Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Where Was The Adult Supervision When Luke And Yarone Pissed The City's Bed Again?

Luke Ravenstahl and Yarone Zober invested approximately $4 million in taxpayer and ratepayer funds in a scheme whose result was moving dozens of manufacturing jobs --at the Iron City brewery, which had employed Pittsburghers continuously between (a) the Civil War and (b) the boy mayor getting involved -- completely out of town. Ravenstahl and Zober, after arranging for sketchy owners to get control of the brewery in a bankruptcy case, apparently relinquished secured positions worth nine figures (outside of a bankruptcy context, so they handed over the cash voluntarily) in exchange for some illusory promises from the owners, one of whom has been indicted.

Isn't this exactly the type of senseless squandering of city resources that Act 47 was designed to stop, and that the Act 47 coordinator is responsible for monitoring and preventing? Did Zober act improperly in making these calls without oversight, was the coordinator asleep at the switch, or is there a loophole in Act 47 that even an idiot can (and did) drive a beer truck through?

Maybe all three?

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