Progress Pittsburgh

Photo from The Pittsburgh Hoagie Sidebar

We were hoping that some of the usual Pittsburgh political bloggers would be following the Jeff Dzamko story. Dzamko is a good friend of Luke Ravenstahl who was just arrested on Friday for an outstanding bench warrant from 2008 on some bad checks. More »

From Chris Potter:

You’ve probably heard of the “Anybody But Luke” crowd, right? Well, I can tell you where everybody who is anybody will be on the night of Dec. 3.

They’ll be hanging out with city councilor Bill Peduto.

Here’s the details on that party, from billpeduto.com:

Here is how you can show your support for Bill – and build a better Pittsburgh! We need you to help us to make this event even more special.
Please join us and bring your friends.

For more information or to RSVP, please call 412-414-1430 or email Mike Devanney at Mike.Devanney@gmail.com.

Host Committee
Co-Chairs

An investigation by KDKA turned up information suggesting that Dok Harris may be ineligible to be mayor.  The home rule charter lays out the requirements for taking office as mayor:

The mayor shall have been a resident of the City for at least three years immediately preceding election

Harris held a press conference today, where he admitted (1) he only registered to vote in Pittsburgh this year, (2) he has never voted in the City of Pittsburgh, and (3) he had an apartment in the City of Pittsburgh, while voting in Sewickley.

More »

The short answer to that question is – Nothing.  The PGH Lesbian Correspondent added another post about the yet to be announced Pittsburgh LGBT advisory committee.  She has blogged about this occasionally over the past year so we thought it would be interesting to see just how long this LGBT Advisory Committee has be discussed.  Here are a handful of posts from The Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents about the LGBT Advisory Committee/Panel that span the past year:

• 6/22/2009 – Luke Ravenstahl’s LGBT Advisory Committee. On Friday, April 24, the Mayor’s Deputy Chief of Staff Kristen Baginski told us that they were in touch with potential members and would announce when that process was complete. That was almost two months ago. You can email her to ask how many more months (it has been 7 since it was announced) will be needed to form the committee that will advise the Mayor on LGBT issues. You could mention the significant issues outlined above as proof that we really can’t afford to wait too much longer
• 5/22/2009 – What happened to plans for a LGBT liaison in the Mayor’s office? Or the LGBT advisory committee?
• 4/3/2009 – Kristen Baginski and Joanna Doven won’t return my calls or respond to my email messages about the LGBT Advisory Council.
• 2/26/2009 – email from Joanna Doven “There is nothing new to report re the LGBT advisory panel. We’re getting ready to choose the panel – once that happens we will have the inaugural meeting. Charles Morrison, the head of the City’s Human Relations Commission will be monitoring the process to make sure the panel is representative of the community.”
• 12/11/2008 – “the Mayor of Pittsburgh, Luke Ravenstahl, is launching a LGBT Advisory Council to provide an open line of communication between his office and Pittsburgh’s LGBT community. The planning meeting held on December 10 was chaired by Deputy Chief of Staff Kristen Baginski and the Mayor’s personal liaison to the LGBT community, Gary Van Horn, a local businessman and President of the Delta Foundation. 25 people were in attendance, along with two members of the media. The room was fairly even between men and women, but almost entirely Caucasian and middle to upper middle class. It was a pretty elite group and that didn’t surprise me for a 5 PM meeting held downtown. “
• 11/29/2008 – Pittsburgh is a great example — our gay community is as diverse as any other Pittsburgh group, except for the younger crowds. The next big opportunity to get this right is the Mayor’s soon to be appointed LGBT Advisory Committtee. Let’s hope his team finds a way to create a dynamically diverse group of folks who do not have deep pocket ties to his office.
• 6/19/2008 – “his promise to appoint a LGBT liaison and an LGBT advisory committee remain unfulfilled.”

Propel Pittsburgh?

All of this made us wonder what ever happened to the Propel Pittsburgh Commission.  Here is a description of the commission from the City of Pittsburgh Website

Function:
The 35-member Propel Pittsburgh Commission is dedicated to meeting the concerns and needs of the City of Pittsburgh’s young adults and young professionals. Composed entirely of members aged 20-34, and chaired by the Mayor himself, the objective of the Commission is to encourage greater participation in government, identify or create programmatic or policy opportunities in issues affecting young adults and young professionals in Pittsburgh, and to inform various elected and appointed officials representing young people about issues specific to them. The Propel Pittsburgh Commission will help to give the young adults and young professionals of Pittsburgh a major role in moving the City of Pittsburgh forward.

Also from the City’s website – the commission is to meet every other month – as of today the website says the next meeting is May 21, 2008.

