Shining a Light

Pittsburgh City Councilman Bruce Kraus is set to introduce a resolution today asking Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to rescind the LED sign zoning approval granted to Lamar Advertising (in a no-bid agreement) for the Grant Street Transportation Center. As Kraus' press release noted:

The approval was granted without being brought before the Planning Commission, the Zoning Board, or City Council.

Kraus' resolution can be found here.

We noted the um, "special" relationship between Lil Mayor Luke and Lamar Advertising here.

There's been some great recent blogging on this at The Burgh Report and Pittsburgh Pist-Gazette (here, here & here).

In writing about the sign controversy at the Pittsburgh City Paper in an article with the subheading of "Shedding light on local government," Chris Potter stated:

Sure, a mayor can often take a commission's approval for granted. But only Ravenstahl would demonstrate the fact by bypassing the commission entirely. Only in the Ravenstahl administration would a planning commissioner actually leave a controversial meeting to, say, watch a college basketball game, returning to vote as debate was wrapping up.

Which segues nicely into yesterday's meeting between Pittsburgh City Council and Hill District leaders and their supporters on a community benefits agreement tied to the new Penguins arena (P-G article here, Pittsburgh Comet here).

According to the Post-Gazette, Council may get involved in the process:

By the time they finished, they had won the ear of Council President Doug Shields, who said it may be time for council to become more actively involved in talks involving the city, Allegheny County and the neighborhood.

"I think we're going to have to," he said after the public hearing. "We got lawsuits. We got, obviously, a stalemate between all the engaged parties."

To date, council has been out of the loop in the talks over a community benefits agreement, Mr. Shields said. He added council needs "to have a dialogue" with Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato and perhaps Gov. Ed Rendell to find out what the sticking points are in the talks.

"We have a role to play," Mr. Shields said.

"I stand with you to make sure [the Penguins] do the right thing," another councilman, William Peduto, said to the applause of supporters.

We're happy that Council wants to provide a check to the Ravenstahl's utter lack of transparency and his constant disregard for the average Pittsburgh citizen in favor of his big important buddies (and contributors).
.