|
|
Pittsburgh's Financial Mess
|
|
T O P I C
|
Discussion Started: 03-25-2003, 1:35 PM
|
|
|
|
Comment on the city's deficit, layoffs, distressed status, new parking tax hike, new payroll tax on for-profit businesses, and higher occupation tax.
|
|
View Messages: [newest first] | [oldest first]
|
Duane 601
|
08-08-2007, 6:36 PM
|
|
|
PITTSBURG AND THE COUNTY NEED TO TKE THE MONEY THAT WILL BE SPENT ON A TUNNEL TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER AND NOTHING ELSE AND PUT IT INTO MASS TRANSIT FOR THE WHOLE COUNTY AND MAKE A FIRST CLASS TRANSIT OPERATION "WITH ALL NEW PEOPLE" GET RID OF THE THIEVES THAT SRE NOW RUNNING THE TRANSIT SYSTEM INTO THE GROUND. YOU NEED A FIRST CLASS TANSIT OPERATONG TO GET PEOPLE INTO AND OUT OF THE CITY. tHEN AND ONLY THEN WILL WE HAVE PEOPLE IN TOWN THAT WANT TO BE THERE.
Regards BIG D
|
|
Devil56
|
05-01-2007, 7:16 AM
|
|
|
Did You Know?
PA voters... In the upcoming Primary Election, a BINDING BALLOT QUESTION will attempt to force the voters of Pennsylvania to impose a Local Income Tax on themselves! The Ballot Question asks if the voters want a Personal Income Tax, or an Earned Income Tax? We all know if it doesn't pass they will go to the old well known plan "B" you Pittsburghers are so familiar with? Go figure!
|
|
Shep90
|
04-20-2006, 4:32 AM
|
|
|
I'm angry that local and state politicians are always manuvering for their own finantial benefit instead of for the benefit of the people who elected them! Why is there any discussion of who should build a casino anywhere, when the reason we were in favor of this at all was to reduce the outrageous taxes we are paying? The STATE should be building the casinos, running them to produce income which would reduce our taxes. There should be NO talk of building any kind of an arena with ANY of this money, or potential money!
|
|
kmacintyr
|
03-26-2006, 4:22 PM
|
|
|
I worked one week in Jan. 2005 - Jan 2-6th in Pittsburgh. I sent in the form to get $42.00 back of the $52.00 the City took out for the Emergency Municipal Services Tax and it was DENIED. The law that established this egregiously injustice states tha ".... all income, even social security and pension monies are deemed 'gross income' I moved out of Pgh in May of 2005, but the City counted my pension money that I received AFTER I moved out of Allegheny County to get the total income over the $12,000 used to determing full or partial taxation. I wasn't given an APPEAL process until I sent a Certified letter to the Pgh City Tax Investigator, forcing that person to acknowledge my effort. I have made an appeal now to Tim O'Donnell, Acting City Treasurer. Does anyone think I have a snowball's chance in hell of getting my $42.00 back? signed, 'Glad to have moved out of Pittsburgh'
|
|
jas22
|
02-25-2006, 9:57 PM
|
|
|
i read recently that the city found itself in a surplus at the beginning of 2006.
this is great news. its a start.
the increase in the occupation tax (long overdue and righteous, in my opinion) probably helped.
|
|
dar15227
|
01-16-2006, 4:44 PM
|
|
|
Thank god smurph is gone. But that is just the first step.The city and county need to merge services to save money.I'm afraid there is not much anyone can do about the people moving out.Until there is something done about the sky high taxes and crime rate, people will continue to move. Trouble is, as some others have said, there are too many governments with too many egos to bruise.Too many police and volunteer fire depts. sucking up government money that would be better used by combined and regionilized departments. Not only does the city and county need to act, but also the state needs to step in and act. Way to much grant money goes to duplicating equipment from boro to boro, township to township, etc.,etc., whether it be fire, police, or public works equipment. 911 needs to be implemented across the county whether the small town governments like it or not.
dar
|
|
2005joanp
|
01-13-2006, 4:06 PM
|
|
|
Pittsburgh better get with the 2000 century.People are moving out of the state, taxes are ridiculous. Courts waste money on unnecessary hearings. Taxes are plenitful, get with the program Pittsburgh, rebuild a city that people will want to stayin.