Blog Mentions of Propel Pittsburgh

• 7/10/2009 – Get Involved!
• 11/25/2008 – The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat
• 10/26/2008 – The Pittsburgh Comet
• 9/15/2007 – The Pittsburgh Hoagie - Matt H is a member of the Propel Pittsburgh commission – it doesn’t look like he has posted any other blog updates on their meetings.
• Alik who was a member of the commission but no longer lives in Pittsburgh also posted some updates on the Propel Meetings that were held in 2007 at Pittsburgh.Metblogs.com – the last post on this was 8/17/2008.

Well alot has happened in the past few days… from President Clinton to Shepard Fairey – bloggers and guest speakers visited Pittsburgh and discussed all sorts of things.

Here is some of the blog andmedia coverage of the Netroots Nation:

• Pittsburgh Business Times
• 2 Political Junkies – Quoted by the AP, Photos from Day 1
• Pg Early Returns
• City Paper – Specter and Sestak
• Pittsblog - What Pittsburgh can learn from Netroots, What Netroots Nation can learn from Pittsburgh

More »

I was wondering if any of the coverage of Dok Harris’s campaign kick off would pick up on this last week. (Post-Gazette coverage – Franco Dok Harris kicks off mayoral bid, July 28, 2009.)  But this post on Schloss in the burgh – Please explain this to me – reminded me that no one has mentioned the significance of Vento’s Pizza yet.  It has been so long that I almost forgot about it – and there isn’t much out there on the web – the Vento’t story occurred before every news item was posted to the web. But thanks to the website Castle Coalition (whose tag line is Citizens Fighting Eminent Domain Abuse)- we found this article from their 2003 report.

Home Depot Decides to Include Local Pittsburgh Pizzeria in its Plans Rather than Try to Have it Condemned

In 1998, Home Depot announced plans to build an $8 million, 131,000 square foot store and garden center on the former site of an old Sears store in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh. However, a number of local small businesses would have to be displaced in order to accommodate the Home Depot and adjacent parking lot. These businesses included a bar, a dry cleaner, a nail salon, and Vento’s Pizza, a popular pizzeria that had been in the area for over 50 years.1 The Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Agency (PURA) hoped to avoid using eminent domain for the project, and promised to find suitable, nearby locations for the displaced businesses. The relocation effort was a success, except in the case of Vento’s Pizza. Vento’s objected to PURA’s plan to relocate the pizzeria from its prominent location on Highland Avenue to a less traveled side street. A bitter local controversy followed, pitting proponents of the redevelopment against a fiercely loyal pizza constituency.

This little pizza shop has a big political history – here are some of the other articles from the Post-Gazette that reference Vento’s pizza. I think that the issue between Home Depot and Vento’s even made the cover of the Wall Street Journal but I have not been able to find the article online.  This pizza shop has been a significant stage for politics of development in Pittsburgh.

Local leaders say mayor’s energy will help him, July 10, 2006

Every Saturday morning after buying a Starbucks coffee in his Squirrel Hill neighborhood, Mr. O’Connor drives to East Liberty to shoot the breeze at Vento’s Pizza on Highland Avenue and run his car through a car wash. He often leads walking tours in the area.

Chief executive candidate Onorato not known for backing off quietly, October 19, 2003

One of his best-known blowups came at the end of his tenure in a council debate over city aid to Vento’s Pizza near the old Sears in East Liberty, which had to be moved to make way for a new Home Depot.

Gene Ricciardi mentioned speaking to owner Al Vento about the matter in Italian, and Sala Udin, smarting from council’s recent approval of a development plan in the Hill District that he didn’t like, said city residents “shouldn’t have to speak Italian” to get aid.

Letters to the Editor, No Thanks to Murphy, April 11, 2001

I take exception to Steve Leeper’s comments regarding my business (”Ad Watch: O’Connor’s TV Ads Are First to Air,” April 6). Mr. Leeper claims Mayor Tom Murphy saved my business and without the new Home Depot in East Liberty, I would have been “done.” Nothing could be further from the truth. While I appreciate Home Depot’s willingness to accommodate me after City Council President Bob O’Connor brought us together, my business was thriving before it came along.

Ad Watch: O’Connor’s TV ads are first to air, April 6, 2001

O’Connor is rotating two ads, one that offers a list of promises on issues. The second emphasizes O’Connor’s theme of neighborhood commitment by portraying the challenger as savior of Vento’s Pizza, an East Liberty landmark dislocated by development of a Home Depot store on Highland Avenue.

Today’s post-agenda on Community Benefit Agreements held in Pittsburgh’s City Council Chambers had some in the audience all a-twitter.  Here’s what happened:

Over at p2pac, the Progress Pittsburgh Political Action Committee has announced their endorsement of four candidates for the 2009 Primary cycle.

