A newspaper headline posits this question:
“If Amazon came to Pittsburgh, would it give back to the community?”
Of course, given that Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia officials have been secretly working to lavish the Internet retail giant with untold taxpayer dollars to locate its second headquarters outside Seattle somewhere in the commonwealth – and spending even more taxpayer money to keep it secret — here’s a simple fact about such “givebacks”:
Taxpayers likely would be funding them.
Ah, “beneficence.”
Speaking of those hush-hush offers of public money to underwrite the expansion of this uber-profitable company, the state Office of Open Records this month ordered Pennsylvania officials – as it previously did Pittsburgh officials — to make public the incentives being offered.
“The State,” it has been reported, has offered up to $1 billion. That’s $1,000,000,000.00.
State officials have argued that the bid should not be made public because it amounts to a trade secret and confidential proprietary information. But “The State” is not a private enterprise, it is a public one.
The open record folks rejected the perverted entreaties of “The State,” as proffered by the state Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED). The agency has 30 days (from the June 13 ruling) to appeal the order. That’s pretty much a given, considering what Pittsburgh officials did when the records office ruled similarly. (Which involves even more public dollars employed to keep from the public its business.)
A DCED spokesman offered the boilerplate response of those involved in pledging public dollars without transparency:
“This is a highly competitive process,” said Michael Gerber. “Revealing possible incentives at this stage of the process would allow other states to adjust their own incentives accordingly and put Pennsylvania at a competitive disadvantage.”
A public agency. The pledging of public money. The public has every right to know what the “deal” is – one likely to be no “deal” at all.
Gerber goes on to rationalize the lack of transparency now by noting how any incentives would require legislative approval. They “would get a full public vetting prior to being enacted,” he said.
Cue the laugh track.
Critical thinking skills are taking a brow-beating in the debate over the future of the beleaguered Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA).
Newly under the auspices of the state Public Utility Commission (PUC), the PWSA is attempting to overcome decades of deferred (or ignored) maintenance, corruption and political machinations.
At the same time, People’s Natural Gas has expressed concrete interest in partnering with the City of Pittsburgh to fix the authority’s horrid system.
But to knee-jerking activists, this is akin to one very nasty 13-letter word – privatization. As if government control of the PWSA – through an authority board manipulated by pols — has not been a total fail.
Goodness gracious, one activist put it, “Private corporations will always put profits over people.” Never mind that the long history of the PWSA involved putting nonfeasance and politics over people.
For the sake of argument, let’s say People’s indeed partners with the city. And let’s say even if no deal can be reached and People’s, as some, including Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, have suggested, builds out a parallel water system.
The simple fact of the matter is that People’s remains a public utility and any such system would be regulated by the state PUC.
Where’s the beef of the activists’ plaint? Nowhere to be found.
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
