(Editor's note: This is treacherous ice on which I'm about to tread; I've got family and friends who are schoolteachers, or retired schoolteachers, and I know several past or present school board members. So let me start out by saying that nothing in today's essay reflects anything done by any specific individual, and that opinions expressed here are mine, and mine alone, and have not been endorsed by anyone. Not even me, maybe. Get it? Got it? Good. Deep, cleansing breath now.)
...
If you own a house valued at $63,000, and you live in the city of Duquesne, you're paying about 56 percent of your annual $2,392 in property taxes to the Duquesne City School District.
The owner of a similar house in Our Fair City is paying 63 percent of his $1,814 in property taxes to the McKeesport Area School District.
And the owners of $63,000 homes in West Mifflin or Port Vue are paying a whopping 68 percent of their roughly $1,900 in school taxes to their respective school districts, West Mifflin Area and South Allegheny.
Have 68 percent of the taxpayers in the South Allegheny School District ever been to a school board meeting? Get real. I'd be stunned if it was 6 to 8 percent. I've never been to a South Allegheny School District board meeting, but if they're anything like the school board meetings I have attended in a half-dozen or more communities around Western Pennsylvania, there might be 20 or 30 people in the audience if there's an extremely hot issue. Otherwise, the board members usually outnumber the members of the public.
So ask yourself these questions:
1.) Do you know which school district you live in?
2.) Can you name one of the members of your nine-person school board? (If you don't live in the City of Picksberg, no fair naming members of the Picksberg public school board, who are always on the news.)
3.) Can you describe the duties of a public school director in Pennsylvania?
Don't feel embarrassed if you can't answer any of those questions. Since moving into North Bittyburg, I haven't been to a school board meeting yet, and I wouldn't know who the board members were if I tripped over them. As for knowing the duties of the school board, I probably wouldn't if it hadn't been for my mediocre career as a newspaper reporter. (Public school directors vote on how to expend the district's money, which in point of fact, gives them near total control over hirings and firings, what projects will be funded, and what purchases will be made, within the limits of state and federal laws.)
Yet Mon-Yough area residents are paying one-half to two-thirds of their property taxes to a government body that most of them know nothing about.
And here's the dirty little secret about your local school board: Some of the members like it just fine if you stay ignorant, and Pennsylvania's laws encourage them to keep you that way.
Oh, every so often, some issue explodes into the news, and people demand answers. Take the firing of the school superintendent in Mt. Lebanon. The school board, according to what has leaked into the newspapers, was dissatisfied with her performance, so they bought out the remainder of her contract at a cost of nearly a half-million dollars. When the good citizens of that Great State of Mt. Lebanon demanded to know why, the school board said it was a "personnel matter" and refused to say.
Under Pennsylvania law, when a public board of elected officials tells you something is a "personnel matter," they're actually telling you to "pound sand." Ostensibly, not discussing hiring or firing decisions is supposed to protect the rights of the person whose job performance (or lack thereof) is being debated, but in practice, calling something a "personnel matter" in Pennsylvania is the cover-all provision for hiding information from the people.
I once had a local borough council toss me out of a meeting because they wanted to discuss a "personnel matter" in private. What was the personnel matter, I asked?
"The sewage authority."
A sewage personnel matter? Something stunk, all right, but it wasn't sewage. I complained on the spot to the borough's solicitor, and after some back and forth, they allowed me back in.
But even if they hadn't, there wasn't much I could have done. I could have filed a complaint with the district magistrate. The complaint might have taken weeks to get a hearing, and the borough could have appealed any ruling, meaning that it might be months before the disputed information was finally released. Even if found guilty on all counts, the borough would have been forced to cough up a $100 fine.
That's under the stringent terms of Pennsylvania's Open Meetings Law. Let's say, hypothetically, that the members of a school board are breaking the law by refusing to discuss the reasons they fired a superintendent. A hundred bucks seems like a small price to pay to cover up a half-million dollars in hinky dealings.
In the meantime, they can keep embarrassing information, or other things they don't want to discuss, out of the public eye until the furor blows over. I suspect that after the holidays, all but a few hardcore activists in Mt. Lebanon, for instance, will have forgotten about what Mike Madison over at Pittsblog calls "SableGate." And that will suit most members of the Caketown school board just jam dandy, I suspect.
Closer to home, the South Allegheny School Board bought out the remainder of its superintendent's contract, though at least, to their credit, they said why; they didn't approve of his decision to build a new school, the cost of which helped drive school taxes from 14.98 mills in 2003 to the current 20.96 mills.
