Not a big fan of the Trib after they said that Dan Remely is legendary, but Matt Santoni covered this pretty well. Without reinventing the wheel, here it is.
Mt. Lebanon commissioners are considering how to spend an $829,000 surplus from last year's budget, just as representatives of sports groups have asked for upgrades to playing fields.
Sports Advisory Board members on Monday outlined for commissioners improvements that the collection of 13 youth and adult sports and recreation groups requested.
They include structural repairs to platform tennis courts in the community's main park, an electric Zamboni for the ice rink, a pavilion for events at the golf course and artificial turf and lighting on the playing field at Mellon Middle School.
The Youth Sports Association previously sought artificial turf at Wildcat and Middle fields, a pair of adjacent softball and baseball fields in Mt. Lebanon Park off Cedar Boulevard, said non-voting advisory board member David Franklin.
Advocates hoped turf would make the fields available for more sports and would absorb more wear and tear than natural grass, but they never got support from a majority of commissioners. The sports groups next turned to Mellon, off Washington Road and Castle Shannon Boulevard, Franklin said.
“Given the sense among the board about which asset needs it the most, we believe that Mellon really is in line to be improved with artificial surface and lighting,” he said.
Commissioners John Bendel, Dave Brumfield and Kristen Linfante — a majority of the five-member panel — later voiced support for putting some of the money toward the advisory board's recommendations, though Kelly Fraasch and Matt Kluck had reservations about doing so without a clear plan for the improvements.
Bendel, liaison to the sports advisory board, said he supported spending $30,000 of the surplus on improving the police department's radio communications. Police Chief Coleman McDonough said there has been bad reception in parts of the public safety building after the Federal Communications Commission required emergency personnel to use different bandwidths for their radios.
Bendel said he wanted another $87,400 for a mid-block crosswalk along Washington Road, $75,000 to study development above the Mt. Lebanon light-rail station and tracks and the remainder of the surplus on field enhancements, including turf at Mellon or Middle/Wildcat.
He later said adding turf and lighting to a field would require financial contributions from the school district and sports groups.
“The amount we're talking about is not enough to complete the project, and that needs to be filled by somebody,” Bendel said.
“I'm with John on putting the rest toward fields,” Brumfield said. “The intent is to hold these other funds to see if a plan comes up to improve the field situation.”
But Fraasch and Kluck, the commission president, disagreed.
The municipality is making up to $200,000 in improvements to turn a baseball/softball field off Brafferton Drive into a field for lacrosse, soccer and football, Fraasch said, and the municipality doesn't know whether the school district would support turf at Mellon.
School board President Elaine Cappucci said the district has no plans to put turf on any fields. “So that would be a new expense. Nobody from the commission has approached us about the proposal. … I can't tell you what the board would feel about it.”
Municipal manager Steve Feller will draw up a new list of projects that could be funded with the surplus, reflecting the ones that had the majority of the commissioners' support.
When the municipality ended 2012 in better financial shape than it expected, the extra money put its cash reserves at 12.3 percent of its expenditures. Normally, 10 percent is kept in reserve.
A public hearing on potential uses for the surplus must be held before commissioners can vote on how to spend it, Feller said.
Matthew Santoni is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-380-5625 or msantoni@tribweb.com.
Copyright © 2013 — Trib Total Media
Read more: http://triblive.com/neighborhoods/alleghenyneighborhoods/alleghenyneighborhoodsmore/4255881-74/sports-board-fields?printerfriendly=true#ixzz2XnzKtyfw
I can't wait until the budget meetings start and each municipal department is told that they have to cut back because the commissioners are going to spend the surplus on the school district.
Asking for a ideas like a practical and fiscally prudent tax cut or using the surplus to pay-down existing debt would be dead-on-arrival; so I have another idea.
ReplyDeleteOak Park, Illinois has a really cool program for sidewalk repair and maintenance. When a section of sidewalk (i.e. a Slab) needs to be replaced the city replaces the section automatically and splits the cost with the property owner 50%/50%. The result are safe and pristine sidewalks that everyone in the community can enjoy.
Compare my idea to spending it on turf.
How many residents use our sidewalks? How many residents use our streets?
Now, how many residents use turf?
I've heard people say that they move to Mt Lebanon for the schools, some because it's a safe community, others for the location; but since we moved here (1976) I have never heard a single person ever say that they wanted to live here for the turf!
ReplyDeleteSo when the Commission thinks about how to spend all of our money, let's try to impress on them that we want to see the surplus invested in something that will build tangible value in the community and boost our property values!
Here is a link for the program in Oak Park:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oak-park.us/Public_Works/Sidewalk_Replacement.html
We could do the same...
It would be nice to see Mt Lebanon become a walking community again.
How about paying down the debt on the two useless wood lots purchased a number of years ago that our municipal stewards still don't have the foggiest idea about what they're going to do with.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe getting ahead of street paving.
Nah, listen to the sports cabal come up with new and creative ways to spend even more money on things that will increase maintenance budgets for years to come.
Mr. Kendrick it's not safe to walk in Mt. Lebanon, aren't you aware of the ravenous, gangs of deer lurking behind every DO NOT IDLE sign and those prolific sports field signs!
ReplyDeleteI'll ask once again...
