Tube City Almanac

December 07, 2009

Mayor: City Must Continue Marketing, Makeover Efforts

Category: News || By

Despite ongoing challenges to the city's long-term financial health, Mayor James Brewster said there's more good news than bad news in the 2010 budget.

"Never in my 27 years in the banking business have I faced the challenges that we faced in the past year," said Brewster, a former vice president of operations at Mellon Bank. "Who would have thought that we would be hit with one the worst financial crises in the country's history in 2008? Every major business --- banks, airlines, insurance companies, auto manufacturers --- was shaken."

On top of the recession, the mayor said, the city has continued to serve one of Allegheny County's poorest and oldest populations, yet has avoided state-controlled Act 47 "distressed" status.

Brewster chalked that accomplishment up to "the help of the Lord" and "good business management" by city employees.

The pending loss of 600 jobs at Dish Network's call center is a blow the city anticipated, the mayor said, adding that "three or four" businesses have expressed interest in taking the company's place in the RIDC industrial park on the former National Works site.

"Businesses are going to come and go, just like people come and go," Brewster said. The city's focus should be on encouraging small business development, he said, ranging from "someone working out of their home" to a company such as Huckenstein Mechanical Services, which moved into McKeesport in 2005, bringing 125 jobs.

In the past five years, Brewster said, 150 new businesses have located in the city, though he noted that some had only a few employees.

In addition, the mayor said, the city will continue to focus on "quality of life" projects, such as the extension of Marshall Drive now underway and next year's planned reconstruction of Fifth Avenue, Downtown, and West Fifth Avenue in the 10th Ward. Those projects are largely funded by state and federal grants.

"When people say, 'Well, what does Fifth Avenue mean to me?' or 'What does (Marshall Drive) mean to me?' they're right," said Brewster, which is why the city will "aggressively" continue demolishing abandoned houses in all 12 wards.

"The good old days that we think of today are gone," he said. "We have to learn to accept the cultural changes that have occurred."

With luck, the mayor said, someone 50 years from now might remember the bike trail, Renziehausen Park or other city landmarks as part of their "good old days."

Brewster said he would have more to say in his second "state of the city" address, to be delivered to the public in February.

The largest single expenditure in the $19 million budget is nearly $4.5 million for the city's 60-person police department, which includes 10 detectives, 24 full-time patrol officers and part-time police. The next largest expenditure --- after payments on bonds and the annual tax-anticipation note --- is $2.4 million for the fire department.

Salaries for the mayor, councilors, solicitor and other city administrators tote up another $1.2 million, while property maintenance costs $1.1 million.

The city's biggest source of revenue --- accounting for $3.9 million --- is earned-income taxes, while property tax income amounts to a little more than $2.4 million.

McKeesport collects 1.2 percent earned-income tax and property taxes of 4.26 mills on buildings and 16.5 mills on land.

Unlike newer suburbs, the city cannot rely on new residential construction (Brewster called them "dream houses") to boost its revenues.

Instead, he said, McKeesport must continue seeking new revenue streams, which will include attempting to market the drilling rights for natural gas trapped in Marcellus shale under city-owned property, and continuing to offer services such as police protection to neighboring communities who request it.

But Brewster contrasted the city's present condition, in which it expects to complete 2009 with a small surplus, with its condition in 2004, when it faced a $1.5 million deficit and had pension plans that were underfunded by $4 million.

"Not another community can keep up with your city for the projects we're doing, pound for pound," he said.






Your Comments are Welcome!

I’m not even going to start….
Adam - December 07, 2009



By all means, Adam, start, start!
Webmaster - December 08, 2009



Here goes..OK. First, it seems the only business in McKeesport is the politics business. The average median income in the city is just over $23,000 (zipskinny.com). Most of the people working for the city make almost twice that much. I am not attacking anyone personally, but, over $40,000 for an IT guy? And I can’t pay my bills online? And our police officers hand write time slips? And what exactly does a “switchboard operator” do, Mabel? I can’t imagine we still have switchboards. Ever heard of a phone system? You can pick one up on ebay fairly cheap(and they run themselves). Honestly, I don’t know where these figures come from. The only ones I can relate to are police/fire. I wont complain about how much they get paid. All this money and they are worried about a measely $48,000 for the Palisades which is one of the only well maintained busy places in McKeesport. Unless it is council who concerned, which makes sense since they only get $4000/yr. We are also getting $480,000 from the Liquid Fuels tax, and oddly enough, thats the exact amount we want to spend on “Street Lighting”. I don’t know where we are buying light bulbs, but we better ask the guys at Sun-Ray for a deal, becuase I think we are being ripped off. Obviously, our city leaders have never had to live paycheck to paycheck (at least since they landed this job), or they would learn how to trim the fat, LOWER taxes (Keeping them at the current rate is not good enough), and start some REAL projects that impact a larger section of the population. Most McKeesporters don’t care about Marshall Drive, or benches on Walnut Street. Try maybe fixing Grandview Avenue so people don’t have to drive on the wrong side of the street, or fixing sidewalks so the handicapped in wheelchairs don’t need to drive on the street.
Adam - December 08, 2009



