Expulsions of preschoolers preventable, study finds

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848422-298.stm
Magazine ranks Pennsylvania 10th for schools, with B- grade

All the best at the meeting this afternoon.

Celeste

Hotel, offices, condos planned for Pittsburgh auto dealer site - Examiner.com

How much is this going to cost the taxpayers?

Hotel, offices, condos planned for Pittsburgh auto dealer site - Examiner.com DOC-Economou representatives said they plan to secure an unspecified amount of public financing for the project.

Figure Skating Champion Bowman Dies In LA - Sports News Story - WTAE Pittsburgh

Figure Skating Champion Bowman Dies In LA - Sports News Story - WTAE Pittsburgh: "In 1993, while skating with the Ice Capades, he was beaten at a hotel in a seedy neighborhood in Pittsburgh, according to a police report.

Born in Hollywood, Calif., on March 30, 1967, Bowman had a part in the TV series 'Little House on the Prairie' for one season and appeared in dozens of commercials.

Recently, Bowman had returned to acting. He had a role an assistant coach in the upcoming Brian J. De Palma-directed movie 'Down and Distance' staring Gary Busey."

Good Bye Dollar: And a peek into the future

Click to play. Hint: It is the triangle that points to the right, either in the middle of the screen or the one at the left of the slider / progress bar.

Hat tip to a friend's blog, Three Rivers Post.

American Entrepreneur and the new drink tax

The American Entrepreneur - Newsletter Articles ALLEGHENY COUNTY'S NEW TAXES: THE REST OF THE STORY

A great deal has been written and said about the December enactment of two new taxes in Allegheny County. The case against levying the new drink and car rental taxes was exceptionally strong; the case for levying new taxes was pitifully weak.

This Saturday's show is going to have a segment devoted to this topic, the new Allegheny County drink tax. It caused quite the uproar among
the restaurant industry thus far in 2008. Ron will talk with Ed Dunlap of The LeMont Restaurant about what he's doing to ease the burden of the tax for the customer.

Dave P is home from NH --- Lessons Learned and Other Thoughts from NH

Dave Powell, a Pittsburgh Co-Organizer for the Ron Paul MeetUp, and chair of the Libertaian Party (I'm the vice-chair) sent along this report of his recent trip.

Competing Campaign analysis:

Thompson – flameout… a total no-show.

Rudy - ditto. A very few signs and supporters. We essentially tied with Guiliani - and people are taking notice, and wondering why they haven't heard of this Dr. Paul guy (we heard this on the trip back).

Huckabee - a few sincere volunteers, and lots of media. Fairly weak showing (but dedicated) at polling, only Huck signs at my polling place, one guy for half the day, and a young family that (IMO very bravely with the 3-year old and 4-month old) stuck out the whole day. However, he is taking the social conservative/religious vote. Dr. Paul is a religious man, and he (IMO) rightly does not wear it on his sleeve, or pander to religious groups. But this is costing him votes. IMO a push for the religious vote is needed, so reach out to the church groups, go to putluck dinners, fireman's charities, borough town hall meetings, etc.

Romney has a well oiled machine. Guys with little coiled ear-pieces. Lots of supporter-volunteers. The media came and waited for him. I held a RP sign behind his head for the whole time. :) Follow Romney, and you get the media. Probably all paid/pro organized, only one volunteer showed up at the Anderson Cooper rally, and he would not get off his cell phone to hole up both ends of his wire-framed sign. At my polling place many volunteers showed up, but they almost all left after Mitt made his appearance.

Mccain - one or two volunteers at my polling station. Still gets media attention though.

Kuchinich – a few sincere volunteers, and these guys love us. The DK bus honked when it went past. Poor guy, I felt bad for him, they had signs outside of their HQ and nobody to hold them.

Edwards - had sign wavers, but a weak showing at the polling station. They only showed up a couple of hours from the closing, and only had like 5 people for the last hour, all volunteers possible getting off work.

Hillary - had a shuttlebus, and lots of signs wavers, possibly some pro. Definitely knew that they were on a schedule and had somewhere to be next.

Obama - lots of sign wavers - young volunteers as far as I could tell. Fair grassroots turnout.

Random Thoughts/Suggestions:

Canvassing problems: It’s winter, and dark by 5 nobody was home during daylight. We wasted whole days knocking on empty doors.

Ineffective model – insane computer-generated directions were impossible to follow, and we spent too much time per house. We should have just been given a few streets to hit every door, we had the manpower. So, I would jump out of the car and flyer 2-4 houses while my partner did the packet canvass.

Get a bullhorn to lead chants - people screamed themselves hoarse, and IMO affected turnout the next day.

Nametags/badges for field leaders would help direct the volunteers, help avoid another Hannity incident, and help identify good candidates for interviews to the media...we don't want a Truther or similar selected to represent us on camera. In addition, If anything strange happens(ie: getting violent during a rally), take pictures/video, and try to relate what happened to a staffer. I just saw 2 Youtube clips where the same guy appears as a local voter in Iowa and NH. If (and I haven't seen anybody yet) anyone is acting as a plant in our organization, a little evidence can go a long way.