Unfortunately for the taxpayers, in a move that the Post-Gazette called "unconscionable," the lame-duck South Allegheny school board that left office in 2003 extended the superintendent's contract, with little or no input from the public, and over the wishes of the incoming, newly-elected school directors. Indeed, several of the school directors said they never even saw the contract before it was voted on.
Then, the neighboring McKeesport Area School District hired the same superintendent to run their own system --- and darned near did it in secret.
Now, I'm not saying anything was done that was illegal or unethical. In fact, I've heard some very good reports on the superintendent in question from people who have worked with him.
But running around and sliding these things under the noses of the people --- people who are each paying thousands of dollars per year in wage taxes and property taxes to maintain these school districts --- stinks to high heaven. You've got to admit, it's one hell of a way to run a railroad.
What needs to be done? Some bright --- make that "brave" --- state legislator needs to get some tougher public disclosure laws in place for all public elected bodies in Pennsylvania. Right now, the number of public records that are not available for the public to look at --- things as basic as police incident reports --- is stunning and sickening.
Or, say, the employment contracts of school superintendents.
News organizations have been agitating for tougher disclosure laws for years, but with their public credibility and respect hovering somewhere between "grave robbers" and "loan sharks," they're not exactly the best ones to be running the ball.
So writing angry letters to the editor, or going to board meetings to yell at the school directors, is just a lot of wasted energy. The newspapers know, and are powerless to do anything; the school board members know, and they don't care.
Instead, people in the Mon-Yough area, Mt. Lebanon or elsewhere who feel like they've been played for fools need to channel their anger into a lobbying effort, focused on their state senators and legislators, and directed at getting sweeping reforms of the state Public School Code (which hasn't been overhauled since 1949!) and the Open Meetings and Open Records laws. They're the only ones who have any power or motivation to change things.
Now, question number four: Do you know who your state senator and legislator is? That problem, I can help with: Click here, and type in your zip code in the upper right-hand corner.
...
By the way: To find out how I calculated the property tax figures cited today, click on the "Continue reading..." link at the end of this essay.
...
In other news, a Glassport native has been named an auxiliary bishop of the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese. The Rev. Paul Bradley will be ordained Feb. 2, according to Lillian Thomas in the Post-Gazette. Megan McCloskey has more in the Trib.
...
To Do This Weekend: McKeesport Symphony Orchestra presents "The Glorious Sounds of Christmas" at McKeesport Area High School, 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets start at $8. Call (412) 403-0002 or visit www.mckeesportsymphony.org. ... it's the final weekend for the train show at McKeesport Model Railroad Club, and for Charlotte's Web at the McKeesport Little Theater.
Ryan Kuntz of Regent Square, writing the guest "Rant" this week's City Paper, has the right idea:
I live very close to the intersection of Forbes Avenue and Braddock Avenue. A couple of months ago with the election closing in, a group of people took over that intersection every Saturday morning to support their candidate and hold up the evil “honk for” signs to get other people to honk in favor of their candidate. With me living so close and all, I would be woken up every Saturday morning with the sound of hundreds of cars honking and honking and honking. ...
Why are you honking?! What does that accomplish? If you honk to show support, the guy holding the sign already supports what you support. You’re not going to gain support for anything by honking at a guy who supports what you support, so just give him the thumbs-up and be done with it. Anyone that’s not right there isn’t going to know what you are honking at anyway. For all they know you were scaring a blind raccoon off the road.
The war in Iraq continues to hit home:
An Elizabeth Forward School Board member will spend the next year in Iraq.
Retired Air Force Capt. Richard Saccone has accepted an assignment as an intelligence support consultant.
"I feel this is something I have to do," Saccone said. "I'm sitting on years of valuable experience that might allow me to contribute to the success of the mission in Iraq." (Joanna Blair, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
State police Capt. Harvey Cole Jr. told Sutersville residents Tuesday that if they have a good reason to contact the Greensburg barracks, do so. ...
"If you're not calling us, we can't put it into our system. Therefore, I'm not seeing the crime (numbers) rising," said Cole, commander of Troop A, based in Greensburg.
Cole attended a town hall meeting held last night prior to the Sutersville council meeting. About 20 people joined council at the session.
