Mayor Luke Ravenstahl started his four-year term yesterday with a call for building bridges — “of ideas, progress and vision” — and acknowledging that he’ll need a few new spans, and maybe repair a few, to bring about what he called “the new Pittsburgh.”
That new Pittsburgh can’t fully emerge while the old Pittsburgh’s financial obligations weigh the city down, he said. Shedding the baggage may not be possible unless the mayor can, as he put it, “unite leaders across our region around one common goal: becoming more financially sound once and for all.”
Sworn in hours after a divisive vote for City Council’s presidency, four days after his controversial eleventh-hour veto of legislation backed by powerful unions, a fortnight past the end of a bruising tax fight, and perhaps weeks before he convenes a coalition and seeks its help influencing Harrisburg, Mr. Ravenstahl emphasized relationship building.
Though just-picked Council President Darlene Harris was apparently not his first or second choice for that post, the mayor said they “worked closely together in the past, and really look forward to working together in 2010.”
And though just one state legislator — Rep. Bill Kortz, D-Dravosburg, a U.S. Senate candidate — showed up at his afternoon swearing in at The Pittsburgh Project in Perry South, he said House and Senate members would be brought to the table promptly as he casts about for a fiscal fix that is likely to require Harrisburg’s help.
“We will be bringing them in early,” the mayor said. “It’s not unreasonable, and it’s really, to my mind, necessary if we’re going to be successful.”
After being sworn in by his father, District Judge Robert Ravenstahl, while holding his son, Cooper, the mayor placed lower crime and the funding of the Pittsburgh Promise of college tuition aid as major accomplishments from three-plus years in office. The big challenge, he said, is the city pension fund.
Its balance of, at last count, $280.7 million is less than one-third of ideal levels, and, if the administration can’t get it half-full by next year, the state may seize it and compel much higher annual contributions by the city. The mayor wants to lease public parking garages and raise $15 million a year in new revenue to bolster the fund.
“Our options locally are extremely limited,” he said. “I believe that city residents, homeowners, property owners, are already overtaxed.”
He said that increased donations to the city by tax-exempt organizations and a hike in the $52-a-year tax on all of those who work in the city remain his favored alternatives for raising $15 million. The tax change would require General Assembly approval, which he acknowledged would be hard to get.
He said he holds out hope that university and business leaders, who pledged their help after he backed away from his 1 percent tuition tax proposal, will join him in bringing the city’s message to Harrisburg.
Read the full Post-Gazette article here
Tags: Luke Ravenstahl
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