Time is Precious

Last week, two friends of mine died, on opposite coasts. They were both young (early 40s in one case, early 50s in the other), and their passing, while "natural," came completely out of the blue.

Every day, never lose sight of the preciousness of those you love, and don't fail to tell and show them how important they are to you.

Sporting News

On a grey Memorial Day weekend, notes from watching too much sports television . . .

England 2, United States 1: England brought the B team, and the United States still couldn't finish. The USA has two quality finishers (Donovan and Johnson) but didn't have them both on the field, and it showed. England also exposed American weakness in central midfield and central defense. The Americans were listless in the first half. They played with spirit (if not a lot of organization) for the second 45 minutes but couldn't find the net more than once. It looked like a great atmosphere in Chicago. US Soccer should be happy, but Bruce Arena can't be.

Danica Patrick finished fourth at the Indy 500, and a few more experienced drivers are so scared of her that they're complaining that she doesn't weigh enough. Jeez. If human weight matters so much in racing, why haven't team owners been hiring jockeys or putting weight restriction clauses into driver contracts? Get over it, guys. This was the first time in years that I've watched any of this race, and between Patrick and the international flavor of the field as a whole, it was worth it.

I don't understand the rules of lacrosse, but it's fun to watch, even on TV. Hopkins and Virginia played a scoreless but entertaining first quarter on Saturday before Hopkins gutted out a 9-8 win. I'll be watching the Duke/Hopkins final today.

Is Your House Overvalued?

Where does Pittsburgh stand in relation to the nation's housing bubble? Take a look at this piece in today's New York Times, and click on some of the additional graphics and charts, particularly this one that tracks the evolution of home price/rental rate ratios. If the data are worth something (are they?), Pittsburgh looks warm, but not superheated.

Customer Service

The gang at Tea Leaves had some unpleasant customer service experiences recently -- check out posts here and here.

I have one word for this: Custard.

Custard Eater?

Tim Murray's letter to the Arts editor in Sunday's P-G, complaining about a naked Beetle Bailey in the Sunday strip of a week ago, is a sure sign that Mr. Murray either takes his custard straight or that he possesses one of the best wits in the 'Burgh. Here's a sample:

I have long celebrated "Beetle Bailey's" creator, Mort Walker, not only as a comic genius on a par with Mark Twain and S.J. Perelman but also as a patriot and, therefore, presumably a good Protestant and Republican. I am therefore crestfallen to find him wallowing in the same cesspool as Larry Flynt.

Here's the offending strip.

More ADB on the Pittsburgh Democrats

ADB has more thoughtful analysis of the Democratic mayoral primary (and ADB also has lots more pretty pictures). Together with the dialogue in the comments, it's better and more detailed political analysis than you'll find in any other local media, even if you disagree with ADB.

Some questions:

Is it automatically the case that we'll see Lamb and Peduto in the mayor's race next time around?

If money is ultimately the key -- and I think it is -- then it strikes me that the key task for Peduto, Lamb, or whoever goes up against the Old Guard (OG) is to find new money. The existing money is not going to come their way. Where does that new money come from?

Is there any effective way for the non-OG factions to build bridges to one another?

Act 72 and Property Tax Reform

Jason, over at Tube City, is right to be skeptical about the Act 72 "shell game" (!) that the governor is trying to impose on local school districts. Better, he suggests, would be a centralized property tax collection and distribution system, which would equalize budget disparities between high and low income school districts. Jonathan Potts notes (in Tube City comments) that it would likely take a court battle to make this happen, and current interpretations of the PA Constitution make a win for equity unlikely.

My guess is that Jonathan is right (on both counts), but before we go down that road, note that sometimes, we should be careful what we wish for.

Once upon a time in the West, California had a public school system that was the envy of the other 49 states. Along came Serrano v. Priest, the multi-round court case based on district-to-district inequality, which led to implementation of a system much like the one Jason is describing: collection of real estate taxes in Sacramento, and central distribution of school budgets based on a state-wide dollars-per-pupil formula. What happened next? As real estate values went way up in some areas, homeowners in wealthier towns didn't see their tax dollars coming back to the community. The whole state exploded, with property tax reform, in 1978. Assessments were capped at 1978 values, with marginal increases on an annual basis and reassessment only on change of ownership. Local tax increases can be implemented only with a super-majority vote.

Result? Over about a decade, the state's public schools, along with a lot of other public services, went into the toilet. California schools overall were starved for cash; they went from first to worst nationally, more or less. Since then, thanks to the dot-com boom and private foundation money raised in wealthy suburbs, a few school districts are doing fine again. On a per student basis, the Mt. Lebanon and Palo Alto districts spend roughly the same amount of money. In Mt. Lebanon it comes straight out of our taxes. My friends in Palo Alto pay much less in tax, but they more than make up for it with direct cash and in-kind "contributions" to the schools, and to the school foundation -- and that's if they keep their kids in the public schools. A lot of people, even in "good" districts like Palo Alto, still pay private school tuition. And, either way, they make mind-numbing mortgage payments.

