Thursday, July 06, 2006
More Spin for the Former Mayor
There’s nothing like a little gushing from a former Pittsburgh resident to try and perform a lyrical “sleight of hand” on the record of the previous Mayor. That Mayor’s spokesperson recently wrote a letter to the editor touting all of the positive achievements done by his old boss and to “set the record straight”. From the letter, one would think that the Mayor himself—without help from other local, state, or Federal officials or civic and non-profit groups—moved mountains and alone had the vision to reform Pittsburgh.
Since the spokesperson has placed the burden on his old boss’s back, let’s assess how heavy the load really is.
New stadiums, new trails, and shiny new corporate headquarters—what have they really done for Pittsburgh? Of course there is no mention of the cost to taxpayers who will likely never see a return on their investment. Nor is there any mention that Pittsburgh’s finances are overseen by not one, but two state-level agencies. Population continues to decline with the City losing 4,000 people from 2004 to 2005, there has been no net growth in employment (as evidenced by wage and EMS tax collections), Downtown looks no better, and the Mayor’s department store plan has left the Golden Triangle with two more structures to rehab and convert to other uses.
As to the spokesperson’s comment that “being Mayor is not a popularity contest” he fails to realize that the Mayor just narrowly escaped Federal indictment for using the arbitration process as a cover to win re-election. At the end of the day, trading horses with the fire union to serve another term was not leadership, it was a power grab aimed at a reliable voting bloc. That was not the right thing to do, and it ended up adding more to the City’s already bloated bottom line.
These are the facts, and no amount of glossing over can change them. Leave it to a PR person to tout the benefits while ignoring the costs.
We have to wonder about those who refer to Pittsburgh as a “thriving, vibrant City in which to live, work and play” when they do those things in a City 200 miles to the South.
Since the spokesperson has placed the burden on his old boss’s back, let’s assess how heavy the load really is.
New stadiums, new trails, and shiny new corporate headquarters—what have they really done for Pittsburgh? Of course there is no mention of the cost to taxpayers who will likely never see a return on their investment. Nor is there any mention that Pittsburgh’s finances are overseen by not one, but two state-level agencies. Population continues to decline with the City losing 4,000 people from 2004 to 2005, there has been no net growth in employment (as evidenced by wage and EMS tax collections), Downtown looks no better, and the Mayor’s department store plan has left the Golden Triangle with two more structures to rehab and convert to other uses.
As to the spokesperson’s comment that “being Mayor is not a popularity contest” he fails to realize that the Mayor just narrowly escaped Federal indictment for using the arbitration process as a cover to win re-election. At the end of the day, trading horses with the fire union to serve another term was not leadership, it was a power grab aimed at a reliable voting bloc. That was not the right thing to do, and it ended up adding more to the City’s already bloated bottom line.
These are the facts, and no amount of glossing over can change them. Leave it to a PR person to tout the benefits while ignoring the costs.
We have to wonder about those who refer to Pittsburgh as a “thriving, vibrant City in which to live, work and play” when they do those things in a City 200 miles to the South.
