Hats off to UPMC for stepping up in major-league fashion with a $10 million targeted gift that will help the City of Pittsburgh buy nine new ambulances and a rescue truck this year and, according to officials, similar numbers next year to replace its aged, failing fleet.
Hats off, too, to the PNC Foundation for gifting the city another $2 million that, again targeted, will allow the city to buy 15 snowplow trucks to replace an equally old and breakdown-prone fleet.
And hats off as well to Mayor Corey O’Connor for stating the obvious, on KDKA Radio, on the importance of such targeted giving as a way to assure donors that their magnanimous efforts will not go down what’s all too often the black hole of paying for unaccountable governments’ mistakes.
As Frank Gamrat, executive director of the Allegheny Institute reminds:
“The city has a long history of squandering money and I think the nonprofits know it.”
Here’s to a new era of targeted support, accountable government and mutual cooperation. Too much to ask? Perhaps. But the events of last week are a fresh start on the journey toward that goal.
Who’s next to step up for Pittsburgh?
The Post-Gazette reports that Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) is contending that key underlying data necessary to support its languishing and contested facilities reorganization plan “does not exist.”
“The district’s claim that these simply don’t exist raises two troubling possibilities,” offered a P-G editorial: “Either the public information about the … plan was based in large part on guesswork or PPS is …stonewalling” in complying with an expansive Right-to-Know request.
Then how did it reach the conclusions on this broad plan to right-size the district’s bricks-and-mortar footprint?
Did it use a dart board?
Or maybe it was Ouija board?
“Which raises the question of whether the district, as currently governed, is equipped to fulfill its responsibilities generally,” the P-G opines. “We believe it’s time to investigate alternatives, including state financial takeover or changes to the selection and composition of the board. Both would require state legislation.”
Sorry, but it’s time to stop investigating alternatives and act. As we’ve long held, it’s past time for the state to take over Pittsburgh Public Schools and attempt to end what for too long has been a very expensive lesson in all-around failure.
Yes, perhaps we’re putting too much faith in “The State.” But it appears to be the only alternative that’s left.
From the email inbox, a wag with whom we regularly converse, offers some insight into the news that Pennsylvania is recording record gambling “income”:
“I have long maintained that it is the state government that is addicted to vice. The gambling racket is only one of the vices that it is addicted to.
“The cigarette taxes are another addiction. The beer-distribution racket is another fine example whereby every county must have a master distributor for each brand, who is forbidden from selling to retail customers.
“That doesn’t include the cost of the government-mandated licenses for the privilege of selling the stuff or the taxes the government collects at each level of the distribution chain.
“But the government monopoly on the distribution of wine and spirits tops them all — not just because of the taxes but because the business model is straight from Marxist doctrine.
“While we are in the neighborhood, wait until you see what happens when they legalize marijuana. Can legalized brothels be far behind? Don’t be surprised when people need an expensive license to enter these endeavors, in addition to the taxes applied to the purveyors.
“At the end of the day, it is not just the addicts that need to go to rehab,” our wag concludes.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