If you don't live in a wealthy town, of course, you aren't lucky enough to have the luxury of the public/private choice. It's private if you can afford it; public if you can't. My kids never went to Palo Alto schools. They went to Oakland (CA) schools, where it's the PTA budget that covered things like art, and music, and the school library. People still ask me whether I miss living in the Bay Area. Since I can't afford private schools, and I can't afford to buy a house in Palo Alto (for example), the answer is: absolutely not. And I'm not alone -- a lot of our friends with young kids booked out of the Bay Area in the mid and late 90s, when our kids were moving out of preschool and into elementary schools, and we were all looking at some pretty harsh choices for schools.

The lesson isn't that the PA system is great. Jason and Jonathan are right that there's a lot of inequity and inequality here. But if we're funding schools with property taxes, you can't solve the problem by centralizing school budgets unless you solve the assessment problem at the same time. Otherwise, at best you're simply deferring the problem to another day; at worst, you're setting the state up for a much uglier problem. If we're not funding schools with property taxes . . . well, that's another (long) post altogether.

Meme: The Custard King

This Internet thing is brilliant. In roughly 10 hours today, those of us who read and write on this blog managed to crown Bill Peduto as "The Custard King" of Pittsburgh.

If you've been following, you understand. If you haven't been following, then read through the last couple of posts, plus comments.

Someone should tell the King.

Peduto and the Custard Class

Ward-by-ward, the Angry Drunk Bureaucrat has put together the foundation of some interesting analysis of the Democratic primary in Pittsburgh mayor's race. The bottom line is that Bill Peduto ran well where you might expect: Shadyside, Point Breeze, North Point Breeze, Friendship, Squirrel Hill (ADB calls this trio "The People's Republic of the 14th Ward"), Southside, Mexican War Streets, and Highland Park. Lamb had a few strongholds, and O'Connor carried the rest.

Also following ADB's comment on the last post: Let's call Peduto's wards the domain of the Custard Class. If Peduto was well-organized but under-financed -- and that's not giving anything away -- then the question is: If the Custard Class wants Pittsburgh as a whole to move toward CC's vision of the future, is the CC willing to put its money where its mouth is?

Donuts Today

I stopped by the local donut shop this morning to pick up a cream-filled one for my wife. I asked the woman behind the counter if all of the filled donuts had the same filling. No, she said; some had butter cream, and some had custard. What flavor of custard, I asked. "Custard," she said, giving me that look that says, any idiot knows that custard is just custard.

I bought the butter cream.

Would this happen if Pittsburgh were a growing, dynamic city like San Francisco, or Boston? I mean, could I find bakeries that know that custard can be made in different flavors?

The Senator from Pennyslvania

Judging from the comments, I may have wasted some time by actually writing a post about Richard Florida. Next time, I may simply write "Richard Florida," then sit back and wait for the invective.

In that vein, I thought about simply posting "Rick Santorum" today. (Jonathan Potts excerpts the magazine profile of the Senator that ran in last Sunday's New York Times.) But it seems that western Pennsylvanians take a little time to get worked up over his misbehavior. On the floor of the Senate last week, Santorum compared some of his Democratic colleagues to Nazis. The Post-Gazette waited until this morning to call him on it, and even then, the paper pulled its punches. This wasn't just bad manners. This was a violation of the norms of public decency.

Flight of the Creative Class

Pittsburgh takes another bashing in Rich Florida's just-published follow-on to The Rise of the Creative Class: The Flight of the Creative Class. The basic theme is the same: On a global scale, economic prosperity is likely to follow cities and regions that are open to in-migration, and in-migration especially by educated, mobile, innovative individuals. As before, the book might be subtitled "Escape from Pittsburgh." Only this time, he wasn't trapped in Pittsburgh as he wrote it; now, the author can critique his former home from the comfort of Northern Virginia. At least he listened to his own message.

I've said before that I think that to the extent that Florida's thesis relies on the energy of the creative elite -- and don't miss that "to the extent" qualifier -- then it looks too narrowly at the problem, and it may confuse cause and effect. To the extent, though, that both books are associating economic growth with economic, social, and cultural openness, then Florida has a point, both in general, and about Pittsburgh -- even if the point isn't new, or sexy, or worth thousands of dollars in consulting and speaking fees.

In that regard, I thought that the best point in Dennis Roddy's Letter to the next Mayor was this one:

The messiest, and maybe the bravest, idea for growing a city is to crowd in the population first. Absent gigantic mills to absorb these folks, we need to grow the city one business at a time and that is the way immigration works.

You'll notice in any high-immigration population the number of restaurants, tailors, shoe repair shops and jewelry stores that spring up. That's because today's immigrants come with money or an idea to make some. And with population comes economic activity.