From their announcement:

P2PAC develops, supports, and helps to elect candidates who demonstrate vision, progressive values, and electability… 

These endorsements represent four races where a group of dedicated citizens can make a MAJOR impact on the race…

• Natalia Rudiak, City Council District 4, nataliarudiak.com 
  • Click Here to Donate to Friends of Natalia Rudiak
  • Click Here to Volunteer
• Robert Daniel Lavelle, City Council District 6, lavelleforcouncil.com
  • Click Here to Donate to Citizens for Daniel Lavelle
  • Click Here to Volunteer
• Susan Banahasky, Magisterial District Judge 5-3-10, susanformagistrate.com 
  • Click Here to Donate to Friends for Susan Banahasky
  • Click Here to Volunteer
• Hugh McGough, Court of Common Pleas, mcgough4judge.com 
  • Click Here to Donate to McGough for Judge
  • Click Here to Volunteer

In many ways, the race to represent district 4 on Pittsburgh’s City Council is largely shaping up to be a fight between Natalia Rudiak and Anthony Coghill.

A week ago, the community group Pretty Up Beechview announced their endorsement of Natalia Rudiak.

More »

After reading Lady Elaine’s post about potholes I started thinking more about whether the pothole website was motivated by the upcoming election or if this was just part of an ongoing effort to improve communications with city residents. I read committeegrrl’s post last week about potholes and my first reaction was that she was really reading too much into the whole issue.  I decided to look up the history on the domain PittsburghPothole.com –  the domain was registered on Febrauary 26, 2009.  Which is pretty recent – if this pothole website was something that had been in the works for awhile – one would think that the domain would have been registered sooner.  The good news is it looks like they used Pittsburgh based Pair.net to register the domain.  

WHOIS information for: pittsburghpothole.com:

[whois.pairnic.com]
Registrant:
  City of Pittsburgh
  414 Grant St, Room 604
  City County Building
  Pittsburgh, PA 15219
  US

  linda.heidelberg@city.pittsburgh.pa.us
   +1.4122552152
   +1.4122552355

Domain Name: PITTSBURGHPOTHOLE.COM

Administrative & Technical Contact:
  City of Pittsburgh
  414 Grant St, Room 604
  City County Building
  Pittsburgh, PA 15219
  US

  linda.heidelberg@city.pittsburgh.pa.us
   +1.4122552152
   +1.4122552355

Domain Name Servers:
  NS4.PAIRNIC.COM
  NS3.PAIRNIC.COM

Transfer-Lock Status: ENABLED

 Created:     February 26, 2009
Modified:     February 26, 2009
 Expires:     February 26, 2014

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From Agent Ska

I received the following email from the Duquesne Democrats. 

“…The second opportunity available is something *name* pointed out to me earlier this week and that is a few unpaid internships within the mayors office: “The campaign is looking for several hard-working, and self-motivated unpaid interns for this semester.

Though unpaid, they are willing to do it for credit, and according to *name*, “a kickass letter of reccomendation from the Mayor.”

Now, am I the only one who sees some technical errors? Such as HELP WITH THE CAMPAIGN  and INTERN in the MAYOR’S OFFICE? 

From the Post-Gazette blog (thanks to Jane Pitt) here is a YouTube video from a Super Bowl Party in Tampa. In this clip BodyBuilding.com interviews Luke, Clinton Portis and Chloe Kardashian on the Red Carpet.

Image via Wikipedia Chris Briem wonders if the Pat Ford settlement will mean the end of the Burghosphere – “I mean, will there be enough fodder for people to write about going forward. It’s debatable.”  But Doug Sheilds has already called for an investigation and thus the saga of what can only be labeled Pat-Fordgate continues.  Here is what the bloggers are saying…

• Dear Pat Ford and Alicia Sirk @ The Burgh Blog
  
  • “So let me shout it out right now.  You are a disgrace to this city and the people.  You are a disgrace to honesty.  You are a disgrace to what it means to be a public servant.  You are both egotistical, unethical, narcissistic thieves and when the karma boomerang hits you upside the head, I hope it circles around again to give it to you twice.”
• Adventures in Urban Redevelopment Land @ The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat
  • To answer questions elsewhere, my guess is that the URA would have had to hire specialized outside counsel in order to defend itself and the City against whatever allegations they may throw at them.  Not sure what Ford could have done to them, but the nuances of employment law escapes me (and it’s probably not the specialty of the URA legal team either) and there seems to be enough of a pretense of a challenge to warrant concern.
• Anthony’s Pie Chart Shakedown @ Tunesmith & Anthony
  • Public opinion of Pat Ford – 50% think he is creepy, 50% think he is weird
• Kraus on Radio – Pat Ford owes us an explanation @ Mark Rauterkus and Running Mates
  • Bruce Kraus of Pgh’s City Council was just interviewed on KDKA radio by Marty Griffin about the Pat Ford matter.

    Bruce said, “Pat Ford owes us an explanation.” “Those (letter of more than a week ago by Mr. Ford about corruption) are very serious allegations.”

    Others in city hall won’t give an interview to Marty for the show. Mayor Ravenstahl took the day off. Doug Shields nor Jim Motznik won’t do it either. Michael Lamb, city controller is talking.