Also, there are new old new news links along the sidebar: Check ’em out, check ’em out, check ’em out. —>
We are assuming the Mayor’s 2012 budget address this afternoon will be livestreamed, livetweeted or otherwise made lifelike today.
The Pittsburgh Comet
From today's PG Breaking News..
“Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl today said the next couple of years will see tens of millions of investment dollars in the city's neighborhoods.”
And where, pray tell, does the Boy Mayor hope to find those “tens of millions”?
He's going to get the money from the feds who are going to get it by levying a special tax on those who moved from the region after a long, drawn-out process of bitching and moaning.
Luke? Look who just got elected County Exec!
Rich ” I'm against Property tax increase” Fitzgerald !
Now is this guy the biggest hypocrite in the County!
Less than a week after his election he's all for
a tax increase. Gimme my vote back!!
This is my favorite quote in the story from the P-G. “If there's anything this administration needs, it's oversight,”
That is true on so many levels.
Does anyone else think it's counterproductive for a potential mayoral candidate or council member to insist that the city leadership needs oversight?
No. The city needs oversight.
We could use *good* oversight, and protections that should come with oversight. Whether or not we're getting either one is a pretty open question.
However onto the question of whether the City is in financial recovery: if last year the City required hundreds of millions of dollars to address our pensions shortfall, including a big up-front cash down payment, I don't see how anything over the last year accomplished financial recovery. I guess it depends whether “financial recovery” in terms of Act 47 applies to only certain columns on the spreadsheet.
Proposed budget: $467M. Proposed borrowing: $80M. That's 17% of the operating budget for a year. How is that not crazy, given the debt burden that the city has?
It's the kind of plan that you need to stop oversight in order to enact it.
And the Anon complaining about Fitzgerald is completely right. I voted for Raja, so I'm not personally that angry.
Anon 9:24 – Well, we're in a crazy situation. Large chunks of that are no one's fault, or/and the fault of no one we can still hold accountable. But it's a crazy amount of unfunded liability. And uh, the $80 million is to be spread out over *two years*, not just 2012. I guess the next question is, is there an implicit arrangement / gaurontee not to go to the well once again in 2013.