It's time for you and a number of other city mayors to lobby Washington for a free immigration zone. We already have free trade zones for international commerce. Why not similar ones for the people who create domestic trade? Those falling population numbers aren't symptoms of decline. They're the actual decline. We need warm bodies and this is a brave and crazy way to get them.

Vote Today! Vote Vote Vote!

Maybe you'll be the one to make a difference . . . .

Emigration and Immigration

Chris Briem has gotten so hip that he's part of this morning's Post-Gazette Morning File. Peter Leo writes, summarizing Chris's recent work:

[B]etween 2000 and 2004, the Pittsburgh metropolitan area fared better in its rate of domestic migration (people arriving versus leaving) than nine of the other 25 largest metro areas. That also means we were worse than 15 of 25, if you're one of those glass-half-empty people. Yes, it's true that 25,150 more people moved away from the Pittsburgh region than moved in from elsewhere in the United States, but that was still better than the rate of loss in Seattle, San Diego, Boston, San Francisco and some other nice-sounding places. Pittsburgh was last among the 25, however, in its overall population change (-1.1%), because it attracted the fewest international immigrants and was the only place with more deaths than births.

Chris undoubtedly has more data, and he can add some, if he likes, in the Comments. One important conclusion to draw, however, is that Pittsburgh is not losing "young people," if it is losing young people at all, at a rate that is larger or faster than, say, San Francisco is.

Pgh Wins "Diamond in the Rough" Contest

Updating this post about a contest to help a boy (Duncan Schaper) and a team rebuild their Little League field in Avonworth:

We have a winner! Briggs and Stratton and FoxSportsNet will be at the Instructional Field at Avonworth Community Park on Wednesday, May 25 at 4:00 pm to present the $20,000 award, to be used in rebuilding the field.

Lebo School Board: Election Update

Dan Remely, one of the challengers vying for a seat on the Mt. Lebanon School Board, used the Comments to post a long and very thoughtful response to my Hitchhiker's Guide post, below. He also emailed the whole text to me. So that the response gets the same play as the original, here it is:

I read your article in Pittsblog, “The Hitchhikers Guide to Mt. Lebanon School District” with great interest . . . and dismay.

You open with a not-so-polite, public admonishment of Mt. Lebanon High School noting that in Newsweek it was ranked 628th on the list of “best High Schools in America” in 2003, and then boldly announced that in 2005 “it failed to make the list.” Did your pen run out of objectivity? You should have followed with an acknowledgement that this ranking is based solely upon “the total number of Advanced Placement (AP) and/or International Baccalaureate (IB) tests taken by all students at a school in 2004, divided by the number of graduating seniors” Mt. Lebanon doesn’t offer the IB test and this ranking doesn’t reflect the number of students in any of these schools that passed these tests?

Here are my thoughts on this ranking. I’ll take the students at Mt. Lebanon High School, the outstanding teachers and professional educators in the Mt. Lebanon School System, and the exceptional education that our children are afforded…and I’ll put them up against any school district in the country! Of our seven elementary schools, Lincoln is rated the best in Pennsylvania! Washington and Foster are in the top eight, and five are in the top 44 elementary schools in the State. Mellon and Jefferson are listed in the top 40 middle schools in Pennsylvania, and Mt. Lebanon High School is in a tie for the sixth best high school in this State. These ratings are based on actual scores of achievement in math and reading throughout the educational levels of our system…not just on how many took a test. Our schools and our teachers apparently educate our children exceptionally well, while some schools just sign up their students to sit for an exam. Some school districts ranked in Newsweek even pay the test fee to make sure that their rankings are supported.

[Pittsblog note: Criticism of the Newsweek methodology is well-founded.]

The budget:

Your endeavor to associate the recent effort to hold open meetings regarding the budget with some sort of an inter-galactic experience was amusing…but your demolition beams missed the point completely. While I’d like to see more of the process openly communicated, and I’m certain it will as our learning curve progresses, your efforts to ridicule this initial attempt to interact with the community are unwarranted. I, for one, applaud the Board for taking the first steps; for showing the public what an intense, soul-searching, demanding process this is; for involving the public in this effort; and most importantly, for listening to the community responses.

This open budget process showed us several things, none the least of which is that Jan Klein is more knowledgeable about this process and school budgeting than all of us put together. If you had backed off of your demolition beams and viewed the full picture, you would have noticed another development…that the Board, the Administration, the teachers, the parents, and the community can, did, and will continue to work together to insure fiscal responsibly while maintaining the absolute best educational experience for our children. Maybe it was just a small step, but this is the combined effort that will be needed in Mt. Lebanon’s future.

Do I agree with the budget? Not entirely. Do I think there are more savings to be found? Absolutely. Can the debt service be reduced? Possibly, although the more recent financings are probably at favorable rates. Older issues, if callable, may be able to be recast on more aggressive terms. We have several very experienced professionals in Mt. Lebanon who could assist and advise the Board in this regard.

