September 20, 2005

Appearing for the Plantiffs: Kenny Kangaroo

In their continuing effort to slay the goose that lays the golden eggs, West Mifflin borough officials have apparently stuck their foot into their own trap. (Always start your essays with a mixed metaphor: It keeps people guessing.)

According to The Daily News, Kennywood has learned that it's been virtually the only organization providing any amusement tax revenue to the borough for the past seven years ... and, claim Kennywood's attorneys, 100 percent of the tax for the past four years.

Kennywood is asking the borough to promise to stop its selective enforcement of the amusement tax ordinance, and to refund 80 percent of what Kennywood has sent the borough in amusement taxes since 1999; or else repeal the tax and not impose a new one. Kennywood claims it doesn't want the money (which amounts to nearly $3.5 million), and that it will be placed into an educational trust fund.

Borough officials aren't commenting, and it's unclear who leaked the letter to the News. (Kennywood claims it was a West Mifflin official.)

There's no denying that Kennywood causes a fair number of traffic congestion problems around West Mifflin and Duquesne each summer, or that West Mifflin police, fire and EMS crews often respond to incidents in and around the park. But it seems to the Almanac that all Kennywood is asking is that it pay its fair share --- not 100 percent.

This isn't the only tax issue currently dividing Kennywood and West Mifflin; the borough is also dinging Kennywood $250 for each of the antique 1-cent and 5-cent game machines in the park, reasoning that they should be taxed like a modern video game, even though (as anyone can see) that Kennywood doesn't receive anywhere near the revenue from a 1920s hand-cranked movie viewer that it does from a brand-new shoot-'em-up game that costs 50 cents or a dollar per play.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I repaired game machines for Kennywood for about two years. On occasion, I even emptied the money out of those penny and nickel machines. A week's worth of receipts from a "Mutoscope" wouldn't buy a decent meal at McDonald's. Let alone at Kennywood, now that I think of it.)

As I've written before, it astonishes me that no matter how much Kennywood invests in the community, the boroughs nearby seem to do nothing in the area to make the park a more attractive place to visit. Nor do they capitalize on all of the traffic coming into the area to visit Kennywood.

A great economic development opportunity is being squandered along Route 837 through Duquesne, West Mifflin, Munhall and Whitaker. That stretch of road should be teeming with business; instead, parts of it are fairly depressing.

I don't think that local government should be in the business of real estate development (for more information, see also, "City of Pittsburgh, bankruptcy of" or "City of Pittsburgh, failure of Fifth and Forbes"), but I have to wonder if better zoning and traffic and infrastructure improvements along "Kennywood Boulevard" would attract some private investment.

To put it another way: Since 1999, West Mifflin has collected $3.5 million in tax revenue directly from the sale of tickets at Kennywood. Does someone from West Mifflin care to show me the $3.5 million in zoning code changes, tax incentives for commercial development, and improved signals and lighting on Kennywood Boulevard that have been made in that period of time?

Or is the borough balancing its budget (including the cost of that spiffy $2 million three-story municipal hall on Lebanon Church Road, formerly a taxable privately-owned office building) on the back of its only tourist attraction and one of its few claims to fame?

I may be way off-base here. Perhaps there are more costs to the taxpayers of West Mifflin caused by Kennywood than I'm aware of. Perhaps West Mifflin is acting solely in the best interests of its taxpayers. As a West Mifflin taxpayer myself, I sure hope so.

But I do know that Kennywood is one of the largest private employers (admittedly, it's mostly seasonal) in the Mon-Yough area. And I know that the amusement park business has become pretty cutthroat, and most of the operators are large conglomerates, not local family-owned businesses. So I hope that both sides reach a compromise fairly soon.

Otherwise, someday, Kennywood's owners are going to announce that they're selling the whole shebang to Six Flags; or maybe that they're building a new park out in Washington County or Butler County next to one of the interstates, and they're putting money there that could have been spent in West Mifflin.

And if that day comes, I hope the elected officials of West Mifflin don't look too sad.

...

By the way: the News' Jen Vertullo spanked the Pittsburgh media on that Kennywood story. Neither "One of America's Great Newspapers" or the paper that "Makes You Think" have picked it up, despite the fact that it's gotten play in national trade publications. Embarrassed, are they, that they would have to credit the News?

On the other hand, an "atta-boy" to Ann Belser of the P-G, who has been covering the hell out of Our Fair City and its environs recently. It's nice to see a Picksberg reporter who has an interest in the Mon-Yough area beyond the crime-of-the-week, and I hope she continues to get good stories out of the beat.

Meanwhile, Belser's colleague Dennis Roddy had a nice column in Saturday's P-G about the memorial service for the fetuses whose corpses were found in a garage that used to be owned by former funeral director Robert Winston Jr., who used to run Newman-Winston Memorial Chapel in Our City. ("Our Fair City" seems less than appropriate in this instance.)

I haven't written anything about this case --- Winston was supposed to cremate the remains and dispose of them properly, or, in the cases of babies lost to miscarriages, return the ashes, but didn't --- because there isn't much to add to the sad tale. I tend to agree with Roddy's sentiments about much-maligned coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht, however --- he's shown more compassion and ownership of this situation than anyone else involved.

...

From the Not Mon-Yough Related, But Funny Dep't., someone sent me a link to this David Templeton column in the P-G. This lady may have the most apt name of anyone I've seen recently. The town she's from seems appropriate, too. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

...

From the Not Mon-Yough Related, But Funny Dep't., Part II: Someone recently turned me onto a Web comic called "Scary-Go-Round," which is veddy British and also entertaining. The artwork is also several notches above the typical Internet comic strip.

I spent an evening the other night catching up on past installments, which run back several years. If you like offbeat British humor, and comic strips, you might give it a whirl, so to speak. (A warning: It's a serial with a large cast, and it will make no sense unless you start at or near the beginning, and work forward.)

Also, various sources are reporting that a Web comic mentioned recently in the Almanac, Owen Dunne's "You Damn Kid," has been optioned by Fox for a possible television show. "YDK" is not for everyone (think a slightly gentler, and usually funnier "Family Guy," or else a grosser, and always funnier "Family Circus"), but it's probably more accessible than "Scary," I'll admit.

Posted at 11:51 pm by jt3y
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