Time To Reassess (The County's Legal Position)?

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has issued good news for Allegheny County property owners disfavored by the county's discredited and unconstitutional system of assessments. The Court denied the Onorato administration's request to ignore the Court's substantive ruling of unconstitutionality maintain the unfair schedule of assessments long enough to enable Onorato to run for governor the legislature to consider the issue.

The Propositions Board has been adjusted to reflect this development. Congratulations to those who bet on the Supreme Court to vindicate the state constitution rather than to provide political cover for a gubernatorial candidate at the immoral expense of mistreated property owners.

This development tosses the ball back to county judge R. Stanton Wettick, who, I believe, told the county administration more than a year ago to expect -- and, more important, prepare for -- this ruling and a consequent order requiring a prompt reassessment. The county solicitor should be summoned to Judge Wettick's chambers any day now to report on the state of those preparations.

Adolescents And Alcohol Are A Bad Mix -- As Today's URA Board Meeting Should Demonstrate

Adolescents are fascinated by (if not fixated on) alcohol, but bad things happen when the combination occurs. Cue: Today's scheduled URA board meeting.

The meeting agenda indicates the URA board will rubber-stamp consider three grants loans -- all of which, remarkably, appear to be related to the sale of booze. (Is this the Ravenstahl administration's new economic development policy -- a city-wide kegger?)

First the URA will hand $50,000 to Brookline Beer, a neighborhood beer distributor. Then the URA will hand $300,000 to someone who is trying to buy Penn Brewery, a North Side brewer fallen on hard times. Finally, the URA will hand $200,000 to something called E.L. Vallozzi's LLC, which I figure as the latest venture involving Westmoreland County restaurateur Ernie Vallozzi, who has one established, high-quality, successful restaurant (Vallozzi's, in Latrobe) and a string of less successful restaurant ventures (such as the long-gone Pi pizza of Squirrel Hill and the Red Star Brewery & Grille in Greensburg, recently closed and transformed into a Mexican joint). I doubt the URA is investing in the successful side of the Vallozzi culinary empire.

Given the Ravenstahl administration's job-killing record (and that of URA board chair Yarone Zober) when it mixes public money, economic development efforts and booze, today's URA meeting seems certain to provide another example of why adults try to keep the kids away from the liquor cabinet. On the bright side, sending a half-million plus down the drain has to work out better than the Ravenstahl administration's "save the brewery" plan -- spending $4 million to kill a couple of hundred jobs -- at Iron City.

Or, as someone once said: Luke Can't Even Be Trusted To Get The Beer

Kevin Acklin's Strange Idea of Independence

Kevin Acklin -- whose current, self-applied "independent" label is difficult to square with some of his choices of playmates -- has been found back in the partisan sandbox, trying to toss some sand into the gears of Dok Harris' campaign.

The Tribune-Review reports (yet the Post-Gazette, so far as I can tell, does not) that three city residents have challenged Dok Harris' nominating petitions, based on what appears to be a week of painstaking legal analysis of more than 3,000 signatures submitted to the Elections Bureau in early August. One of the challengers acknowledged acting on Acklin's behalf.

Acklin's streetfighting politics -- it seems unlikely, based on the mathematics, that Acklin's challenge will succeed, but the two campaigns are likely to devote substantial time, effort and cash to the battle -- are unbecoming, but the real problem is that early reports identify Republican political operatives and lawyers (largely from outside the city) as the muscle behind Acklin's challenge.

This is no way, Mr. Acklin, to incline people to forget that you were quite comfortable, not so long ago, snuggling with the likes of Rick Santorum and Pat Toomey.

UPDATE: The Post-Gazette has published an account in which the petitioners are described as "[s]upporters of independent mayoral candidate Kevin Acklin."

Even Superman Drives To Philly These Days

My air travel has declined roughly 75 percent since the advent of shoe removal, shampoo-in-a-baggie, and hour-long security lines. Anything short of Chicago, Boston or Atlanta, I drive.

This is part of my reasoning. Cost-cutting, outsourcing, show-trial security measures, disregard of customers and disregard of common sense have reached the point at which I am no longer a comfortable fit with airline operations. Give me a steering wheel, a half-dozen CDs and a six-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper.

