The Blog of Burgher Jon

• I’m flying home tonight for good (or at least a couple weeks)! I have been on the road monday-thursday every week so far this year and I will finally get a chance to spend the week at home next week. Will that mean more blogging? less? Guess we’ll just have to find out.
• Because I was in New York, instead of watching the Pirates 15 inning drama or the Pens thrilling shut out (both available in HD on the nice big TV that sat unused in my house), I watched Criminal Minds. Why? Because it took place in Pittsburgh! It was clear that it wasn’t actually filmed in Pittsburgh or at all based in fact, but there were a few references to Burghish things.
• I should devote a whole post to Alecia Sirk and Pat Ford’s downfall, but I’m disinclined. There’s too much out there already. I don’t think it’s THAT big of deal. I understand that there needs to be a zero tolerance policy when it comes to gifts from people who can/do receive favor, but I think this, much like the McCain thing is a little bigger then it needs to be. Ultimately, it was a stupid risk for Pat Ford and Alecia Sirk to take and they paid for it. (PG Story)
• Chris Briem, has an interesting thought on how the story of the gifts from Lamar Executives to Pittsburgh Executives may have been uncovered. (Briem Post) (The Burgh Blog Post, this has more background on what actually went down, without the speculation)
• Some old friends of my family back in Lebo are being honored by the United Way, thought I’d give them a quick shout out.
• My City Councilman, Bruce Kraus, is apparently urging people to not only call 311 when they want to report vandalism, illegal dumping, abandoned cars, etc… but to call HIS OFFICE. I’m going to have to agree with Mark Rauterkus here and link to his post rather then the original article. I think my City Councilman, especially with all that’s going on in Council right now, has more important things to do. I think Councilman Kraus is doing a good job so far, I hope he doesn’t get distracted from his “real” job.
• Great Picture from the Trib of the Pens Last Night

Lately I’ve been coming across more and more good blogs, particularly in Pittsburgh (which is what I care about most). With this in mind, I’m going to take a brave step. I’m going to give up newspapers for a few weeks and see how well I can survive on blogs alone.

The blog roll you see to your right, are the blogs I will follow. I think my only real hole is a good national news based blog. I’ll keep an eye open for such a blog and would be happy to take suggestions. I know this could be quickly fixed by latching on to an rss feed from a news source, but I want to keep it to blogs alone.

The last several times I started blogging, I was trying too hard. I had a grandiose vision of being this voice for improving Pittsburgh and for social and economic justice here. As it turns out, There is no need for that… Pittsburgh is blessed with some very skilled bloggers and you can count on them for the news and commentary that keeps local government (and sports team management) honest.

I’m back (in my third start as a blogger) to simply point things out when I think I have an opinion worth listening to, a story worth telling or even a joke you haven’t heard.

Enjoy,

Burgher Jon

Ok, so I’ve decided to jump in to the local political seen head first and I’m taking you with me. I think a prudent step would be to get to know the players. The logical place to start is with the Mayor. I’m going to take a view of the local newspapers, blogs, national news and his website and try to form up a profile. For this profile I’m going to attempt to be strictly factual, I’ll save my opinions for later. Also, for now I’m just going to talk strictly about Mayor Ravenstahl, there will be plenty of time between now and November to discuss DeSantis and the race. I’m sure that my survey of Luke’s political history is incomplete, my goal is simply to introduce him. If you think I omitted something crucial, leave a comment.

Name: Luke Ravenstahl
Current Position: Mayor till 1/2008 with elections in 11/2007
Born: 2/6/1980
Education: Mercyhurst (partial), Pitt (partial), W&J (degree)
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Religion: Practicing Catholic
Non-political Career: He was very briefly an account manager for a courier service.
Political Career:

• District 1 City Councilman: 1/2004 to 9/2006
• City Council President: 12/2005 to 9/2006
• Mayor: 9/2006 to Present

Notes:

• The Pittsburgh Promise is a promise to city High School graduates from 2008 on that they will get any college help they need from a program backed by private funding. The clock’s ticking on whether this program will be implemented successfully.
• Works closely with Dan Onorato (who is a family acquaintance). Soon after Ravenstahl became Mayor the two agreed to a panel that would study the potential for combining county and city governments. Though this relationship may be on the fritz.
• Youngest Mayor of any major metropolitan city in the US.
• A wide variety of mini-scandals have hit in his time as mayor. He may have accepted an inappropriate gift by appearing in a golf tournament as a guest of UPMC, he has had to clean up a few city officials accused of wrong doing, though they date to his predecessors, he may or may not have been disorderly at a Steeler’s game and he promoted three police officers with a history of domestic abuse. None of these seem to be too major (at least to me), but it does seem like quite a few things considering he hasn’t been mayor a year yet.
• Helped keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh (though how much of a role he played is debated).
• Helped pass two difficult budgets one as city council president and one as mayor.

I have actually been blogging for a while, but have chosen to refocus my blogging efforts on the politics and economy of Pittsburgh. In order to facilitate my major shift in focus I brought this new blog in to existence. I will cease posting to Nittany Burgh Blog and focus on bringing the world (that’s you) a view of the politics and economy of Pittsburgh through the eyes of a young professional. The reason I have chosen this focus comes from two realizations about my potential value to the blogosphere.

1. I’m not as funny as PittGirl or Tunesmith and Anthony, this won’t stop me from pointing out humor when I see it. I’m also not as knowledgeable about Pittsburgh’s Sports as thePensBlog or MondesisHouse, which won’t stop me from pointing out the occasional sports issue.
2. I’m not as smart or as extensively educated as Mike Maddison, Jim Russell or Chris Briem. However, I do have the unique perspective of a concerned citizen of Pittsburgh who is not connected to an ivory tower or politics (beyond being an active voter). I have scoured the web for a blog about the economics and/or politics of Pittsburgh that is written from such a “layman” perspective and have found none. Consequently, I will attempt to fill that niche.

I hope that my posts can bring about a level of awareness and informed activity to other people who are concerned about Pittsburgh and its future.