Thursday, April 03, 2008
Not Buying It
After a long delay the Citizens Advisory Committee has released its report on a City-County merger. Not surprisingly, the report calls for a consolidation of the City government with County government in a way to eliminate service duplication, which would essentially mean one police force, one parks department, one public works department, etc. A full merger would entail the conversion of the County’s functions of human services and the jail and the City’s functions of fire fighting and refuse collection to a new government.
The buzz words of “zero-service duplication” is empty pandering since the City and County have dragged their feet on combining services for years and have only made small progress on 911, fingerprinting, and some purchasing. Let’s see if this report prods them on.
The biggest surprise is that the Mayor has signed off on the concept though the public record indicates he did not really believe in the concept unless it was a money saver. In July of 2007, for instance, the Mayor stated “how are [city residents] lives better off because of consolidation?” and in January of this year he asked “does it save taxpayer’s money? Does it provide a more efficient government?” At the time, the Mayor indicated that he wanted the City to expand its service reach to other municipalities.
But not happy with small changes—gosh, after four years of the City taking turns as being its own overseer despite an Act 47 team and an oversight board, who would have thought that would have happened?—the Mayor now has signed on as a full-backer of possibly being the last Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh, something he campaigned against in the last election. Funny how things change. The City and the County have done little in the way of being “bold, decisive or far-reaching”.
If the plan comes to fruition, the General Assembly will design a referendum question that will spell out the what, when, where, and how of the issue. But it is certain that the issues of the City’s debt and pension load will be a major obstacle to the consolidation.
The buzz words of “zero-service duplication” is empty pandering since the City and County have dragged their feet on combining services for years and have only made small progress on 911, fingerprinting, and some purchasing. Let’s see if this report prods them on.
The biggest surprise is that the Mayor has signed off on the concept though the public record indicates he did not really believe in the concept unless it was a money saver. In July of 2007, for instance, the Mayor stated “how are [city residents] lives better off because of consolidation?” and in January of this year he asked “does it save taxpayer’s money? Does it provide a more efficient government?” At the time, the Mayor indicated that he wanted the City to expand its service reach to other municipalities.
But not happy with small changes—gosh, after four years of the City taking turns as being its own overseer despite an Act 47 team and an oversight board, who would have thought that would have happened?—the Mayor now has signed on as a full-backer of possibly being the last Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh, something he campaigned against in the last election. Funny how things change. The City and the County have done little in the way of being “bold, decisive or far-reaching”.
If the plan comes to fruition, the General Assembly will design a referendum question that will spell out the what, when, where, and how of the issue. But it is certain that the issues of the City’s debt and pension load will be a major obstacle to the consolidation.