So, I Finally Went To A Pirates Game . . .

because O.A.R. was scheduled to perform a postgame concert. It wasn't surprising that the Pirates were outclassed by Albert Pujols and his Cardinals teammates -- predictable and deserved -- but who would have guessed that Marc Roberge would lose his voice one song into the performance?

I left when a fireworks display began 10 minutes after it became apparent Roberge couldn't sing, and apparently missed a game attempt by a raspy Roberge to make it through About Mr. Brown, a favorite. I don't blame the Pirates for this -- especially not when there is already ample reason to blame the organization for just about everything else -- but I believe Pittsburgh deserves a full-strength version of a fine song (and, because About Mr. Brown can't be embedded, that song is Conquering Fools):

Proof WWVB Does Not Work For The County or City (And Especially Not The Airport Authority)

Just as the Airport Authority (a particularly sketchy part of the county's financial shell game, consequent to a ruinous decline in customers) experiences a predictable and ominous decline in bond rating, the proprietor of WWVB refutes any prospect he might work for local government; this makes too much sense.
The Obi-Wan angle*: If Rendell's next employer (you know he has the gig already lined up), Onorato's biggest bankroller (Mr. Doich), or Ravenstahl's college roommate can figure out a way to make money on this idea, it just might be adopted as official government policy.

* our only hope

George Thorogood Destroys The Palace

George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers visited a Gibson-fueled rock-and-roll tornado upon a sold-out Palace Theatre in Greensburg last night. For those who made the mistake of missing a fine show (including a worthy opening set by Jonny Lang), one of the few songs I wish Lonesome George would have added to the setlist:

Online Revelations Disturb In Several Directions

The Post-Gazette journeys through the mind of a murderer, as reflected by online information harvested by a Canadian hacker. The ease and mechanics of the harvesting might well surprise some, disturb others.

As the Intertubes increasingly demonstrate (at least for the savvy) the interconnectedness of human lives, we will become more familiar and comfortable with such revelations. I do not expect anything, however, to make this less creepy.

Unless it is this .

In-And-Out Week For America's Latina Judges

Mixed bag for America's Latina judges this week.

The Senate confirmed Sonia Sotomayor, placing a woman of Puerto Rican descent on the United States Supreme Court. Soon-to-be-Justice Sotomayor consequently will resign her Article III commission as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and begin to interpret the Constitution for litigants and the public.

Paula Abdul*, meanwhile, announced that she would depart her position as judge for American Idol, forcing Americans to choose among fungible, vapid voices without her. Fox announced it would attempt to fill the intellectual void with the likes of Posh Spice and the "I Kissed A Girl" chick.

* Her father was raised in Brazil and she was married to Emilio Estevez.

Some Improve Our World, Others Stain It

What is the last thing a cowardly loser does before raining his bitter dysfunction onto innocent women?

He calls his mommy.

Mrs. Sodini appears to be conducting herself with integrity, diminishing the prospect that the heartache inflicted by a coward's bullets would be amplified by the emergence of another Margaret Poplawski.

Read The Story, Wish Jim Motznik Well

This story from the Post-Gazette prompts several questions in a moving context involving Jim Motznik and his mother, each of whom deserves a kind thought after a trying experience.

Kseniya Simonova, Ukrainian Sand Animator

I stand ready to be informed that time-lapse photography is involved, or that some other aspect of this story is suspect or discredited, but I liked the recorded sand animation of Kseniya Simonova of Ukraine, consequently available on Infinonyvision (and thereafter, I hope, by YouTube link).

Ed Rendell+PLCB=No Other Information Needed

The oily details.

Surveying The Propositions Board (Far Right)

Iron City/PWSA Payback odds adjusted to reflect Dowd's outmaneuvering of the mayor's office, likely an expensive development for Iron City's owners. Comet pounced on newly attractive numbers before Board revised. Related: Dowd prospects improve; rat-a-thon risk lowers Sewergate indictment number.

Wilson, Sanchez trades mean bets on Pirates success continue to be losers. Like the club's owners. And the fools who gave them a stadium.

Management thanks everyone who wagered on state budget enactment. Not a single winning ticket yet.

Specter and Toomey appear destined to joust, which is good news for Democrats. Neither Onorato nor Wagner generating excitement, which is good news for GOP.