Um, I believe switchboard operator’s name is Sarah.
BTW. McKeesport’s new website is looking really good these days. No content yet, but real professional looking.
John M. - December 08, 2009



Yes, the website looks like it just arrived from 2002. And it has such a huge amount of information….oops….Obviously it carries the same message that those in power have been saying about McKeesport for years….“Coming Soon”. Of course, the History section is done, since that is all anyone can focus on around here.
Adam - December 08, 2009



John, next time I need to call 911, I will just call Sarah and ask her to connect me to to Sherriff Taylor, unless he is at Floyd’s getting a shave…
Adam - December 08, 2009



All right, simmer down, or Barney will have to nip this in the bud.

Monroeville and North Huntingdon have their budgets online, and you can compare their expenditures with what McKeesport is paying:

http://www.monroeville.pa.us/_DocArchives/misc/2010ProposedBudget.pdf
http://www.township.north-huntingdon.pa.us/Consolidated%20Budget.xls

I’m not here to serve as a PR person for the city or anyone else, but I don’t know what “too much” is. If someone isn’t doing their job, “zero” dollars is too much.

But you do have to be competitive, no? North Huntingdon pays about the same to its road superintendent alone as the city pays for a public works director — and North Huntingdon also has an “assistant” road superintendent to boot.

The midpoint of the salary range for the Monroeville city manager is about the same as the McKeesport mayor and city adminstrator’s salaries added together. The midpoint of the salary range for Monroeville’s IT director is $30K more than in McKeesport.

I would have a hard time arguing that the city is “overpaying” people based on raw numbers alone.
Webmaster - December 08, 2009



But, comparing those towns to McKeesport doesn’t add up. It is like comparing my house to a house in Monroeville for property taxes. Both cities have median incomes above $44,000 for thier citizens. And both have huge business/retail dollars coming in. If echostar moves out and a huge successful shopping district moves in, I would agree with people being paid these sums, but when we are in a depressed area, I do not. I think You have to work a little harder for a little less and pass the savings onto the “customer”. That the way it works in business, and that is why Walmart and Costco are so huge, and the small mom and pops where the owner spends the profits on a new car, a new boat, and a cabin in the woods are not. You need to work hard for success, not have success at the expense of others.
Adam - December 08, 2009



True, but again — to play devil’s advocate — if you want someone to work for you, you have to pay what the market demands. Even in business.

If you pay substantially less than neighboring businesses, you’ll have a hard time attracting and keeping employees.

There are certain minimum costs of doing business. If you have police, you need a supervisor/chief.

Now, North Huntingdon pays their police chief 40 percent more than McKeesport. Does North Huntingdon have 40 percent more crime? No, yet the guy in McKeesport is expected to work for less money for doing the same job.

What should happen are municipal mergers that would put all of these towns on a level field — but the voters hate the idea. I’m out of answers otherwise.
Webmaster - December 08, 2009



I guess we all really want the same in the end. It just seems what matters most to us changes daily. Municipal mergers sounds like a good idea, kind of like revenue sharing in MLB. Now, can we be like McClatchy and trade for some good prospects?
Adam - December 08, 2009



This whole “marketing” thing is what worries me. What businesses are we trying to attract here, honestly? The only name I’ve heard in the past few years is Wal-Mart, and that’s a horrible idea on all fronts. Poor people who live here aren’t going to abandon the Dollar General to go shop there, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before anyone else decides to drive past their already-local 3 or 4 other Wal-Mart locations to get to one in McKeesport.

Come on already. There is more to retail than Wal-Mart, Brewster. Get a damn Whole Foods already. East Liberty did it, and they have NO PARKING. We’ve got TONS of space here, 2 parking garages, and a major highway running right the hell through the middle of town. I’m not sure it can be spelled out any more plainly than that, though perhaps I’ll climb up the People’s Building and replace that waste of money “Welcome To McKeesport” sign with something worthwhile.
John - December 08, 2009



I used the word “marketing,” so don’t blame the mayor for that.