My construction experience tells me that we are being taken to the cleaners. 360 of 367 change orders were never reviewed by the Board. All were under $10,000.00 so we accepted the review of these changes by our architects and construction management entities… entities that get a percentage of each dollar in every change order. Is this the fox guarding the hen house? Let’s assume that the average of those change orders was $7,500.00 each. That’s $2,700,000.00 of unplanned expense, and a percentage goes to these oversight entities. Some unplanned yet justifiable expenses are going to come to light in this manner of renovation, but better planning and job control, better analysis and understanding of the work to be done, and stricter bidding and “hold to the contract/budget” reviews, could have possibly saved a great deal of taxpayer money. Every $250,000.00 saved is 1/10th of a millage point.

Would Everett Dirkson be proud? I don’t know, but Ben Franklin would be impressed. A penny saved is still a penny saved, and they all add up to tax dollars saved. With ever increasing expenses and a relatively stable tax base, Mt. Lebanon will have to become more creative, and more demanding in our budgetary efforts.

The Contract Extension:

The public view is that the extension was negotiated by members of the Board, without professional or experienced assistance, that it was quietly bargained nine months before the current contract’s expiration, agreed to just one day prior to the Referendum Law becoming effective, and that all of this was done with little or no public involvement or counsel. Thus, the “over coffee” comments /opinions, right or wrong, are now that a teacher’s salary for nine months exceeds the average Mt. Lebanon individual income for a year; that when adjusted for twelve months some of these educators are at a higher income than the superintendent; that the salary increases, benefits and retirement packages are greater than those that their own employers afford them; and that the lesser salary increases received by the average household will nearly all be consumed by the tax increases that will be required to afford this agreement

Don’t get me wrong, I have three generations of teachers in my family and I would be the first to agree that quality teachers, such as we have in Mt. Lebanon, deserve to be fairly compensated. Teachers don’t run a school district, teachers make a school district run.

My concerns with the extension are the public’s perception of its value, the opportunities it creates to promote animosity, and its enabling of individuals to “point fingers” and belittle our teachers, regardless of the cause of the contention or its validity. Left to permeate throughout our community, as one neighbor speaks to another, these perceptions can be a distraction to the community goal of providing the very best education for our children.

So we have “labor peace,” but not “public peace.” Maybe, just maybe, if the Board had inspected those “under $10,000 change orders” and found even just 100 of them that really weren’t absolutely essential, we could have saved $750,000 or $1,000,000. These funds could have possibly eliminated the millage increase, and provided for the cost of an independent, experienced negotiator that may have saved additional tax payer dollars…and made the outcome at least believable. Right now, what we do know is that the end result was good enough to get one of the MLEA’s negotiators to sign one of the candidates nominating petition…and that’s not a perception. Energize your demolition beams!

The Election:

I am at a loss as to why you have only received “enough information for me to make any kind of judgment” from two candidates. We, my running mates and I, have sent out two mailers with our experience, our thoughts and opinions on issues, and some of our desires for the future. These were sent to every person who has voted in most of the recent elections . . . didn’t you vote? [Pittsblog note: Yes, I did.] We have also had five neighborhood gatherings throughout the community, attended the Mt. Lebanon Republican Women’s Committee “Meet the Candidates Night,” the League of Women Voters “Meet the Candidate Night,” the Parents Learning Support Network “Meet the Candidate Night,” we have gone door-to-door to meet the public and discuss their concerns, we have advertised our personal e-mail addresses and have responded to over 100 inquiries (but none from you), and we have participated in at least two newspaper interviews. I can’t believe you didn’t have enough information. We could have set up a website, but a site can only give one sided answers to the general questions that the site creator thinks you asked, or should, or would have asked.

In a discussion of the candidates, I want to first state that I have the utmost respect for each and every one of them. Every one of us has offered our time, energy, honesty, and integrity, and promised to do our very best job for our children and our community. We don’t always agree with each other, but we listen to each others points of views and discuss the benefits of each. That’s debate, that’s democracy, and that’s good.

I’d like to review some of your information about my running mates and myself:

