Uncommon
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Posts Tagged ‘pittsburgh’
Eminent Affront
There is good news and bad news behind this headline:
Crafton out $1.8 million over land dispute
First the good news…The Borough of Crafton (near Pittsburgh, PA) was ordered to pay $1.8 million to the previous owners of a property that the Borough seized through eminent domain in 1999. The judgement included $1 million for the property, approx. $600,000 in interest, and $200,000 in legal fees.
Update – Up In Your Business
A few months ago I wrote about how government likes to all up in your business. They just cannot help themselves. One of the examples was how the City of Pittsburgh through its Urban Redevelopment Authority used eminent domain to seize a local theatre in Pittsburgh. The Garden theatre had suffered from the decline of city theatres and the proliferation of suburban multi-screen venues. They somehow survived by catering to the XXX movie crowd. I obviously don’t know the details of their finances, but they stayed in business for decades screening those flicks. That is until the City of Pittsburgh decided that the area would be better suited to a retail development.
News Briefs – Volume XXV
News briefs are a collection of interesting news stories…
Brief 1: Never content to accept a win, special interest groups (perhaps the bane of our society) have already begun to dissect America’s victory when a team of soldiers killed Osama. The Onondaga Indian tribe released a statement criticizing the use of the code name “Geronimo” for bin Laden,
“Think of the outcry if they had used any other ethnic group’s hero. Geronimo bravely and heroically defended his homeland and his people, eventually surrendering and living out the rest of his days peacefully, if in captivity…Geronimo is arguably the most recognized Native American name in the world and this comparison only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about our people…Why would that be honorable to us? All they know is just cowboys and Indians, the stuff they saw on TV.”
Air Scare
I am reading a book titled The Science of Fear (book review to come soon) and was struck by a recent op/ed in our local paper that hit on the essence of the book. Pittsburgh has suffered under the “Smokey City” label for years even though most of the steel mills and major industry has been long gone. My mother tells of the days when she had to change blouses twice a day because of the soot in the air. Pittsburgh is not that city any more, but many folks behave and advocate as if it is and groups use the historic image to bash the area while seeking stricter and stricter regulations on air emissions. It is as if some of these groups cannot accept that things are way better.
Moochers Lament
Way back in the early 1980s I worked at a restaurant atop Pittsburgh’s tallest building. The food was decent; the service was good; the view was awesome! The U.S. Steel Building now sports a “UPMC” (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) sign acknowledging their biggest client. The famed building was recently acquired by UBS Real Estate Securities Inc. based out of New York. Pittsburgh’s Tribune review reported that the investing group has skillfully locally recorded “is a consignment of leases and rents by the lender in the deal…UBS also recorded a mortgage document for a $220 million loan UBS provided for the acquisition to Manhattan-based Karasick and his partners.” Neither action requires the payment of transfer taxes which was estimated to be $10 million.
Synonyms: tendency, inclination, predilection, BIAS [emphasis added]A Charter Barter
To charter or not to charter is the question among many Pennsylvania school districts. A flaw (in my opinion) in Pennsylvania’s school charter system is that any application for a charter school must be approved by the school district in which it will be located. This was humorously described by Rep. Tom Killion as “saying McDonald’s gets to say whether Burger King gets to franchise in their area.“ The article about the Pennsylvania charter school system provided some statistics that may bear out this comparison,
Forgotten Tales of Pittsburgh
In Forgotten Tales of Pittsburgh
Travel Treasure – The Original Oyster House
There are still a few iconic restaurants in Pittsburgh that I enjoy. They are not the fancy, five-star tablecloth joints, but the kind of places that attract all types of people. Karma led me to one today that I had not been to in probably a decade. I had the dubious task of getting tires on one of our company vehicles. There were some “issues” with what work needed to be done and since our service approvals are centralized I was captive until the issue was resolved and the repairs complete.
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