Government in the land of make-believe
City Council must take off the executive branch’s blinders
At a crucial time for Pittsburgh and the wider region, City Council has ceased to be a true governing body, instead settling into the comfortable role of rubber stamp for the administration of Mayor Ed Gainey. Council has consistently ignored, or moved only haltingly and even apologetically to address, glaring deficiencies in the executive branch of city government, preferring to maintain chummy relationships with the Mayor’s Office rather than serving constituents by holding Mr. Gainey accountable.
This manifests itself particularly in a remarkable lack of curiosity about the Mayor’s policies and activities, combined with naïve credulousness regarding an office that has consistently and provably lied both to the public and in the council chambers. The result is a legislature that happily governs in the land of make-believe, avoiding the costs of leadership while saddling the people with the costs of mismanagement and malfeasance.
Go along to get along
The most striking recent example of council’s subservient relationship with the Gainey administration is the $400,000 appropriation for outside counsel to pursue challenges to tax exempt properties. On Oct. 1, the PostGazette Editorial Board reported that, in statements to City Council during the Sep. 27 standing committees meeting,city solicitor Krysia Kubiak made multiple false or misleading statements regarding the city’s tax exemptionchallenge program.
Most relevantly, Ms. Kubiak overstated the maximum annual revenue the city could expect from the first round of challenges by nearly 500%, and informed council that Allegheny County had agreed with about half the city’s challenges — while leaving out that less than 1% of challenged property value was fully back on the tax rolls, amounting to barely $4,000 in taxes.
Tobe clear, our reporting depended entirely on public information: We compared the official data from the county to Ms. Kubiak’s statements. Members of council and their staffs did not need to rely on the Editorial Board’s word: They were free to do theirown due diligence.
Yet when the solicitor appeared before council two weeks later to discuss the same bill, only one councilor — Council President Theresa KailSmith — asked sharp questions of her. Councilwoman Erika Strassburger also requested, smartly but almost apologetically, regular reports from Ms. Kubiak on the program’s progress.
But only Ms. Kail-Smith impeached her previous false claims, and no one used the public data from the county to question the efficacy of the property challenge program. It was as if the only information available was what the executive branch had provided. Happily wearing the administration’s blinders, council was free to pretend as if everything wasalright.
The next week, the appropriation passed without debate, eight to one. The council president was the lone dissenter.
Departure from the norm
While Pittsburgh has a “strong mayor” system of government, and there is a tradition of legislative deference to a new mayor’s policy priorities, this degree of subservience and credulousness is unusual. First, at nearly two years into Mr. Gainey’s term, any honeymoon period should have long ago expired. Second, on issues from the dubious procurement of the Matrix police staffing study to illicitly stonewalling developers, the administration
has proven itself unworthy of the trust council apparently places in it.
During former Mayor Bill Peduto’s second term, the atmosphere in the council chamber was much more energetic. Councilors regularly grilled administration officials, and issues like the implementation of the 2019 parks tax resulted in full-on political theater, with councilors packing public meetings with constituents to press their case. Sometimes the fireworks might’ve produced more heat than light, but the tension between the branches kept each on its toes.
Now, a single dissenting vote, such as Ms. Kail-Smith’s on the property challenge contract, is seen as an unusual act of defiance. And administration officials are received with unfailing courtesy and gratitude, never the suspicion they’ve earned.
Courage to build on
Three members of the nine-person council-deserve some credit for asserting the legislature’s prerogative against the executive: Ms. Kail-Smith and Councilmen Anthony Coghill and Rev. Ricky Burgess.
Ms.Kail-Smith has quietly asserted the right to receive and to vet the administration’s agenda the week before it is presented to council. She also, politely, asked pointed questions of Ms. Kubiak during recent meetings, including identifying a clear lie abouta property in her own district.
Most potently, Ms. Kail-Smith has moved to repeal a highly suspicious appropriation of $250,000 to Homewood Community Sports. The contract to serve as a “community liaison” was awarded without bidding, andwas described to council last year, absurdly, as a “workforce training” initiative to generate youths’ interest in the science of turf. Further, HCS has never even handled $50,000 in a year, let alone the $250,000 now set aside for it, and is incorporated in PennHills.
For their part, Mr. Coghill and Rev. Burgess have introduced legislation — in direct response to the administration’s loose use of competitive bid waivers — to move oversight of such waivers from the Office of Management and Budget (which is part of the executive branch) to the City Controller’s Office.
Breaking point
The grim question that hangs over Pittsburgh politics is whether the voters who select members of City Council actually want and expect their legislators to stand up to the Mayor’s Office. Government in the land of make-believe, where everything is going fine and the administration is trustworthy and there’s no reason to risk breezy relationships with deceptive officials, might be exactly what the people want (or at least the people who vote in Democratic primaries).
But it won’t, and can’t, last forever. The situation will get worse. And eventually, members of council who haven’t yet raised their voices will have to choose whether they are with thesystem, or with the people.