We need -- and we all should want -- assessment buffering

I posted this message in a thread at Bram's blog about the property tax mess.

First the conflict: It was stated by a respected guru of sorts, in part: "IMHO, only the most mild form of buffering would pass judicial muster based on this ruling." Then it was stated by the same person, later, in part: "I think any form of buffering is made pretty difficult if not impossible by this ruling."

Bingo.

The perfect buffering method would work -- citizen appeal, political will and power, court blessing and constitution adjustments.

With assessment buffering, no property owners are ever left in the past -- as is always the case with a base year method.

I understand that the fight to gain the assessment buffering option for counties is big / "difficult" -- but it is much more simple and productive than the boondogle Onrato (mainly, recently) has planted for everyone for years.

The assessment buffering solution has one objection of the 'It can't be done' flavor / done deal / shoot the messenger flavor.

The 1, 2, 3, 4% solution is far different. When a property is 200-percent or 300-percent off the mark, it would take a lifetime to get to what is fair, even with 4% increases.

With assessment buffering done well, and much different than that other hokie keep the rich richer hoodwink attempt, all properties are spot in in 3 years. Math = 1/3 of difference each year for 3 years.

Technical Content to various reforms before City Council

Thanks to City Council staffer, Dan Gillman: Note that some of the amendments have been changed. These are how we introduced them.

01 15 09 Mayors Proposal AMENDED.doc viewable at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddznxj6h_628f469rtgr

Peduto amendments: viewable at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddznxj6h_629hnmb2kdh

No bid contracting legislation: viewable at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddznxj6h_630kbfmp3hq

Lobbyist legislation for City of Pittsburgh: viewable at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddznxj6h_631hfzmnrfv

Contact Lobbyist Disclosure Act: viewable at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddznxj6h_632hs8j5gg8

FAQ for all reform bills: publicly viewable at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddznxj6h_633d8rs68fb

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Campaign Finance Reform FAQs

Q) If I am running for City Council, how large a donation can I accept from an individual or a PAC?
A) You can accept $1,000 in the primary and another $1,000 in the general election from an individual. You can accept $2,000 in the primary and another $2,000 in the general election from a PAC.

Q) If I am running for Mayor or Controller, how large a donation can I accept from an individual or a PAC?
A) You can accept $2,000 in the primary and another $2,000 in the general election from an individual. You can accept $4,000 in the primary and another $4,000 in the general election from a PAC.

Q) Do these limits apply to me if I run for countywide office, statewide office, or a judicial position?
A) No. These limits only apply to people running for City Council, Mayor, or Controller.

Q) What happens if a wealth individual runs in the campaign against me?
A) If a person declares that they will spend more than $50,000 of their own money in the race, than your limits are doubled.

Q) What information will the online database contain?
A) The City Controller will maintain an online database that contains all campaign contributions as well as all contracts awarded by the City, all TIF’s approved by City Council, and all other applications of public dollars approved by City Council.
No Bid Contracts Reform FAQs

Q) Does this mean the lowest bidder automatically gets the bid?
A) No, the lowest responsible bidder wins the bid. Responsibility can include previous experience working with the City, expertise, etc.

Q) Do all contracts have to be bid?
A) No, a contract valued at under $30,000 does not need to be competitively bid.

Q) What about professional services that are specialized like engineers, architects, and lawyers? Will this reduce the quality of services we receive?
A) No, RFPs can include specific criteria so that the best specialized professional services can be received at best price.

Lobbyist Registration FAQs

Who qualifies as a lobbyist?
Anyone who spends more than 30 hours in any consecutive three-month period, with at least one direct communication with a City official or employee, for the purpose of attempting to influence municipal legislation on behalf of any other person.

Q) Are there exceptions to this?
A) Yes. Anyone who is not paid, but just volunteers time for a cause is not required to register. Also, any public official does not have to register.