The town hall session was organized, in part, because of residents' claims about escalating crime and the sometimes slow response time of troopers. The community employs a part-time officer. (Bob Stiles, Tribune-Review)
If you drive by the Twist ice cream parlor in New Eagle between 2 and 3 in the morning and see smoke coming from the building, it's probably not on fire. More likely, it's Arturo Vizzuett cooking batches of his tasty salsas.
Born and raised in Mexico City, Vizzuett, 42, learned the basics of Mexican cuisine as a boy by shopping each day for ingredients that went into his family's main meal and by watching his grandmother and mother prepare salsas and other Mexican foods using centuries-old recipes. (Dave Zuchowski, Post-Gazette)
"Our working title is 'Our Valley,' but it's still up in the air," Bonifate said. "I have a feeling as we go along, something will pop up and we will come up with a different title."
Bonifate said the documentary will center on historical aspects of communities that comprise the district, including Donora, Monongahela, Carroll Township, Victory Hill and New Eagle. (Jeff Oliver, Monessen Valley Independent)
Jeremiah Ostrosky writes: “I stumbled upon your site somehow ... I think it was a search for ‘McKeesport’ on Yahoo. Anyway, I find the site very interesting and enjoyed reading some of McKeesport's history that I did not know about. I have some nice photos taken of the city if you would like to take a look at any of them they may interest you.”
They did interest me! So, with his permission, I'm sharing them with you at the newest page of our photo gallery. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, and Jeremiah sent 10 pictures, I'm thinking that today's Almanac counts as 10,000 words, right?
Incidentally, check out the new Webcast station that Jeremiah and a friend are setting up called Steel Valley Radio.
Garrison Keillor has written about how car-buying in fictional Lake Wobegon, Minn., was "a matter of faith." According to Keillor, Catholics bought Chevrolets from Krebsbach Chevrolet; Protestants bought Fords from Bunsen Motors. One Lutheran who was "tempted by Chevyship," he writes, was coaxed into buying a Ford by his pastor, and it turned out to be a lemon.
Keillor was exaggerating, of course, but it wasn't that long ago when car ownership was a matter of some faith. Some families swore by General Motors, or Fords, or Chryslers. Another humorist, Jean Shepherd, wrote about how his father ("the Old Man") was a solid Oldsmobile man. In my family, one grandfather was a loyal Plymouth customer until his new Volare was creamed at a stoplight; he replaced it with a giant Cadillac Coupe de Ville. My uncle was a Chrysler loyalist, too, until fairly recently. For the last 20 years or so, he's been GM all the way. My dad has been a GM customer since he bought his first car --- a '59 Chevy Impala.
In general, though, those kinds of brand loyalties started to shift during the 1970s, when Detroit "quality" was abysmal and fuel-efficient cars from Japan and Germany began stealing serious market share. Being a traditional GM buyer didn't mean much when the best subcompact the General could offer was the Vega; who but the most hardcore fanatic would have felt bad about going across the street to the Honda dealer in that case?
Like most things, however, trends and traditions tend to stick around longer in the Mon Valley --- long past the time when they should have, in fact. The Mon-Yough area still seems to feature an inordinate number of American-made cars (or at least American brand names) compared with other parts of Pennsylvania, and the brand loyalty can still be fierce.
Take the group of friends I hang around with. I'm the oddball (no surprise there) in a gang of GM loyalists, who tolerate my Ford and Chrysler ownership. Last week, I spotted this story in the Miami Herald. According to the newspaper, Lincoln-Mercury has finally found a home for its unsold Marauder muscle cars; an "anonymous benefactor" has bought 18 of them for the Florida Highway Patrol:
One of the best things Miami FHP Trooper Mike Transue's new car has going for it is that it looks like a lot of other cars you'd find in a condo parking lot. ...
Go screaming past him and you'll be picked up on high-definition digital video and on radar pointing both forward and backward. Inside the car there is an infrared camera, so it's no longer the trooper's word against the driver.
''When you have the camera, they can't dispute it,'' Transue said.
When Transue hits the gas, he'll catch up faster than ever. And when he hits the dual sirens, the noise is louder.
Speed from a modified 302-horsepower engine is important. Instead of Transue taking a mile to catch somebody, he said he might catch them in a quarter of a mile.
Ha ha ha ha ha. One mile was highly optimistic. Try 2 or 3 miles ... piece of ---- police drivin' car.
We have a 2004 "Furd" Explorer for our trip this week, and it's so slow, you have to plan your lane merges like 1/2 mile before it's time so that you can get up enough speed. I found out that the third gear to fourth gear shift at wide-open throttle is at 90 mph, and it can't even smoke the tires with a brake stand in two or even four wheel drive! Also, if you put it in manual first gear and redline it to 6,000 RPMs, it won't shift. It will stay at 6,000 and continue to burn itself up.
