Patrick Dowd Gives A Wake-up Call To Pittsburghers This Morning

Mayoral Candidate Patrick Dowd is issuing a “Wake-Up Call” to downtown commuters right about now at the corner of Grant Street and Forbes Avenue.

He's handing out coffee and trying to wake-up voters to connect the dots on contracting, permitting, and campaign contributions (they'll be a press conference at 9:00 AM).

Playing off of a great Post-Gazette story on Pay to Play published yesterday, Dowd released a press release today which stated:

"Especially in this economy, people want their tax dollars watched closely, not given away in sweetheart deals in exchange for campaign contributions." said Dowd. “Every time the Mayor awards a no-bid contract, the taxpayers lose.”

Yesterday’s Post-Gazette story, was only the latest installment in a string of stories about how Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's contributors have frequently been awarded lucrative contracts at taxpayer expense.

Ravenstahl boasts close to one million dollars ($966,923) in his campaign account, according to filings with the city controller’s office in January. Many of these contributions have been directly tied to donors that do business with the City.

[snip]

"People are sick and tired of their tax dollars being wasted. They want reform - that's why I'm running."

You can read the full release here and the P-G articles here and here.
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