Or is it related to the lawsuit filed against the Commission and Steve Feller? United Police Society of Mt. Lebanon v. Mt. Lebanon Commission; Stephen M. Feller Marcia Taylor should have been fired.
How about hiring a new Public Works Director to replace retiring Tom "I'm too old for this bullshit" Kelley? http://www.apwa.net/workzone/career/28231/Public-Works-Director-Pennsylvania-Pa-Mt-Lebanon
Will Dave Brumfield try to convince fellow commissioners that Zamagias deserves another extension? (Number 8?)
Since when does "Consideration of Ordinance (Bill No. 21-14) amending municipal park rules" involve First National Bank? I thought it had to do with the use of guns in our parks. Speaking of parks, perhaps the commission will be discussing the removal of crumbling toxic rubber tire pavers in Main Park, now that NBC Nightly News continued their investigations concerning tire crumb in playgrounds and artificial turf.
How about how the toxic turf change orders will be funded?
Or will the commissioners be celebrating the end of Kristen Linfante's term as president? I know I will be celebrating.
 |
| The deer must die! |
Update December 7, 2014 12:59 PM This appeared in today's St. Bernard's Church Bulletin.
Update December 9, 2014 11:32 PM The commission voted 3-2 to extend the Zamagias agreement. A resident asked Dave Brumfield why he voted to extend the agreement and his response was something to the effect of "Do you want to waste $450,000 to buy back the property?"
19 comments:
Regarding the lawsuit: Where has the solicitor been while all of this has been going on? He is paid for his legal expertise in these matters! He should have been consulted from the very beginning. Why hasn't he been doing his job? Was he cut out of the loop? Why is an employee been interpreting a law?
CMU has a paper out that shows how PA will NEVER be able to pay for these lavish pensions. Cops retiring at 50 years old. Pensions paying out at $70K on average. Yes Marcia Taylor had a huge influence on this BECAUSE it too affected her pension. One thing about Taylor is that she isn't stupid. She could care less if residents can't afford their taxes SHE CAN!
It seems our municipality could have applied for state aid for municipal pensions. I wonder if they applied? anonymous.
http://www.auditorgen.state.pa.us/allocation-forms-instructions
From skimming these legal documents, it looks like Mt Lebanon had a chance to rectify the issue previously but they chose not to do so.
Can't imagine Mt Lebanon digging in their cleats, can you?
The cover pic is perfect - LMAO!
The police had every right and reason to not accept the earlier court decision and appeal. Wonder what this has already cost we taxpayers? And how much more for the cost study and subsequent actions? I really cannot blame the MLPD for all this. The Municipality screwed up, cheated (no oversight, controls), got caught, tried to lie or misrepresent facts to win and got caught again. This is a real case study in government mismanagement.
Funny, didn't the school district try to pull a fast one as well and the legal battle ended up costing a lot in legal fees?
We have solicitors that get paid a pretty penny for their advice, why are we going to court at all?
We had over $50,000 on the parking space question at the HS project too.
I, for one, can't afford this over promising and incompetence while infrastructure doesn't get maintained properly.
Two comments here.
It's pretty interesting the magistrate, although acting in his role as retired police officer, is suing the local government. I'm sure that leads to some awkward conversations. Maybe those police officers just don't understand that buying properly for sports fields and putting in turf are higher priorities than honoring the municipality's obligation to them for their service.
and
I hope the new dept of public works director takes snow removal seriously. I think we've all had enough of the lax snow removal that Mt Lebanon is guilty of each year. Dormont and Scott Twp, both who take in much less tax than Mt Lebanon, have it figured out and have their roads cleared each year while we're left waiting for the snow plow to show up. I don't ask much from my local government. Maintaining the roads should be one of their core responsibilities. And if they want to say "We don't have enough money" then maybe those "un-designated funds" that are being wasted on turf should have been spent on road maintenance.
--Tom the Tinker
There is a culture of cheating among the muni employees and this is perpetuated, modeled and endorsed by the manager. If the commissioners do not fire him, they are implicitly acknowledging that they, too, are taking advantage of his deceptive practices.
