Your choice: City over party politics or party over the City’s well-being
I have been non-partisan for decades. I’ve worked to support good candidates of both major parties and some minor parties. I have over four decades experience exposing and fighting public corruption and over three decades working with urban public policy and community organizing in Pittsburgh:
► I started citizen organizing as the Executive Director of an environmental group once considered the best in Pennsylvania. Before my involvement, it had declined to only 5 dues paying members and was about to close down. As a structural solution, I quickly started 5 areas of programming and in just 18 months increased the dues paying membership to over 125 with a mailing list of over 1000.
► I then founded E Watch, an environmental monitoring effort to assist environmental agencies. I was recruited by US EPA and US Fish & Wildlife to help them expose Pittsburgh having the worst record in the country for protection of wetlands and streams. I worked with Teresa and Senator John Heinz to put together a joint agency investigation for which I led the field investigation. When the findings came out, Senator Heinz was livid and scheduled to act upon it, but he died the week before in an airplane crash.
► I co-founded and was Project Director of the American Town & Country Alliance, a Tides Center Project, a public policy effort to address the problem of modern suburban sprawl and urban decline. Proposals we developed are still relevant today, but they have yet to be accepted by our political establishment.
► I initiated an innovative proactive public participation process with regional transportation planning. It so impressed the US Federal Highway Administration, they used it as their example of excellence in public participation when working with communities across the country. We identified improprieties with the planning process, including massive fraud and falsifications that removed 40% of the federal funding needed for infrastructure maintenance ($12 billion at the time) and used it to promote real estate speculation – a direct cause of the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse and our decaying infrastructure.
► I organized to save the historic Greater Pittsburgh Airport terminal, an architectural masterpiece that was once the largest air terminal in the world for 20 years. Discovering improprieties and corruption, I pursued and received a federal injunction to stop its demolition, however the judge reversed the decision upon accepting a $3 million employment contract from a politically connected Pittsburgh law firm. The case got as high as the US Supreme court but an affidavit from a politically connected engineering firm blocked our efforts; that firm now has their headquarters on the same site in a subsidized building.
► I organized to stop the closure of the West End and Mt Washington branch libraries. For 12 years the library system had 2 directors who had no library experience; I fought to have its director meet the state requirement for library experience. When the library stopped its Three Rivers Free-Net that hosted over 200 nonprofit websites, I created PittsburghFree.Net to host the abandoned sites for free. I still run it.
► I wrote the Department of Neighborhoods proposal which is now part of the mayoral race. Half of it would consist of Neighborhood Integrated Services Teams that meet regularly to coordinate and meet the needs of their neighborhood. The other half would be responsible for a holistic neighborhoods revitalization process that would provide jobs for local residents and affordable housing for those who can't pay exorbitant rents.
► I proposed, wrote, and organized to put a 2016 Open Government Amendment to the Pittsburgh City Charter on the ballot. I acquired a federal injunction that enabled us to hire paid canvassers only to have a politically connected local judge later ignore case law and remove it from the ballot just 2 days before the ballots went to print, thus preventing us from getting it get back on through an appeal.
► I have been a Judge of Elections for over a dozen years and have worked as part of Vote Allegheny to have the County adopt and use secure election equipment and practices.
If you put the welfare and prospects for A Better Pittsburgh above voting the party line, then I hope you feel I deserve your vote. Beyond that, I hope you will become involved with the District 2 CAT.