Board ignores Palin divorce rumor, but still marks hers most likely socialcon scandal.

DeJuan Blair seems slimmer (maybe biggest point for the young man), and is smiling, but Board wonders why Spurs haven't confirmed agent's "guaranteed" money announcement. Board still likes Young as top pro from last season's Panthers.

From Formerly Murky Sewers, Some Brightness

Was it something in the water?

The city administration, recently occupied by reaffirming inexplicable sweetheart deals and stiff-arming requests for information, changed its tune toward Iron City Brewing almost completely at a Water and Sewer Authority board meeting on Friday.

Tim Hickman of Iron City, meanwhile, continues to repel credibility at a rate resembling the brewery's sales chart for the past two decades.

Mayor Ravenstahl -- following a counterproductive course originally chosen by Tom Murphy and continued by Bob O'Connor -- permitted Iron City to amass huge delinquencies for water and sewer service. The Ravensthal administration compounded the problem by agreeing to forgive nearly $4 million (a crucial concession that kept inept and disingenuous management in place during a bankruptcy), in part by ignoring written conditions attached to some of the forgiveness, then threw in hundreds of thousands of dollars in public "economic development" subsidies to "save" the brewery and hundreds of jobs.

The brewery's owners -- one the son of a Chicago mobster who died six days out of prison, another recently indicted in Connecticut -- repaid these courtesies with a series of broken promises culminating in closure of a 148-year-old business and the loss of every last manufacturing job at the brewery.

PWSA director Michael Kenney, naturally, had declared that Iron City had complied with the "spirit" of the concessions and that he saw no reason to expect Iron City to repay most of what it had received. The Post-Gazette, Dowd and another elected official requested relevant documents and other information; the PWSA stonewalled; rumors surfaced concerning a politically tinged land development deal dependent on clearing the brewery's real estate of liens.

Council member Dowd went public. challenging Kenney's assertions that the city was legally entitled to no more than $600,000. A PWSA board meeting was rescheduled.

At the meeting, the mayor's finance director signaled a change in the administration's position: Instead of shoving cash into Iron City's pockets and quietly waiving repayment conditions, the city was now expressing outrage concerning the manner in which Iron City "let down the Water and Sewer Authority . . . let down the workers . . . let down the people of Pittsburgh."

Mr. Kenney leapt onto the new bandwagon, describing his earlier description of a $600,000 repayment obligation as a "mistake," backtracking from the decision to ignore the written conditions, and acknowledging that the dubious concessions arranged by the city adminstration earlier this year had not been approved by the PWSA board.

The 180-degree turn is welcome but curious. I still think the man to watch is Patrick Dowd -- maybe a play for even more than the million?. From another direction, has the city responded to the Post-Gazette's records request yet? If Len Boselovic could spare a moment while manhandling the entire state of West Virginia into submission, it would be interesting to see him reset his sights on Iron City Brewing and its dealings with the City of Pittsburgh. I don't believe we have heard the last from either Dowd or Boselovic, and it will be interesting to watch what occurs if they provoke Iron City to turn on the mayor.

A recap of the manner in which the city administration's about-face wrecked my predictions concerning coverage of Friday's PWSA board meeting:

PREDICTION: two-paragraph blurb, at most, in the Trib (which outdid itself with the Heather Bresch promotion story that mentioned neither her illusory degree nor the current, stock-roiling FDA scandal), with no mention of the Iron City angle
PUBLISHED: 16-graf story, leading with the Iron City situation (ahead of the revelation of a projected $2 million deficit)
PREDICTION: six-paragraph summary in the Post-Gazette, a bare-bones recounting of votes and reports with no context
PUBLISHED: 10-paragraph article, short on context but focused almost exclusively on Friday's Iron City developments (at the expense of the deficit revelation)
PREDICTION: an extensive report at The Comet
PUBLISHED: next to nothing. Just snippets from Dowd, P-G, Trib, which suggests The Comet did not attend (or perhaps did not wish to risk being perceived as a blowhard?)

Strike one, strike two, strike three. I guess I'm ready to bat cleanup for the Pirates.

NOT PREDICTED: Brian O'Neill's spot-on suggestion for a new Iron City slogan.