* Rodney Shepherd – Yes, Rodney is a dissenter, and often the only voice of prudent reason on some issues. His “No” votes also included last years budget, and much of the over budget unnecessary spending on school renovations. True, he’s quiet, but then, if your voice of reason was continuously ignored, you would likely speak less as well. The current Board keeps spending money that they don’t have…Rodney handles a lot of bankruptcy cases…I think his disagreement with the Board’s current direction has been well noted by his voting record and well founded by his experience.
* Mark Hart – Mark is a very experienced manager of businesses. True, the Steelers is a family owned business that is tied to tradition, and part of their tradition is an outstanding example of how one should give back to one’s community by offering their very best efforts and abilities to enhance that community. He learned these traditions from some of the best. There’s no tradition, however, in the present or future analytical demands on holding a salary cap (a budget) and insuring that you get the best value for the funds allowable. This is experience that we could use in Mt. Lebanon. Did you know that Mark had the responsibility for construction of the new stadium? He performed this task employing two words that Mt. Lebanon hasn’t heard in a long time…“under budget.” Mark is also the Vice President of the Board of Directors for the CCAC Education Foundation, and he is on the Advisory Council of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.
* Alan Silhol – Alan is one of the finest, most competent business/real estate attorney’s that I have had the privilege to know and to work with. Alan is in charge of a division at American Eagle Outfitters and is responsible for its budgeting and personnel. Throughout his career Alan has demonstrated exceptional professional and analytical abilities while handling everything from small local transactions to complicated international acquisitions for hundreds of millions of dollars. Alan also brings his experience as a parent of a child with special needs and his personal knowledge in this area of our educational system. Alan is a former Board Member of Outreach Teen and Family Services. Alan would help the Board with his commitment to children, his intelligence, and his business acumen.
Daniel Remely – My construction experience has involved the successful redevelopment of nearly 1,000,000 square feet of commercial properties all of which were experiencing some level of financial concern including foreclosure, bankruptcy, or abandoned and incomplete development, serious concerns with hazardous materials, and loss of reputation due to mismanagement. These efforts require the talents and commitment of many people and thus I do have experience in personnel issues. Currently, I have the responsibility for a payroll every two weeks for 40 to 65 employees, and for the livings earned by a dozen or more independent contractors and their employees. There is a tremendous difference between having to meet a payroll in a private business, and meeting it by raising taxes. I have also been a member of the South Hills YMCA Board of Management (Chairman 2003-2005), involved in the YMCA’s support efforts for Camp AIM, a camp for children who are physically and mentally challenged, and I am the Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Susan G. Komen Foundation/Pittsburgh Race for the Cure.

Mt. Lebanon does indeed need change. Progressive change. Traditions and culture are to be honored and respected by aggressively advancing the excellence of our school system. “Trust us, things will continue to go fine in Mt. Lebanon” denotes satisfaction…and when one is satisfied, one stops progressing and advancing. We owe our traditions, our culture, our children, and our community more than that.

Let’s change the way we do business. We must be more responsible and accountable to ourselves, to each other, and to the goals of our community. Let’s demand that our Board demonstrate fiscal discipline, that our administration reflect insight through an exceptional curriculum, that our educators and teachers are committed to challenge the minds of our children every day, that our citizens are involved through open communication and participation, and that we all commit to work together to support an insatiable desire to always be the best…and to never reach the rung of satisfaction.

Put your demolition beams on hold Mr. Madison, for Mt. Lebanon is a great place to live and learn…and its only going to get better!

"Smart Growth" Conference

Sustainable Pittsburgh hosts the 2005 "Smart Growth" conference on Friday, May 20, at the William Penn Hotel downtown. The keynote speaker is John Norquist, former Mayor of Milwaukee and president of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Venture Outdoors Festival

The Venture Outdoors Festival is coming Saturday, May 21, on the North Shore, next to Heinz Field. Mark Rauterkus reports that the event could use volunteers.

Amari Tasting

Tea Leaves carries the transcript of an amazing Amari tasting session. You can compare it to Upside-Down Pear's version of events.

Upside-Down Pear is a Pittsburgh-based food blog, and I've added it to the "Blogs about Pittsburgh" list to the right.

More on Local High School Rankings

Princeton computer science professor Ed Felten demolishes the methodology that Newsweek magazine used to rank the nation's public high schools.

So it's safe to be complacent in Mt. Lebanon again.

More on Groceries in the Hill

I posted below about a group of CMU students participating in business plan competition with a plan to bring a grocery store to the Hill.

They won!

Mt. Lebanon Secrecy Becoming a Habit

In this morning's Post-Gazette:

The board of commissioners went into a private executive session last night after it became apparent the board would not have the four votes needed to approve a $2.9 million bond issue.

When the public meeting resumed, a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tried to object to the closed session on the basis that it violated the Sunshine Law, but President Ty Ely ended the meeting without allowing the reporter to object.

Solicitor James Roberts contended the session was allowable under the Sunshine Law because it represented attorney-client privilege.

Globalization and Pittsburgh

This radio story on Pittsburgh is part of Global 3.0, by American RadioWorks for NPR. Apparently the radio broadcast will run at 7 p.m. on May 16th and again at 11 a.m. on May 22nd. The transcript of the whole thing is already online:

"This region has profited from immigration over the past 20 to 30 years, [but] not in the numbers, particularly in the '90s, that were a reality for many of the Sunbelt areas, California and Silicon Valley and so on," says Schuyler Foerster, head of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh. "We're not going to have a workforce large enough, with the right kinds of skills, to be able to remain competitive as a region, particularly as the nature of global competition changes. We're just going to be short of people."

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Mt. Lebanon School District

UPDATE (5/9 at 9:50 p.m.): Newsweek magazine has released its survey of the 1,000 Best High Schools in America. The top public school in Western Pennsylvania? Quaker Valley, at number 523. Upper St. Clair moves up from 783 in 2003 to number 637 this time around. Taylor Allderdice slips in at number 1036. Mt. Lebanon? Ranked number 628 in 2003, in 2005 it failed to make the list.

