March 10, 2009

Dowd: PWSA's problem bond could lead to a $3,800 liability for each customer (including me!)

[First, Early Return Dudes, I'm still playing catch up. This is my non-paying gig and the stuff I posted early this AM was from last night. Besides, I have some plumber dudes filling in a $9,000 hole in my basement today and I have my own problems with PWSA and I'm just a mere 22 callers on hold away from speaking to them.]

The folks at the Post-Gazette are right. This is important:

First, Dowd. The mayoral challenger, whose campaign is all about sober-minded fiscal responsibility, spent the weekend poring over 2,000-plus pages of financial documents on a squirrelly water and sewer authority bond deal, and came up with some explosive findings -- that the city agency recklessly entered a no-bid financial deal, overseen by Ravenstahl's own finance director, that is costing ratepayers at least $2.6 million a year.

Dowd was wrong, the water authority's director responded at a press conference called later by Ravenstahl's office -- it is actually costing city residents $2.9 million. "To attempt to politicize this issue at the expense of ratepayers is unfortunate," Ravenstahl said, accusing Mr. Dowd of releasing "some sensitive information" on the deal.
Read all the ugliness here.

(Will there ever come a time when I see the term SWAP and don't feel like running for the hills?)
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3 comments:

  1. InfinonymousMarch 10, 2009 at 1:05 PM

    A shade over $2 million? That figure seem familiar. Let's see . . . isn't that what Zober and Ravenstahl stuck ratepayers with in their public-money-down-the-drain-handling of Pittsburgh Brewing's water bill?

    Must have stunned the boy mayor and his Rasputin to see that, after they had bailed out the oily new owners of Pittsburgh Brewing with millions of public dollars(to 'preserve and increase employment,' wasn't it?), the brewers repaid the courtesy by almost immediately outsourcing canned and kegged beer production to Rochester NY?

    Or, as is likely, perhaps our heroes haven't yet noticed the return the city is receiving for its handout.

    Deals like that make the petty corruptions over signs and the like seem almost harmless.

    On the other hand, I am SHOCKED that a smooth-talking complex financial instrument peddler appears to have outwitted the mayor and his chief of staff. Indeed, it is stunning that anyone would even try to con those two.

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  2. AnonymousMarch 10, 2009 at 5:52 PM

    Zober ='s Rasputin?

    That's not even close.

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  3. InfinonymousMarch 11, 2009 at 11:40 AM

    Other than skepticism concerning the historical reference (and apparent disagreement over the proper use of the equals sign, which does not take an apostrophe, let alone an 's'), I gather no one quarrels with the point that Mr. Ravenstahl and Mr. Zober spent huge chunks of taxpayer and ratepayer money to send jobs from Lawrenceville to Rochester.

    Fine work, men. Will the next trick be to give PNC tens of millions of dollars to finance a move to Cleveland?

    ReplyDelete