From the email inbox:
A writer contends Monday’s “At Large” was “a little harsh” regarding “Arnold Palmer Regional Airport’s need to bribe an airline to offer flights to and from the facility.”
“Especially after seeing the bribes that Pittsburgh International Airport hands out,” he adds.
But government bribes long have been par for the course, reminds this wag with whom I regularly converse.
“I cannot think of any large project in the commonwealth that hasn’t involved a government bribe,” he writes.
“The bribes are a function of the dysfunctional system whereby various levels of government each have their own rules regarding any project that someone wants to pursue.
“Pennsylvania’s answer to streamline the process is to add an additional layer of government functionaries to guide people through the byzantine regulatory process.
“Things are so unnecessarily complex here that, for example, you need an occupancy permit, not just for a facility; you also need an additional occupancy permit to put in a curb cut to provide ingress and egress to an establishment,” he says.
My faithful correspondent recounts how when he lived in Houston (Texas) many decades ago, they had no zoning regulations. “They handled everything through deed covenants. Developers knew up front the restrictions that they faced,” he says.
“Meanwhile, back here, my local municipality decided to replace some park benches in the municipal parks. They filled out a Department of Conservation and Natural Resources grant form to pay for them.
“The funding for park improvement projects is provided by a tipping fee that is levied on garbage trucks that empty their loads at Pennsylvania landfills. Needless to say, the approval processes take time and in the business world time is money. Then they wonder why it takes forever to get anything done around here.
“Of course, the politicians are very quick to show up with shovels and scissors, crowing about how the project would have never gotten done without them,” the wag says.
“Our current governor loves publicizing his ability to hand out other people’s money. He has an entire staff devoted to making him look good.”
But, “What the politicians don’t discuss is all the projects that never get done because of the archaic approval processes required to make anything happen.”
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