This is the biggest piece of ---- that I've ever driven. I've been beating the ---- out of it. The tranny is already blown up --- lots of clunking and slipping. We'll help speed it to a quick death.
Questions: What's a Ford Explorer weigh? How's it geared? And what's the aerodynamic drag? Quick answers: IT'S NOT MEANT TO GO FAST. Also, this is a rental vehicle, right? And we all know how well rental vehicles are treated.
These questions are irrelevant. The word "Furd" implies the (s----y) quality and overall (lack of) driving experience. Ha ha ha ha ha.
"Driving experience"? "Quality"? ... said the man with two Chevrolets, which stands for "Can Hear Every Valve Rattling On Long Extended Trips."
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
And I haven't heard ANYONE bragging about General Motors' "quality." (Celebrity? Cavalier? Chevette? Sprint? Metro? Sunbird? QUALITY?? Are you on DRUGS? What was the "driving experience" delivered by those cars? More like "pushing experience.")
The GM "mark of excellence" is an oil spot on the driveway, as far as I can tell. Or maybe it's long pieces of paint peeling off the fenders and roof, like half of the "Generic Motors" cars I see around Pittsburgh.
Actually, it's three Chevrolets.
I don't have any peeling paint ... none of us do, so I'm not sure what that is about. When you spoke of "Celebrity? Cavalier? Chevette? Sprint? Metro? Sunbird?" you were talking about most of the entry level GM cars that most high school punks buy and don't take care of. I noticed Caprice, Impala, and Roadmaster were not listed in your comparison ... and this V6 "Furd Exploder" had about as much power as those four-bangers listed above.
By the way: We put 1,000 miles on the FURD this week and the tranny is clunking around even worse ... at only 19k miles. Ha!
Peeling paint I can deal with. At least I don't have to replace heater cores and transmissions every 35,000 miles.
No, you can get at least 36,000 miles out of a Chevy transmission. Maybe 38,000, if you don't mind driving everywhere in second gear. And as for the peeling paint, if you haven't seen Pontiacs, Buicks and Oldsmobiles with big strips of paint blistering off of them, then try opening your eyes while you're driving!
Oh ... wait a minute ... did you say this was a V-6 Ford Explorer? Which weighs like 4,400 pounds? And you expect it to go fast? You, my friend, are on drugs. That's like taking a U-Haul truck to the dragstrip and being disappointed by its quarter-mile times.
I should know better than to argue with someone who's been driving Chevys for all of these years. All of the carbon monoxide leaks kill brain cells.
This is kind of a stupid argument. Comparing "GM vs. Ford quality" is like comparing "which sank faster, the Titanic or the Lusitania?" or "which smells worse, a dead skunk or a porta-potty in the summer time?"
Can't we realize we all have a common enemy ... and that is punks in tricked-out Honda Civics with giant mufflers that make them sound flatulent?
Oh yeah, you're right. But it wasn't an argument at all, more like a hilarious discussion. I hope you enjoyed yourself because I did.
You are on an archived page of Tube City Almanac.
Click the banner to return to the front page; or click here to visit Tube City Online.
Published weekdays (usually), except holidays (and when we have something better to do) at McKeesport, Pa., by Tube City Online LLC, P.O. Box 94, McKeesport, Pa. 15134.
Opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors, and do not necessarily represent those of any organization. No warranty is given or implied for the information and opinions contained herein; the reader uses that information at his or her peril.
Except where noted, all contents are copyright © 2003-2008 Tube City Online LLC, a limited-liability company chartered in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. No content from Tube City Online may be reproduced in whole or part in any digital or print publication without express permission, except that short excerpts may be used with attribution in commentary or for critical purposes.
Tube City Online is edited by Jason Togyer, member National Writers Union, Society of Professional Journalists, American Radio Relay League and National Radio Club.
Also, objects in Tube City Online may be closer than they appear. If Tube City Online is swallowed, seek professional help immediately. Stop use of Tube City Online if condition persists or worsens. Tube City Online is produced in a facility that also includes Peanuts. Do not expose Tube City Online to open flames and keep it out of the reach of children. Do not back up, as severe tire damage may result. Not responsible for lost or stolen articles. Tube City Online is still not a significant source of saturated fats or Minnesota Fats.