The primary election for the Mt. Lebanon School Board comes up on May 17. Since I haven’t written much about goings-on in Lebo since last Fall’s Sablegate, here’s an update.

The budget:

“People of Earth, your attention, please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you. . . . There’s no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. . . . What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? For heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light-years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”

--from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a movie version of which is now playing in theaters nationwide (it's an entertaining movie if you’ve read the books; a dreary movie if you haven’t).

In last week’s mail, taxpayers received a “Budget Report” from the district in anticipation of a “Budget Forum” (tonight, May 9, at 7:30 p.m.), a “Board Discussion Meeting” (May 16 at 7:30 p.m.), and a regular Board Meeting (May 23, at 7:30 p.m., where the final 2005-06 budget will be approved.) The “Budget Report” is characteristically opaque, but accompanying letters from the acting Superintendent (George Wilson) and the current Board president (Carol Walton) have Vogonic overtones.

From the Superintentendent’s letter:

“Following a recommendation from the School Board Budget Process Committee, we opened our process to the full scrutiny of the public. In addition to our monthly budget newsletters, we also posted all budget information on our website, distributed materials at our public meetings and televised all meetings on cable Channel 19. Although this move revealed to all just how complicated and controversial our budget development process can be, it also disclosed to the public each item under consideration for an increase or decrease. Our commitment to make the process open and interactive led to increased public comment and media coverage with each update. By engaging with the community in budget development, we gathered important feedback on what is valued. This feedback helped to guide our budget decisions.”

I guess we should be relieved that the Board decided to be so public about its process. But the Vogons went public, too, and the Vogons blasted Earth out of the galaxy anyway.

Note, therefore, that the complex budget process did not include efforts to reduce “budget accounts covering contractual obligations, including debt service.” (Quick question: Why not try to reduce debt service? Has the Mt. Lebanon School District fallen into the City of Pittsburgh trap, and issued non-callable bonds? Does the Schools Code prevent re-financing?) The largest “contractual obligation” is wages and benefits (roughly $45 million out of a $66 million budget), and the overwhelming portion of that $45 million is committed to the teacher’s contract – which can't be renegotiated at this point, but which was negotiated last Fall with no public input whatsoever. The District and Board incumbents promote this result as achieving "labor peace," a phrase that calls to mind nothing so much as "we were really scared of the big bad teachers' union." My family has lived through a teachers' strike. It's a horrible thing. But peace comes at a price. So much for “full scrutiny of the public.” And, of course, no one should forget the Board's failure to subject the buyout of the former Superintendent to public scrutiny.

Meanwhile, here are some interesting tidbits from the budget report:

According to the Board President, the Board has worked hard to cut the budget to save $450,000 in expenses. It may be only coincidental that this is approximately the amount that the District has committed to paying former Superintendent Margery Sable.

Among the cuts that the Report shows off with pride:

Charge high school students for parking -- $8,000 saved;

Reduction in athletic supplies -- $6,000 saved;

No increase in Aramark (food service) contract -- $25,000 saved;

and (my favorite): use Dashboard (web-based student/teacher data system, which the teachers detest) instead of the U.S. Postal Service to deliver notifications to students and parents – $5,000 saved, in postage.

In other words, cut $10,000 here and $10,000 there, and someday, eventually, you’re talking real money. Would Everett Dirksen be proud?

The problem, of course, as has been widely noted and reported, is that the Board is crunching details and missing the big picture. And what’s worse, the letters that I quoted above make it sound like the Board is trying to pass responsibility for budget issues back to the taxpayers. Don’t like the budget, the report seems to say, then fine: you’re responsible, since you had every chance to complain ahead of time.

Transparency is a good thing, but it's no substitute for the hard work of governing. Why, after all, did we elect you people in the first place? When the Board says, "you had your chance to criticize the budget," this is Vogon-speak for: watch for the hyperspatial express route coming soon to your neighborhood. It would be unfair to criticize the Budget Report for its resemblance to Vogon poetry. But it is tempting.

The board election:

That brings me to the election, which is where the big picture is, or should be, on the line.

By Pennsylvania tradition, it is extremely difficult to get meaningful information about candidates for local office, unless the candidates themselves go out of their way to get that information to you. Curiously, few do so. (I contrast this with California, where by state law every voter gets a state-funded voter’s guide to every election, with basic information about each candidate and ballot measure.)

Of the current candidates for the Mt. Lebanon School Board, only two have distributed enough information for me to make any kind of judgment:

Jo Posti, a challenger, has put in place an easily-accessible and modern method of finding out who she is and what she proposes to do. She has a website. That's good. Jo runs her own company and is a professional in the communications business.

