Another big surprise

Look who is a Board of Director. It certainly helps. I don't know anyone and I am a finalist for Pittsburgh Magazine's Best of the 'Burgh. You all read about that in Mt. Lebanon Magazine. Oh wait. You didn't.

Mt. Lebanon Magazine article causing quite a stir on Nextdoor

Recently, Mt. Lebanon Magazine's Laura Pace Lilley wrote an article about overnight parking in Mt. Lebanon.  Overnight Parking Rules Could Ease Links to it also appeared on Facebook yesterday.


There is quite a discussion on Nextdoor about this "improvement." The initial post was:

As if we do not already pay exceptional property taxes, there may be a new rule that will require a nightly fee for a request to leave a vehicle on the street overnight if that particular vehicle has exceeded 10 nights in a given year. There are merits to the current ordinance, but is this next step warranted?

There are comments such as

• ...this is another example of how MTL is not really as 'rich' as they pretend to be and often must perform financial circus tricks to find the money to pay for ridiculous projects like killing deer at $80K/year and pursuing 'fields of turfed dreams' at $500K+ a pop. Nice to see the taxpayers waking up.
• I think mt. Lebanon is over reaching ag-ain! They will create any excuse to squeeze more money from home owners and the hard working class!!!
• ...if the article appeared in MTL Magazine -- which I believe it did -- you can count on a total white-washing of the facts. That magazine is published by the MTL Public (Mis)information Office - which, by the way is very expensive to run and if the expenses were even just cut in half would create many more resources for MTL than this additional burdensome tax.
• Yes, when I had pointed out the facts in their page I was told I was spreading out misinformation. I was also given a police officers nane and number and told to call him. I was treated rudely. I’ll never read another of their publications again.
• What next? Taxation on household animals?

On my street, there are homes which do not have driveways. Now what? Someone asked about the cost of the software. This reminds me of the parking app and parking space sensors, which cost taxpayers $25,000(?), along Uptown Washington Road. How many parking tickets are needed to justify the cost of that expenditure? 

Since the commissioners are willing to spend $771.10 per deer, they have to raise the money somehow. They are already double charging condominium owners for garbage collection. 

You voted for them, Mt. Lebanon.

More on our "official community magazine"

When I had my little Market District get together last week, Bill Lewis was kind enough to share this letter to the editor of Mt. Lebanon Magazine.

Bill raised many concerns in his 2006 letter in regard to the July/August 2006 article, Around Town Community Endowment Launched. As usual, Mt. Lebanon Magazine only reported the entertaining part, and not the rest of the story of community issues.

• The Municipal government spent $36,000 in tax funds to create the MLCE. 
• The Commission wasted $40,000 when sports organizations backed out of funding support for McNeilly Field/Park.
• The Mt. Lebanon Soccer Association was to contribute $135,000 to the MLCE for the specific purpose of developing athletic fields. [Why is this sounding like déjà vu?]
• Public officials and youth sports leaders were claiming that people with children wouldn't move here and housing prices would fall if we didn't have more fields. [Remember, this was in 2006.] 
• When was spending $36,000 discussed in a public forum? 
• Why does the magazine taint the good thing it does with editorial and publisher hype and managed news?

Thank you Bill, for sharing this letter with me and now, the rest of the community. I looked in the Blog Lebo archives to see if anything was written about this. As usual, I got side tracked because of all the information in those archives and found this about Mt. Lebanon Magazine and the TIF issue for Washington Park. Laurels and Lances Some things never change. Anyway, I did find this post on Blog Lebo called, Donation Allows Endowment

As one reader pointed out, Mt. Lebanon Magazine is definitely not a news magazine. In the words of former Commissioner Humphreys, Mt. Lebanon Magazine remains the "house organ" and "propaganda tool" for Mt. Lebanon.