Thanks, joan pellegrini
|
|
sai126
|
01-12-2005, 3:39 PM
|
|
|
Right now Pittsburgh is as dead as this pathetic message board. There is no turnaround in sight and things will continue to decline in the next few years, probably much longer than that. Too bad.
|
|
AndySkibo
|
11-28-2004, 10:24 AM
|
|
|
Link to today's on-line edition of the Post Gazette:
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04333/417881.stm
"Developers hoping potential tenants, owners agree there's no finer place, for sure, than Downtown -- Rash of projects aimed to lure the young and the hip to put down roots in Golden Triangle and surrounding environs"
Sunday, November 28, 2004, By Elwin Green, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It may come as a shock to the "Red State" types prophets of gloom and doom in the Northern Suburbs and in Butler County - but this kind of rehab has worked in
- San Jose CA (the US city that was hardest hit by the dot.com bust) -- especially the area surrounding San Jose State Univ. The "redevelopment area" for zoning and tax abatement purposes is from South Second St to about South 12th St, and from San Carlos St to Santa Clara St - but the positive effect has been a "doughnut" of about 4 blocks in each direction outside the zone, even with the closing of the Frist family owned San Jose Med Center.
- Oakland CA - with the kookie Mayor "Moonbeam" Jerry Brown (Oakland went into a funk with the massive demobilization after WW2 - and just kept going downhill -- made Pittsburgh and McKees Rocks and McKeesport look healthy by comparison). - Same kind of rehabilitation. Even attracted my Butler County expatriate cousin area from the south side of Golden Gate Park to Oakland.
This might just work. They have only been talking about it for over forty years.
|
|
AndySkibo
|
11-15-2004, 10:39 AM
|
|
Well, I figure the City (and the County, and the whole Tri-State area for that matter) are beyond hope, especially after-- - The Arts and Crafts Center at Shady and Fifth closed.
- The 77C-Shadyside and the W-Wilkins bus routes are gone.
Seriously - as the City (and the County, and the whole Tri-State area) began their death spiral there were lots of "little" hints - "nobody cared".
Starting at the 1948 peak - with the Dave Lawrence-Richard Mellon "Team" (and Richard Scaife is not his uncle!  ), the area either killed itself or watched as others killed it - piece-by-piece.
- The 1953 (or '54?) school tax election - which killed many enrichment programs in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. In retrospect, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight - this was the begining of the end.
- Certainly Pete Flaherty's divisive 1969 election - his open battles with Westingouse, Port Authority, and SkyBus, and his slightly lower visibility against PPG, Alcoa, the Universities, and the Mt-Lebanon-Upper St. Clair suburban corridor.
- The departure of the Bureau of Mines alternative energy labs in Bruceton to Morgantown WV (and Robert Byrd).
- Three Mile Island - killed the last remaining hope for the future.
- The decline of steel and of the metallurgical coal (coke oven byproducts) industries in 1980.
- The loss of Gulf.
- The dismemberment of Westinghouse.
- The inability to keep the founders (including co-founders and pioneers) of Adobe, Cadence, PayPal, SUN, Oracle, Dragon Systems, and Siebel (among many others) here. The product of the risk aversiveness of the business community (read "banking" and "gela" communities).
- Mellon Bank getting out of consumer banking.
- The "de-hubbing" of PIT by USAir.
Lots of little losses - and you can't blame them all on the inbred, incompetent politicians alone.
PS - I have Steelers, Pirates, Tartans, Panthers, and Dukes beer mugs and pennants in my family room, a "family plot" in the North Hills and a share of my grand parents' two apartment houses in Greenfield - so I guess I am still a Pittsburgher.
|
|
Top
Water Cooler: News And Views