Q) What does it mean to register?
A) A lobbyist must annually register with the City Controller and provide details of the company that they work for and the clients they represent.

Q) Does it cost anything to register?
A) Yes, there is an annual registration fee of $100

Q) What is the punishment for failing to register?
A) A person who knowingly this law can receive civil penalties of up to $2,000. If the court determines that a violation was intentional, the court may order that the defendant be prohibited from acting as a lobbyist.

Q) How does this registration handle nonprofits?
A) People representing non-profits that receive public funds to serve indigent persons are not required to register.
Lobbyist Disclosure FAQs

Q) What is the purpose of this legislation?
A) This legislation requires any company responding to an RFP to publicly disclose in their RFP response whether or not they have paid any fees to cover lobbying, finder’s fees, consultant fees, etc.

Inside Beltway: Tinkering with pending campiagn finance law in Pittsburgh

My letter to City Councilman Bill Peduto, as a result of discussions about the pending campaign finance laws slated for Pittsburgh:

So, the mayor's office is not warm to the idea that those who enter city races with millionaire status are dealt with by a doubling of limits imposed upon others in the race. The mayor wants to NUKE all limits, it seems.

My suggestion is to increase the limits from 2-times to 3-times as a counter offer. Go to 4, 5, and 10 if you must. But, even at 5 times the limit ceiling -- it is much better than NO LIMIT AT ALL.

Finally, I'd love to see all the bills and that FAQ so they can be posted on the web, either my blog or wiki. Can you send me copies of all that apply?

IOC opposes moves to restrict news coverage - More Sports - SI.com

In the title bar to this blog, I call myself a "non-credentialed Olympic photographer." This is an important issue then.

IOC opposes moves to restrict news coverage - More Sports - SI.com: "The International Olympic Committee is concerned that moves to restrict media coverage of sports events will erode free speech, former IOC vice president Kevan Gosper told an Australian Senate hearing Wednesday.

Hey, Australian Cricket dorks, take that bat and put it where the sun doesn't shine -- and upload the photos.

From china - bike

City making plans for Allegheny riverfront

City making plans for Allegheny riverfront: "Toward that end, the city Urban Redevelopment Authority has hired Perkins Eastman to conduct the $350,000 master plan. It intends to hold three community meetings over the next year to gather input.

A 10- to 12-member steering committee that includes representatives from the city, the URA, Riverlife, companies like Buncher, and community organizations will oversee the effort. It will hold its first planning meeting today. An advisory committee also will be formed.

Is this another hand-picked, authority, without minutes, without accountability, without democracy, without spectators?

What's the name of this advisory committee, exactly? I'd like to add it to the list.

It makes me think of the aborted Fifth & Forbes plans for downtown.

And, was there a RFP for the selection of the firm, Perkins Eastman?

Who is on the 'advisory committee?' Names please.

Pittsburgh 'legends' help reopen Hill rec center

Fun.

Pittsburgh 'legends' help reopen Hill rec center: "Some of the greatest names in Pittsburgh basketball history began their careers in some capacity at the Ammon Recreation Center on Bedford Avenue in the Hill District, and yesterday many of them gathered for two reasons -- to be honored as 'Ammon legends' as well as to celebrate the reopening of the historic building.

The building, which had been run by the city of Pittsburgh until 2004, had been kept open by a cooperative effort of a number of groups and spearheaded by Macedonia Baptist Church until last year when a lack of funds forced it to close its doors.

But thanks in large part to the efforts of Pittsburgh Parks and Recreation Director Duane Ashley and Councilwoman Tonya Payne and with the blessing of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, $200,000 in funding was secured within the budget to remodel the building and open it once again."

Stay tuned, to this blog, for video of the evening's events.

Crime, safety major topics at mayoral forum

Golly. I want to see this quote on tape. Youtube, anyone???

