Monday, July 27, 2009

Dowd Airs Water Authority's Beer-Puked Laundry

If you thought the Indictment Incubator had learned by now that irregular procedures + campaign contributors = special favors is a dangerous formula that produces bad results, this Post-Gazette story -- "Pittsburgh Councilman Seeks Higher Water Payment From Iron City" -- might change your mind.

It appears Michael Kenney (yes, that Michael Kenney) is attempting to arrange inexplicable undercover favors for Iron City Brewing (operated by liars who abandoned the city after taking millions in "economic development" funds) to keep the lid on mistakes by the boy mayor and his chief of staff (I hear both are culpable here, but one gets leniency because he must be tried as a juvenile).

Council member Patrick Dowd, reportedly, is asking questions and agitating for a better deal for taxpayers (echoing a prescient federal judge). The mayor's office (and, I keep hearing, the County Executive's office) apparently is trying to stonewall on information and rush to judgment.

Just a hunch, but my money is on Dowd on this one, particularly if other council members support his efforts to protect taxpayers. Dowd may not recover the entire wad that the mayor squandered, but he seems well-positioned to obtain recovery of more than Mr. Kenney seems inclined to seek, even if it takes a judge to help the Iron City owners find their checkbook (cashier's or certified check only, please).

2 comments:

Bram Reichbaum said...

Did you notice today that Don Walko is also angry, angry, angry at Iron City as a citizen, as a government and as an Englishman?

Infinonymous said...

If so, Rep. Walko has severely changed his tune recently . . . which causes me to wonder whether that would be a trial balloon launched to test the waters for certain Democratic officials whose electoral horizon reaches beyond November, when Rep. Walko will waltz, inexplicably, onto the Common Pleas bench.