Signed,
I've been cheated more than once by Feller
While we can't blame the officers for demanding what they were promised, we need to re-examine just what we promise to future retirees and how those promises are created.
I hope for the sake of our wallets, the commissioners and especially our new school board vice president study the following advice from Yale. (She takes pride in her family's association with the university)
http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/can-we-fix-public-pensions-crisis
"I’d argue everybody and everything, including economists and other experts, were complicit in allowing this problem to develop. It is an issue we must debate rather than pretend that if we ignore it things will self-correct.
We have a system for saving during our income-generating years with the aim of assuring a dignified lifestyle during our longer and longer, non-income-generating years. It is in all of our interest that the system work. Pensions or defined-benefit plans are one way we do that. They are important social contracts. We don’t need to get rid of them; we just need to rethink their construction.
The representatives of the public interest on the public pension boards are elected officials. I’d argue that is a conflict of interest. Elected officials need votes and public employees vote in very large numbers. Elected officials are beholden to the beneficiaries of these plans to get reelected. That leads to election-cycle promises of, "Sure. I’ll give you a benefit, now," even though it back-end loads the impact on taxpayers.
A public system will always have tension around balancing cost to taxpayers and needs of public employees. The goal is to manage those conflicts openly. Beyond that, the elected officials and union representatives may be very thoughtful people, but they typically don’t have the skill sets you want managing assets. They certainly aren’t arm's-length decision-making fiduciaries."
Absolutely agree, Tom.
Used to be the Lebo plows were out and salting begun on the first snowflake.
Now, as you point out Scott and Dormont do a superior job.
This isn't your fathers' Mt. Lebanon any more!
- WS
Hopefully the new Public Works Director can get our garbage picked up consistently. The current one certainly could not. Pretty sad.
11:00 am, your consistent garbage collection will return when you "pay as you throw."
Then as those PAYT fees go up every year our municipal employees and elected officials will be able to say with a straight face... 'we don't raise the fees, we didn't raise taxes!'
Funny I'm a few years older than several of these retired cops and I'm not even considering retiring. I'm not 65 and won't be in 10 years! We need to re-think this whole idea that one can retire at 50 and taxpayers fund their lives for 30/40 years. That's just not fair. Same with school teachers. And you can bet that the new teachers contract will have a large yearly salary increases along with retirement benefits. And of course a never-fire or layoff clause.
Dave Brumfield and Company, please don't miss the update showing today's St. Bernard's Church Bulletin.
Elaine
Think about the absurdities in our state and local government for a minute.
One example:
In PA we are charged $1 used tire disposal fee essentially because used tires going into landfills aren't good for our health or the environment! Or so the EPA tells us.
Figuring every Lebo household has at least one (many have 3 or more) vehicle we can roughly figure each needs to replace all four tires about every 3-4 years. 14,000 households x 4 tires = 56,000 tires (or $56,000 in disposal fees). Amazing about the same number of tires used for the installation of an artificial turfed field.
OK, not a big deal, $4 every few years to take care of a health hazard sounds acceptable, right? But here is where the nonsense starts.
The same PA government organizations that mandate the safe handling of used tires, now permits us to "BUY" them back and spread them all over kids' athletic fields! AND we'll be doing this "FEE & BUY BACK" annually for as long as we have artificial turf.
Are we stupid or what?
Why don't we ask the commissioners to demand that Sen. Smith and Rep. Miller get us a rebate since our used tires are not longer being disposed of properly!
Interesting news out today in many places. Of note, the #1 concern among Allegheny Co residents, according to a recent survey is air quality.
We had a toxicologist who works for Heinz Endowments, which sponsors the Breathe Project, come to Mt Lebanon and tell us about all the hazardous off-gassing from synthetic turf.
We had a geologist tell us about the toxic soup that will be emitted from this field.
We have the Health Department acknowledging that air quality is the #1 concern among respondents to the survey.
AND WHAT IS MT LEBANON DOING? Making our park a center for toxic off-gasing when the natural grass and trees helped clean the air, among other things.
How was the voting split?
Oops, sorry about that 1:22 AM. Kelly and Steve voted NO.
Elaine
Post a Comment