Ron Hoffman, a long-serving member of the Board who is running for election to a third term, has distributed mailers. The mailers say that Ron has a great deal of experience in business (which he does -- he retired as an Executive Vice President of Alcoa) and as a community volunteer (ditto), that he helped to negotiate the recent teachers’ contract that brings “labor peace,” and that he has experience on the Board, which the community should value. The mailers don't say much about his plans for the future of the School District.

Of the other candidates, I know this:

Rodney Shepherd, the other incumbent running for re-election, voted both against the teachers’ contract extension, and against the buyout of former Superintendent Margery Sable. He's a dissenter. That’s good. But he has been curiously silent, publicly, about his disagreement with the current direction of the School Board.

Mark Hart is the CFO for the Steelers (which carry a $100 million payroll) and therefore has some relevant business and management experience. That’s good. That experience comes, however, in a large family business that is as tied to tradition as any business in this region.

Daniel Remely is a commercial real estate developer who should know a thing or two about construction. In a District facing a major overhaul of its high school facilities, and dealing with the fallout of disastrous Board oversight of the elementary school renovations, that’s good. But two-thirds of the District’s operating budget goes to salaries and benefits. He knows relatively little about personnel issues.

Alan Silhol is an in-house real estate lawyer for American Eagle Outfitters. It's not clear how he would help the Board.

Faith Ann Stipanovich is a payroll manager for Allegheny County and has a background in HR. It's not clear how she would help the Board.

The League of Women Voters stepped in to host a candidates’ forum and to publish a voters’ guide. The forum was held last week; Channel 19 17 will air a broadcast at 3:00 and 10:00 PM on May 6 - 8 and again on May 13 - 15. The voters’ guide isn't particularly informative, but a condensed version appears in today’s Post-Gazette. The full version, with information about the School Board candidates, is available at the League of Women Voters website.

Media coverage in other places has been greater than it usually is for a school board election, for obvious reasons.

Here is a month-old Post-Gazette piece on the election.

Last week, the Tribune-Review ran this useful Q&A with the candidates.

From last Friday's Tribune-Review, in its roundup of Laurels and Lances:

"On the 'Watch List' II: Mt. Lebanon taxpayers. Their school board race likely is the most-watched this year. A series of tax increases and a payout shrouded in secrecy to get rid of a superintendent gone sour has some of the community in tar-and-feathers mode. Whether that ire translates onto ballots remains to be seen. If it doesn't, we can only assume that 'the Lebo spirit' is an empty moniker."

The Letters page of the Post-Gazette South has carried an exchange between Marc Field, strongly defending Ron Hoffman ("Things appear well with schools"), and Joe Wertheim, criticizing him ("Hoffman is more than a poster boy").

I’m not here to endorse candidates. But I do think that this little election is interesting not only as a barometer of the state of Mt. Lebanon, but also as one example of the kinds of choices that the region faces.

On the one hand, there is a sizable constituency in Mt. Lebanon that supports the status quo. There are two, related arguments here. One focuses on Mt. Lebanon's "traditions" and "culture" and endorses some version of the following: "Mt. Lebanon is a special place, and everything has been going fine, and if you leave things in our hands, things will continue to go fine and Mt. Lebanon will continue to go fine. Honor, loyalty, and trust count for a lot in this world. So, trust us." Tradition, in short, is its own reward. A second argument focuses on experience, and endorses some version of this: "Mt. Lebanon is a complex place, and it needs people with training and experience to handle things. We have that training and experience. So, trust us." Hierarchy, in short, is its own reward. At the end of the day, the two arguments converge on a single point: We should trust the people in power.

On the other hand, there is a sizable constituency here – though we will see shortly whether it’s larger than the first – that sees the need for change. Not incremental “let’s renovate the building” change, but meaningful “let’s change the way the District does business” change. To this constituency, "tradition" and "culture" and "experience" may be code words for the preciousness about Mt. Lebanon that offends so many in the Pittsburgh region and that many more recent arrivals reject. This group sees that Mt. Lebanon can’t rely on "tradition" and "culture" and deference to "experience" without running into financial disaster. Mt. Lebanon is a nice place to live, but it isn’t so special. It’s a place where people enjoy a nice sense of community but where they also (increasingly) value fiscal discipline and accountability. The vast bulk of Mt. Lebanon residents aren't rich, and they have to work hard to pay their taxes. They expect that the Board will monitor $66 million in tax dollars both closely and publicly – just as the directors and managers of any $66 million public business should be expected to monitor that business closely, and publicly. No shareholder of a public $66 million company should have to tolerate a “trust me” argument from the Board. Critical thinking matters more than experience.

“Change” doesn’t mean throwing out current Board members just for the sake of installing new ones. Not all challengers are necessarily progressive. Not all incumbents are necessarily anti-change. Given the information that we have, look carefully at your choices to see whether a given candidate is the kind of person who is likely to help create a new future for Mt. Lebanon. Tradition, experience, and trust may not be enough. What this community needs, and what any community in this region needs, is insight, accountability, and renewal.