Crime, safety major topics at mayoral forum: "Mr. Dowd said an overnight holding facility is 'not what I would call a great way for the police to get connected to the youth culture in our community.' Rather, the city needs a 'truancy center' to hold youth during the hours immediately after school, when, he said, most student-age crime takes place.

So, Luke Ravenstahl wants to sweep young people without sins into police control just because of the time of night. Meanwhile, Patrick Dowd wants to sweep young people into police custody because of the time of day.

I'm in favor of the police sweeping criminals and evil doers off the streets, day and night, regardless of age. That is where all the attention of the police should be devoted -- and the innocent should be left for others, such as human service providers.

Pittsburgh may begin issuing permits online

Oh my gosh. This is very expensive. Very, very expensive.

Pittsburgh may begin issuing permits online Pittsburgh may begin issuing permits online
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 By Timothy McNulty, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

City residents and businesses would be able to get zoning permits and other government approvals over the Web -- instead of cutting through bureaucracy Downtown -- under a $1.3 million proposal submitted by the Ravenstahl administration today.

The mayor's office is proposing a contract with San Ramon, Calif., tech firm Accela to provide Web-based permitting for the city. The firm was one of nine bidders for the project, which would take 12-18 months to complete. Council begins debate next week.

Permits should be online. The process should be as easy and effective as ebay too.

However, the cost seem way out of place.

Furthermore, I want to know if this is an open-source application. If it isn't -- I'd reject it fully.

Government should only invest in open-source software solutions.

Running Mates -- Marathoners -- Check in here!

If you're going to run the marathon, relay, half, whatever -- check in with the comments with your name and/or bib number and we'll try to give some extra energy to you along the route.

Mike Sally, fellow dad and South Sider, as well as ex-swimmer, sends along this email:

Hello:

As many of you know, I have been diligently training to participate and finish the 2009 Pittsburgh Marathon. May 3rd is just about here. While this is not my first marathon, its is the first one that I have seriously trained for and set a goal beyond just finishing. I have one more training run left and then its rest is history - a short run on Saturday - and yes - race day!!

It would be great if all of you could support me along the route. While I understand some of you are far away or perhaps are close and have previous engagements, and cannot attend, in any event it would be great for you to get me a shout of encouragement along the route course if you are able to do so.

Thank you for supportiing me during the long winter (for Pittsburgh standards - I understand up north, it was really cold!!) and I look forward to reaching my goal!

See you on May 3rd!!

http://www.pittsburghmarathon.com

Michael Sally

I'm not in the race this year. We've got a major conflict with church that morning and have known about it for nearly a year. Sorry. Perhaps next year.

So, you running? Tell us! Hit the comments here.

Just after mile 11, the Phillips Elem School community is going to provide a water table. East Carson Street will be buzzing -- more so than the uphill stretch of the Birmingham Bridge leading into mile 13 in Oakland.

moot wins, Time Inc. loses - Music Machinery

moot wins, Time Inc. loses. Music Machinery: "This morning Time.com published the final result for their annual TIME 100 Poll. Time reports that the new owner of the title ‘Worlds’s most influential person, is moot’. What TIME doesn’t say is that their poll was so totally manipulated that the results of the poll are not an indication of who is the most influential, but instead they stand as a monument to Time’s incompetence."

Diversity in Aquatics

Check out the Spring 09 issue of the American Red Cross’s Aqua’zine. This season's issue features DAP Co-founders Shaun Anderson and Jayson Jackson (pages 7 & 8).

http://www.diversityinaquatics.org/AquaZineSpr09.pdf

Aqua‘Zine is a publication for aquatic professionals that is written and distributed by the reparedness and Health and Safety Services Division of the American Red Cross and its publisher, StayWell. Copyright ©2009 by the American National Red Cross.

Visit Diversity in Aquatics at: http://diversityinaquatics.ning.com

An outsider, Robinson gets into the fight for mayor

Must read:

An outsider, Robinson gets into the fight for mayor 'I've come full circle,' she said. 'I've seen the system. It's not broken. It's a good system. But our focus is in the wrong area. We spend too much money and time responding to crime instead of preventing it.'

