PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Allegheny County & Pittsburgh
by R Field Saturday, Feb. 21, 2004 at 7:27 AM
envirowork_2000@yahoo.com

Dan Onorato and Tom Murphy talk on consolidation plans; plans leave most of the county out of the discussion; future of Allegheny County is more of the same

On February 20, 2004, Allegheny County's Chief Executive Dan Onorato and Pittsburgh's Mayor Tom Murphy spoke about county-city consolidation at a luncheon hosted by the League of Women Voters. The speakers offered nothing new and audience members asking questions raised no new issues. The general theme was and continues to be that Pittsburgh is the only municipality that matters in Allegheny County.

Approximately 150 people attended the luncheon held at Point Park College, including government officials, graduate students, and candidates for state representative. Neither of the speakers used notes or hesitated in their speeches. It appears that the decision on when, how and what to merge in Allegheny County has already been made. Unfortunately, the citizens of the county seem to have been left out of the discussion.

Anyone seeking information on Allegheny County would be hard pressed to find it on the official county website. The homepage features a picture of Point State Park in Pittsburgh. The webpage on economic development features Heinz Stadium and other locations in Pittsburgh. The webpage on county demographics features pictures of Pittsburgh and lyrical paragraphs about the weather over the course of a year, including the temperature ranges. Buried in a page on the voluntary league of county municipalities is the important number of 130, that being how many townships, boroughs, cities, and other local governments there are in the county. Apparently, the county website does not list how many square miles is in the county, the population, the income range, or any other information citizens find so useful in participating in their government.

On the Quality of Life county webpage, a 1985 survey rating places to live is given prominent position despite being almost twenty years old. Crime statistics are tied to a 1995 report. Undated is the closing claim that cost of housing is comparatively low in Allegheny County, but the site does not specify whether that cost includes taxes, heating and cooling, insurance, and other maintenance and use costs.

Pittsburgh is 55.5 square miles in size, 7.6% of the 728 square miles of Allegheny County.

In 1990, Pittsburgh had a population of 369,879, 27.7% of Allegheny County's population of 1,336,449.

In 1980, the population numbers were 423,938 for the city, 29.2% of the 1,450,085 residents in all of Allegheny County.

In 1980, Allegheny County was the 14th largest county by population in the United States. By 1990, it was the 19th largest.

Onorato spoke first. He said Los Angeles has one 911 call center. Allegheny County has six. Two of those, the county's and Pittsburgh's, will merge in a few weeks. No explanations were given as to why all six centers could not be consolidated at once, nor was a time line given as to when they might be consolidated, or what the current extra costs are.

In the question and answer part of the luncheon, Onorato and Murphy characterized certain unions as not being "progressive." What they meant was that the unions wanted to protect their workers and not lose their bargaining positions. Certainly protecting union workers sometimes means making sacrifices, but that is being realistic. "Progressive," as used by Onorato and Murphy, means weakening the unions. This is a Pittsburgh problem. Other municipalities in the county have a problem with operating volunteer fire departments. Yet, there is no discussion on how to consolidate services countywide, only those of Pittsburgh and surrounding communities, and maybe passing some of the cost off to the county.

Murphy's speech at the luncheon was a list of the problems Pittsburgh faces in the disparity of its business privilege tax and loss of property taxes due to land purchases by non-profit groups. It was a perfect presentation on why suburban residents couldn't care less about Pittsburgh. According to Murphy, all of Allegheny County should bow down and give homage to the great and mighty Pittsburgh. In response, as one questioner put it, how is the city-county consolidation going to sell to suburbanites? The consolidation is not between the city and county so much as it is between the city and the county management. For the consolidation to sell to suburbanites, those residents need to be included in the talks, plans, and consolidation.

The suburbs have convoluted, poorly managed, and poorly advertised collection systems for earned income. As a new resident to Pennsylvania, this writer had to find out on her own that her municipality collected a tax, what the tax was, how to pay it, and what to include. It took several months to find out enough information just to ask the right questions. Then, the taxpayer was given wrong information, had wrong taxes withheld, and was charged a late fee. Talking about the problems with a long-time resident revealed that even native Pennsylvanians have trouble finding out what and where to pay local taxes.

Worse, taxpayers often do not know where, when, or how the money locally collected is spent. The long-time resident mentioned above noted that she used to request from the municipalities where she lived a breakdown of the expenses paid for by taxes. Year after year, she never received any information. This writer regularly receives mailings from the township adjacent to her municipality, but has never received any information about local elected officials or issues from the place where she lives.

Onorato talked at the luncheon about speaking with one voice in Harrisburg. Why not apply the one-entity reasoning to taxes? Drop municipal taxes, including those assessed by the City of Pittsburgh, and institute a county tax. This earned income tax could be withheld for all county residents working in the state, managed by one central office to reduce expenses, and distributed to localities based on their population, geographical size, and median or average income. Residents might want to include additional factors in the calculations, such as average age of residents, based on census data, to reflect the costs of older and younger residents. Such an action would increase tax collection, reduce irritation by residents, and help non-Pittsburgh residents feel as though they were important to the county.

Other issues are important county-wide, but ignored by the Pittsburgh-centric Onorato, who is a former Pittsburgh city council member, and Murphy. How can jobs expand beyond Pittsburgh when public transportation is targeted towards getting college students to party venues and suburban workers to downtown Pittsburgh? Forget about enjoying any of the large county parks if you are a suburban resident without a car. Forget about being able to access the jobs that exist in the North Hills or South Hills.

There will be a referendum on row offices in 2005. Other changes in county government are almost that close at hand. Onorato and Murphy want the city and county to merge, yet leave the 129 other municipalities as outcasts. If the residents of the county are not given more information and more opportunities to participate, as well as more reasons to stay, any changes that happen will do nothing to keep people from moving away in search of jobs and better lives. The current proposals set forth by Onorato seem nothing more than a way to shift city costs to county taxpayers without a commuter tax.

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