The effort to impeach all of the existing School Board members is apparently continuing. The anger behind that effort is understandable. The energy is misapplied. If you don't like the performance of your elected representatives, use the gifts of democracy to replace them. Remember that no one has to vote for the maximum number of School Board candidates. If you see only one or two people who you like, you may vote for only those candidates. One way or another, VOTE on May 17, and make sure that your friends and neighbors vote, too.

Don't Panic. We may yet avoid construction of a hyperspatial express route.

Happy Mother's Day to Mary Pat

That is, to Mary Pat Valentino of the North Side, who shares a beautiful photograph with her son, Jimmy, in today's New York Times Magazine. The photo is part of a series titled, "My Son, the Hairdresser."

Mt. Lebanon School Board

Coming on Monday: A long post about the Mt. Lebanon School Board election. Mark your calendars for Monday if you're interested; mark your calendars for Tuesday if you're not.

Click to Help Pittsburgh Little Leaguers

An essay by Pittsburgher Duncan S. is a national finalist in an essay contest sponsored by Briggs & Stratton called "Diamonds in the Rough." Youth baseball players across the United States nominated their baseball fields for
refurbishment. Duncan wrote about the flood damage caused by Hurricane
Ivan in September, 2004 to the Instructional Field at Avonworth
Community Park, in Sewickley. His essay is a regional winner, meaning that it has already earned a $5,000 prize towards refurbishment of the field. The grand prize winner will receive $20,000 to refurbish his/her field and a baseball clinic for the team from Hall of Famers Lou Brock and Carlton Fisk.

Let's help Duncan and the field at Avonworth. Go to the contest website and vote. Contest information is here. Thanks.

Southwest is here

Southwest Airlines opens for business in Pittsburgh, part of a small but growing industry trend away from hub-and-spoke service.

I rode Southwest up and down the West Coast for years, and the no-frills-with-an-upbeat-attitude approach made it a pleasure to fly. (Out there, it was a worthy successor to the old PSA, which was also a lot of fun -- before USAir bought that carrier, and ran its West Coast service into the ground.) May Southwest's can-do attitude extend throughout the Pittsburgh region.

Get a Life

My colleagues Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic have published a provocative book about why so many lawyers are unhappy, and today's Post-Gazette includes their work in a little review of the legal profession. (The P-G has a related story here.)

The paper doesn't really get into the book's diagnosis, which connects lawyers' unhappiness to the intellectual aridity that pervades both the classroom and the law office: an obsession with analytic precision, formalistic legal reasoning, and consistency with precedent, and a detachment from the resources that we use to create meaning elsewhere in our lives -- social context, narrative, ambiguity and complexity. It's a terrific book and it's available at fine bookstores everywhere.

Pittsburgh Does Mexican

Peterb raves about the new taqueria in Squirrel Hill. Check it out.

Sister Grace Ann Geibel Day

Today, May 3, was Sister Grace Ann Geibel Day in Pittsburgh. Sister Grace Ann is stepping down after 17 years at the helm of Carlow University.

Grocery Store in the Hill District

This looks interesting: a team of grad students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon is working to bring a full-service grocery store to the Hill District.

Intellectual Property Thoughts

On file sharing and Wal-Mark, the Commenters seem to be handling things reasonably well. Here are just a few thoughts.

First, file sharing of copyrighted material via P2P systems can be legal. Among other things, section 107 of the Copyright Act (the famous, or infamous) fair use provision, applies to all forms of reproducing, distributing and modifying copyrighted works. That said, it strikes me as implausible that making thousands of mp3s accessible to users of the Grokster system (to pick just one example) could be characterized as fair use. But the RIAA overreaches when it asserts that file sharing is per se illegal. It's not, and no appellate court -- even the Napster and Aimster cases -- has ever held that it is.

Second, everyone should be very careful around terms and phrases like "piracy" and "theft." These are metaphors, and metaphors are complex things. I suspect that it's enough to point out that habitually burning copies of DVDs that you get from NetFlix is just wrong.

Third, there's no question that the recording industry has lost money on account of use of P2P networks. How much money has been lost is open to question. And whether law and public policy should care about those losses (or some of them) is also open to question. Publishing industries lose money all the time. Copyright law sometimes says: that's just fine.

Fourth, the CMU student who criticized Wal-Mart would have been better off legally if he'd been funny, or if he'd created his own images. But we shouldn't have a legal rule that says you can't criticize unless you're funny, and we shouldn't have a legal rule that says you can't criticize using the target's words and images. We criticize people all the time without being funny, and we frequently do so using techniques of mindless repetition. Free speech sometimes means the right to say, "Me, too." (If you want an example, think about voting, which may be the ultimate act of free speech.) The real problem in the CMU case was that Wal-Mart could use a copyright law sledgehammer to deal with a small-potatoes potential problem that trademark law has relatively little trouble with.

International Children's Festival

The Pittsburgh International Children's Festival comes to town on May 18 - 22, in West Park.