Rather than reform, more often we need to replace the people who are in there are not doing a good job. Then, we can review and perhaps re-tool.

The last thing we should strive to do is reform with the folly makers in office -- as then we'll be much worse off than when we started.

Reform can turn into deformed.

I like what Carmen Robinson is saying. I love the underdog.

Kites For Kids - Welcome

From texture - misc.

Let's go fly a kite. A perfect pre-marathon activity, if you are covered with sun screen.

Kites For Kids - Welcome Kites for Kids is Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 10 am – 5 pm
* at the Carnegie Science Center

I understand that they'll be flying -- or trying to fly -- kites on the river off of boats. I always wanted to do that from my canoe.

In Beijing, kite flying a long-standing recreational activity. The older men do it and use a bike wheel like take-up spinner for the string, often framed in hand-made wooden cases. While there in August 2008 for the Olympics, the city had put out an order that there would be no kites in the sky -- due to security concerns. The kites could have jammed the surface to air missles, I guess.

On a number of instances, we were able to see the 'kite police' come to tell people that they'd not be able to fly the their kites. Those suckers get airborne too -- very, very high.

From Beijing - sports play

We are hoping for good weather on Sunday, without any wind, so we can play with these birdies -- hardly a kite -- at Schenley Park.

Dates this week with candidates, including Dok

Harris for Pittsburgh is excited to share with you three chances to hear Franco Dok Harris speak publicly with the other candidates.

*1. Tuesday, April 28th at 7PM: Dok will join the other mayoral candidates on the topic of Community Safety. Please come out and hear Dok's position on public safety, gun violence, and how to keep our city secure. It's at the Kingsley Association, 6435 Frankstown Avenue (at East Liberty Blvd).

*2. Wednesday, April 29th at 6:30PM: PUMP is having a candidates forum and has invited Dok Harris to speak briefly - come hear what Dok has to say about entrepreneurship and retaining young professionals in Pittsburgh. It's at McConomy Auditorium, located in the University Center at Carnegie Mellon University

*3. Thursday, April 30th at 6PM:* Come watch Dok at the *Stanton Heights Community Organization's "Meet the Candidates" Night. It's at Sunnyside School, 4801 Stanton Ave.

On Friday morning, Mayor Ravenstahl will be at Phillips Elementary School on the South Side, where Grant still attends, at career day. That isn't an open event, but will give some extra time to make some points about kids and closed recreational facilities.

I like the reform packages headed to city council this week. Hope to see them passed.

This was a letter I just sent to city council at the urging of Bill Peduto's email blast:

In the past, I called for a public hearing when Bill Peduto first called for campaign finance reform. This was when Bob O'Connor was still on council.

Back then the plan from Bill seemed to fight pay-to-play by starting campaign finance reform. The real issue was no-bid contracts and it is GREAT to see that faced straight on -- with legislation about no-bid contracts. Frankly, the $30,000 limit is a lot higher than I want. NO bid contracts are not necessary, IMHO.

The database of givers and takers is a no-brainer. It should be done already. And, with the help of a couple of you we could begin TRANSPARENT PAC ACCOUNTS with a local banker. That would not require any extra work on the part of gov workers, even the controller's office personnel.

Finally, the Ethics Hearing Board is broken -- because of the people on the ETHICS HEARING BOARD. They won't do anything and considered cutting meetings by half and closing them to the public. If I was on the Ethics Hearing Board -- or if there were others there -- such as a Libertarian or two -- then that reform would get done (to use a campaign slogan).

Bill Peduto wrote to me after he got his copy of the note above saying:

You were instrumental in getting us to this point in ending no bid
contracts for all not just contributors and you said it from the beginning. The $30,000 limit is the same as the rules governing council approval. If Duane Ashley needs to hire a clown for a rec center anniversary, we shouldn't require an rfp and council approval. However, we will need to work on the rules for pre-selected contractors under $30,000 - more work is always needed.