Continue to let people organize themselves. This actually did happen, but I wanted to point out that allowing people that clicked to work together is most effective. So, for instance, continue to make it easy for people to change what house they stay in so they can get to work early with people they function well with. BUT: Provide more effective communication with the grassroots. Many people noted that they were not put to 100% effective use. Why no Organization Organizer? Roxy, Brinks, Norm and others were great (and they need assistants), but exactly whose job was it to communicate what was going on next? Again, a badge or two might be nice. Often people were milling around chatting while something important was being communicated. If everyone knew who would have the latest news they would pay more attention. The grassroots was still pretty effective at communicating considering everything, but something as simple as, say, bulletin boards at friendly pubs, flyers, or a blog could work wonders (for instance, I could not find a few rally locations in time)

Learn the election laws of every location (including items such as marching on city hall steps - we almost had an incident). Start with the state, but don't forget the municipalities...I was informed of a few rules that would not appear in the state lawbooks. For instance, I was told to wipe off the "Ron Paul 2008" that someone had drawn with white paint on my van's windows (the rationale being that campaigns cannot park a huge sign next to the polling place). I should stress as well, that the "moderator" of the election has ABSOLUTE control over the polling place. They may kick you out for ANY OR NO REASON AT ALL. You MUST abide by their decisions. If you encounter an issue, politely ask them if there is particular election code that they are citing, and is it possible to show you/get a copy of the cited election law so that we may straighten things out with HQ. But they also may just classify you as an "interference" and ask you to leave, so go. Also, ask to watch the votes get counted, preferably with a video camera.

Get a shuttle bus. Hillary had one, and it very effectively got people to where they needed to be. We had people stranded in other towns without rides unable to attend events.

Familiarize yourself with Paul's positions, *especially positions that you do not agree with*. Be prepared to make a pro-life argument. Be prepared to argue immigration positions. these are two deviations from the libertarian platform. It is possible to find some areas of agreement, and just stress those.

Dress as nicely as you can. We need to defringe-ify this movement or the media will turn it into a circus. People have quit jobs, moved, travelled from California, Hawaii, Florida, New York, Virginia, Texas, Montana, Spain, Panama, Poland, Estonia and sacrificed time with family and friends for this effort. Please shave and put on a tie.

I hope this helps those who will be picking up this effort in other areas. I also hope that we have worked through the growing pains and will field a team of seasoned campaigners.

Please feel free to forward this message on to other meetup organizers.

Great Quote from Brad Porter of FACT: The Battle for Freedom is one that can never be won, but can always be lost.

Pgh Public Schools -- next board meeting on Sunday

Mark -

I have just learned that PPS has a Board meeting on Sunday at 2 PM - that's right - Sunday. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss Excel 9-12. The meeting will be in the Board Committee room. I think they are planning for a long meeting that would go all afternoon and into the evening.

Its not on their website yet, but I confirmed this with Robin Wenger in the Board office. I know you are posting these things so I thought you would want to know about it.

Thanks,

Carey Harris
A+ Schools

techPresident's Favorite Videos of 2007: Voter-Generated Video

techPresident – techPresident's Favorite Videos of 2007: Voter-Generated Video Favorite Videos of 2007: Voter-Generated Video

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

one of this years better campaign commercials

New Arena Discussion with Bram on a podcast

The biggest city planning meeting in our lifetime -- starts at 2 pm on Monday at 200 Ross Street.

Bram of the Pittsburgh Comet and the Burgh Report was kind enough to give me some time to get a better understanding of the fireworks associated with the developments of the new hockey arena in the Hill District. A Community Benefits Agreement (CBA for short) is on the rocks. It seems that what Mayor Ravenstahl wants does not match well with the dreams and ambitions with the various groups and residents.

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/901

We talked about this thread and another blogger:

New Arena Discussion - Page 42 - Steelers Fever Forums: "Re: New Arena Discussion"

Revelations - http://drgoddess.blogspot.com/

Update: The arena is on for hearing and action on Monday. They are last on the
agenda. (Reported Dolores Hanna, Special Project Operations Manager, Department of City Planning)

TEXAS SWIMMING: Olympic Coverage off to Rough Start

Honey, pay-back is a bitch, regardless of culture and TV celeb / news status.

TEXAS SWIMMING: Olympic Television Coverage off to Rough Start The Wall Street Journal article - complete with a translation

Franklin College Explores Addition of Swimming

There is a bit of a trend here -- going against the tide. Too many schools have cut the mens swim teams. Some are picking up swimming again.

CollegeSwimming.com: Franklin College Explores Addition of Swimming: “The stars are aligned for this,” said Hass. “I believe the college, the area and the school corporations would all benefit from having a competitive program at Franklin College.

Franklin College is in Indiana.

Ohio University cut its mens swim team -- and I still hate them for that. I'm a graduate of O.U.

Slippery Rock too.