I think the Whole Foods idea is a good one, John. I think the Mon Valley could support something like that.

A company like that would have to be aggressively recruited. Have you ever asked the mayor or city council about appointing you to one of the development boards, where maybe you could work on something like that?

Also, the “McKeesport” sign was donated by McKeesport Hospital (it’s their old sign) and didn’t cost anyone anything, as far as I know.

You’ll have to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Lum if you want it removed; it’s their building now.
Webmaster - December 08, 2009



I think SOMEONE should talk to Mr and Mrs Lum, becuase they are screwing up bigtime. Whole Foods would be good. Or even a big Market District. But no one wants to come here. I have been talking to people at Sheetz for 3 years now trying to get one in or around the city, they think Rt30 is as close as they want to get. I think the White Oak Chrysler corner would be an awesome spot. Unfortunately the city has been driving business away for so many years it is hard for the public opinion to switch gears. In my high school/college days I worked at Gilbert Lumber on Walnut, when they were going under in 1996, a group of employees went to the city and asked for help to save the business( which was going under for poor business decisions and a flood, not a lack of customers), the city said, no way. Now that land is mostly vacant and has been used twice by businesses not on the up and up. I wonder how many other businesses have asked for a small amount of help but were told no becuase we had to offer people like echostar deals…
Adam - December 09, 2009



It appears to me that the City Council is doing the best it can with the revenues it receives and I’m always impressed to read about the grants awarded to the City. I congratulate the Council on its balanced budget. Reducing salaries would be “a penny wise and a pound foolish”. City officials are working hard with what little is coming in and the staff members who get grant money for the City ought to be congratulated. Public works projects like removing blighted houses are small steps towards making the City more livable. Eventually, developers will be able to assemble parcels of land and build tracts of decent, attractive, and hopefully affordable housing. I would however, like to see more efforts being made to market, or attract small businesses to the industrial sites in the City. One idea might be to have a liaison from the City that would have contact with students at our local universities, where some of the greatest minds are now being trained. The students that are learning at our world class universities in nearby Oakland take what they’ve learned here and start new industries and expand the US economy (some place else). Before they leave, let us show them that McKeesport can be a good place to start and grow their businesses. The RIDC industrial site (former National Tube mill site) is laid out nicely for 7 or 8 small businesses with lots of room to expand. We need to nip it in the bud. Nip it! Nip it! Nip it!
John M. - December 09, 2009



Please can someone guide me to the city’s light switch so I can turn it off and we ( all the decent citizens still left) can all finally leave…......
Cox's Jimmy - December 09, 2009



I get this feeling that if we all got free chocolate ice cream and $2,000 tax rebate checks, half of us would bitch because we wanted vanilla, and others would complain about the lines at the bank.
Webmaster - December 09, 2009



So true. But it would be lines at the check cashing place…
Adam - December 09, 2009



Jason thank you for saying what is so true all over the country and Mckeesport, down here in paradise, Fla, every city is fighting for more business, better service, and of course we shouldn’t have to pay taxes. All city officials are wasteful, crooks, and nobody voted for them. They have been in office an average of two terms or more. At council meetings they average 5 to 10 people showing up to speak. Population 40,000 to 50,000. Elections, big turnout, almost 25% vote. Whenever the mayor or council suggest anything, the message boards lite up with how stupid they are.
silvblk12 - December 11, 2009



Yes, it’s definitely true everywhere. While I’ll not try to pretend that everything is peachy keen in the Mon Valley, you at least didn’t have a real estate bubble which wreaked havoc down here in Fairfax County Virginia. While assessments were skyrocketing in the bubble days, the county cut the real estate tax rate (the only local tax Richmond benevolently allows us) to lower levels to lessen the impact of the higher assessments. Now that the bubble has burst and assessments are falling faster than an acme anvil in a Warner Brother’s cartoon, the county school system is looking at a 176 million dollar shortfall this year, not to mention God only knows what in subsequent years. Everything is on the table get cut, and it will certainly be painful. Meanwhile state subsidies to our state universities have fallen, forcing schools like UVA, William & Mary, and Virginia Tech to take more out of state students to make up the difference in their budgets. So, not only do our kids get the shaft now, they’ll get it later as well. Unless of course you can save 300,000 dollars for each of your children by the time they start college. But, please for the love of God, don’t raise my taxes. Geez…
Dan - December 11, 2009



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