Chatham Univ Athlete Awards and Water Polo Coach

Banquet talks about the Chatham University sports teams and the specifics from the water polo and swimming coach, Mike Meyers:

I made this video and injected a few film snips. Enjoy.



Same clip from Viddler.

Sad passing

Collegiate Water Polo Association: "Ian Johnson peacefully passed away at his home in Naperville, ILlinois in the early morning of Sunday April 26, 2009 after a long hard fought battle with cancer. Ian would be 22 in June."

Thread for Swine Flu and other vaccination articles:

From running mate, Dave Powell:

Hi all - I'm posing this to the message board, there have been some email requests re: swine flu, and I think that it's best to carry this on the Message Board instead of filling up mailboxes.

I don't like to spread some of the rumors around the Internet, and will try to provide mostly source material and allow you all to make up your own minds.

One issue is that logic dictates that this sort of combo-virus really shouldn't occur in nature...that doesn't mean that it *was* engineered of course, but the issue warrants investigation. I haven't seen any definitive articles on this yet (too early probably), but will post when available.

One of the other big issues I've seen is that vaccine maker Baxter erroneously allowed/"was caught" live Avian flu H5N1 virus in with human H3N2 strains. Their manufacturing plant in Czech Rep. caught the error. Apparently some middle-range nobody worker saved us all from a possible real-time mixing (called re-assortment) of the two viruses in a public host, which apparently is one of two ways pandemics result.

No real US MSM coverage that I've seen...

All I've seen so far is links about when Bayer sent HIV-tainted medicine overseas when found to be defective:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/22/health/main555154.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg-52mHIjhs

any other links are welcome!

Of course, Baxter isn't really talking because of "trade secrets":

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/02/27/8560781.html

The lack of investigation says a lot...oh but hey, who better to give the contract for the vaccine for the current swine fly vaccine? You get three guesses, but you know you'll only need one:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-baxter-swine-flu-27-apr27,0,3579388.story

I'll post one of the comments from the TorontoSun article that says it all about the MSM reporting:
"And recently Baxter released a flu vaccine that contained live avain flu. But thats probably not worth mentioning." Diko - Australia

Even liberal bloggers are freaking out (also contains links to more conspiracy-oriented articles for those interested):
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Still-Think-They-re-Not-Tr-by-Mr-M-090305-202.html

I don't exactly see evidence of foul play, but nor do I see any enthusiasm to get to the bottom of things.

Again, my aim here is not to alarm, but to seek facts which nobody in the MSM seems interested in.

-DaveP

PS: for the truly geeky, an .html version of a .pdf fas.gov report on the 1976-77 doubling of swine flu immunizations, that had the side effect of 500 debilitating nerve disease Guilian-Barr Syndrome:

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:o5sU9IJIWOIJ:www.fas.org/ota/reports/8112.pdf+1978+swine+flu+Guilian-Barr&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Sharene Shealey for Pittsburgh School Board District 1

Tell me more!

Sharene Shealey for Pittsburgh School Board District 1: "Who is Sharene Shealey?

A successful environmental engineer who attended Pittsburgh Public Schools (“PPS”) before studying at Howard and Carnegie Mellon Universities on full scholarship, a mom of two PPS elementary school students, and an active participant in the school’s Parent Student Community Council."

Former Schenley star signs with Marshall - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Way to go DeAndre Kane!

Former Schenley star signs with Marshall - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review The up-and-down recruiting saga of former Schenley basketball star DeAndre Kane is over.

Kane, the leading scorer in Western Pennsylvania as a high school senior, signed a national letter of intent to attend Marshall.

Kane went to 13th grade, a prep school in North Carolina. Why in the world can't we have a prep year option, a 13th grade, in our city -- as part of the new Pittsburgh International School, the IB School?

We could. We should.