Somebody explain it to me... why do we need a Taj Mahal athletic wing and million dollar Turfed fields, when we have to set up a begging initiative (PK fund raising drive), talk about cutting ed programs, laying off teachers (but give administrators bonuses), chatuse Harrisburg for not sending bigger and bigger loads of money and instituting more and larger student fees?
The NEW, unopened and already issue-laden sports wing played no role in the athletic achievements listed below.
From the school district web site:
Boys Lacrosse 2013 WPIAL Champions
Girls Volleyball 2012 WPIAL Champions
Girls Cross Country 2012 WPIAL Champions
Girls Tennis Singles 2012 WPIAL Champion
Girls Basketball 2012 WPIAL Champions
It is amazing to me how much power the sports people have when it comes to Brumfield, Linfante, and Bendel.
ReplyDeleteSurpluses, if spent (and one could easily argue surpluses should be refunded) should be spent in a manner as to bring down future tax inxreases. As in capital investments.
While not keep this money to actually start funding for the platform that will need to be built over the T stop?
Why do we NEED a platform over the T stop? That has been a non-started for decades. That is about as useless as turf and more swimming pool spending.
ReplyDeleteWho benefits from the platform? Nobody mentioned the platform at the commission planning session. Will the platform have turf?
I have a better idea, let's build a climbing wall from Washington Road down to the T stop. Then we can improve our sustainability rating by shutting down the elevator and we will all get more exercise.
A platform at the T stop is about as useless as dog poop in Williamsburg Park.
ReplyDeleteSpending the money on sidewalks with a matching program has a multiplicative effect.
ReplyDeleteAssume that it costs $40 to replace a 3 ft concrete slab. Roughly speaking, we could use the $829,000 surplus along with matching contributions from impacted residents to improve almost 12 miles of residential sidewalks.
The same principle could be applied to youth sports programs, but if the deadbeat athletic supporters promised matching funds, does anyone really think that the money would materialize?
The "surplus" represents excess taxation. It should not be spent on EXTRA wishes and wants that did not endure a regular budget review and scrutiny process and public hearing based on need.
ReplyDelete10:10, you nailed it! Unfortunately, we are very much in the minority.
ReplyDeleteHere's a solution that the powers that be will never, ever consider.
ReplyDeleteTake a bit of that surplus and appeal an even greater number of the grossly UNDERassessed properties.
While its an expense that we shouldn't have to endure at least over the long it will add money to the muni. coffers rather thuan take money from them like turf, doggie parks and deer kills.
8:45, here is an example of how correct you are : the Muni determined that there were over 450 properties that met their criteria for being grossly underassessed for 2013. They decided to appeal only 155 because the $25,000 that had appropriated or budgeted for appeals at the last minute would cover the cost of appealing only 155 properties.
ReplyDeleteIf the average underassessment of say a remaining 300 properties was $200,000 each, the Lebo real estate value in question for 2013 would be $60,000,000. The tax in question would amount to $276,600 (i.e. $60,000 x 4.61 = $276,600). If Lebo was successful in winning only 50% of such additional appeals, the added tax revenue each year would amount to $138,300 at a cost for only the first year of an additional $50,000.
Our commission did not, could not, would not recognize this possibility. It would have been a gamble. Maybe next year ? Maybe they want to see how successful they'll be with the 155.
No, the commission did not want to piss off friends and connections with a lot of money and influence.
ReplyDeleteSee its not about being fair or logical or doing what is right, we saw evidence of that in the troll bashing Elaine's blog for calling out Lebomag in the Business Times contest.
Ethics, being fair, paying a fair share doesn't matter. Its all about "getting mine" in the mine in the bubble.
Lets look at it this way 10:33.
ReplyDeleteIf the commissioners/directors choose to cowtow to the SAB and turf and light Mellon Field for approxiamtely $850,000 it won't be a gamble that the turf will need to be torn up in 7-15 years and disposed of in a landfill. Be sure to educate your eleven year old Commissioner Linfante, on how much pollution is created making and disposing of old plastic grass fields while your giving him lessions on ecology, please.
You wouldn't want him to get a less than accurate science lesson would you?
"Bendel said he wanted another $87,400 for a mid-block crosswalk along Washington Road"
ReplyDeleteAre you friggin kidding me!!!!
How about for all those chickens or is it frogs in MTL that want to get to the other side of the road... walk to one end or the other of the damn block and cross where you're suppose too! ANd with the cross walk sign - which apparently our elite intellectual residents can't comprehend.
Now we've become too fat and lazy that we need to spend $87,500 on a mid-block cross walk.
2:40 PM, there is more to that story too. Matt Kluck wants the school district to pitch in for that improvement, but we have a new commission that wants to freely give money to MTLSD.
ReplyDeleteSome school day morning, watch how parents stop their cars in the middle of the cross walk to drop off their kids. That's right. The kids jump out of their mommy's car in the middle of the street. I would like to see the commissioners deny that.
Elaine
Why is mommy driving the kids to school?
ReplyDeleteI thought we were spending millions of dollars on athletic facilities, turf, climbing walls, parks, lights, pools to keep our kids fit and trim.
The kids can't cross our corners or where there is a crossing guard. No we have to build more traffic delaying, obstructions that causes more speeding by elevating tempers and possibility of fender benders.
How have thousands of kids for 100 years dealt with crossing a road. Now they can't cross Horsman without a bridge and need yet another crosswalk to get to Mellon or Washinton. Amazing.