Copyright 2000 P.G. Publishing Co.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
December 24, 2000, Sunday, TWO STAR EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL, Pg. A-1
LENGTH: 1822 words
HEADLINE:
NEW GOVERNMENT GETTING TO ITS FEET
BYLINE: JEFFREY
COHAN, POST-GAZETTE STAFF WRITER
BODY:
It
may seem like yesterday that Allegheny County's voters picked a chief executive
and council to lead the brand new home-rule government.
But another
election is looming in 2001, in Year Two of home rule.
Chief Executive
Jim Roddey and the Democrat-controlled County Council will confront several
important issues next year, and events will unfold against the backdrop of an
election that could dramatically change the balance of power among them.
Seven district seats on the 15-member council will be on the ballot in
2001, giving Democrats a chance to reinforce their veto-proof majority and
Republicans a chance to shatter it.
Property-assessment appeals, the
proposed U.S. Airways-United Airlines merger, and merit-hiring
lawsuits will command the attention of politicians in the Allegheny County
Courthouse next year. But the overarching issue is the election. The county's
home-rule charter, narrowly approved by voters in 1998, provides for a
relatively strong chief executive and relatively weak council. But the charter
does give the council an important weapon -- the ability to override a veto of
the chief executive with a two-thirds vote.
Council Democrats have used
that weapon or the threat of it to pass laws, approve appropriations and set
policies that Roddey, a Republican, opposes.
Row offices are exempt from
the county's uniform, merit-based hiring system; Sheriff Peter DeFazio staffs
satellite arrest-processing centers with his deputies; the district attorney
gets an extra $ 300,000 to spend in 2001.
The 10 Democrats on the
council, the bare minimum needed to override the chief executive's veto, made
all that possible.
Councilman Rich Fitzgerald, D-Squirrel Hill,
maintains that the Democrats' veto-proof majority provides a counterweight to
Roddey, requiring the two political parties to reach compromises.
"The
public likes cooperation, rather than one side streamrolling the other,"
Fitzgerald said.
But Roddey can virtually eliminate the threat of an
override, and thus greatly increase his power, by helping Republicans obtain a
sixth seat on the 15-member council.
Seven seats are up for re-election
to start a system in which council terms are staggered so that half the seats
are up for election every two years. After the 2001 election, all council
members will have four-year terms.
Of the seven seats on the ballot in
the May 15, 2001, primary, five are held by Democrats: Wayne Fontana,
D-Brookline; Eileen Wagner, D-Scott; Richard Olasz Sr., D-West Mifflin; Joe
Natoli, D-Morningside; and Charles Martoni, D-Swissvale. The other two seats on
the ballot are those of Ron Francis, R-Ben Avon, and Tom Shumaker, R-Pine.
Wagner appears to be the most vulnerable, because of the five districts,
hers has the highest concentration of Republicans -- 38 percent.
But
Roddey would most like to dislodge Olasz, an outspoken critic of the chief
executive.
"If there is a good candidate to run against Olasz, I would
support that person," Roddey said. "I don't think he has been a productive
council person."
On the other hand, Republicans have to worry about
keeping Districts 1 and 3 in their hands and smashing the Democrats' hopes for
an 11th seat.
Roddey put himself in position to influence the outcome of
selected council races by collecting $ 655,000 at a Nov. 30 campaign
fund-raiser. He hasn't ruled out the possibility of transferring some of that
money to Republican council candidates.
That prospect has alarmed
council Democrats, who, less than a week after the fund-raiser, summarily
rejected five Roddey nominees for various county boards in a display of
resentment.
Still, too much will be happening in county government next
year for the politicians to spend all their time on politics.
"I'm not
going to let the election be a distraction," Wagner said.
For instance,
there will be the matter of processing tens of thousands of appeals from
property owners upset about the assessments they will receive next month upon
completion of the countywide revaluation.
"The appeal process is bound
to have some controversy attached to it," Roddey said.
On the
economic-development front, Roddey will keep a close eye on the proposed airline
merger, which could have a profound impact on Pittsburgh International Airport,
a U.S. Airways hub.
"It will be a focus of mine, but hopefully, it will
be behind us after the first quarter of the year and we'll be able to
concentrate on other things," he said.
Among those other things, Roddey
is particularly anxious to see groundbreaking ceremonies near the airport and in
the Mon Valley in 2001.
He also is planning five summits, the first set
for Feb. 15, that will bring together representatives of government, business,
labor and education from throughout southwestern Pennsylvania for conferences on
meeting the region's need for skilled workers.
Roddey would like to see
a few skilled workers find jobs in the county's row offices in 2001.
Council Democrats sparked a partisan firestorm last summer when they
exempted row offices from the county's uniform, merit-based hiring system, which
limits the pool of eligible job applicants to the top 10 percent of scorers on
civil-service-style examinations.
Row officers, all but one of whom are
Democrats, have argued that the chief executive and council lack the authority
to impose a hiring system on them.
This, the most heated political issue
in county government, is likely to be decided in court next year.
Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht has sued Roddey over the issue. And lawyer
Daniel Booker, a Roddey supporter, is leading a team of five plaintiffs who have
sued the row officers, arguing that merit-hiring exemption violates the
home-rule charter.
While Common Pleas Court is handling the merit-hiring
lawsuits, the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh may end up deciding another
county controversy -the fate of the Ten Commandments plaque hanging on the Fifth
Avenue side of the county courthouse.
Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that sometimes teams with the
American Civil Liberties Union, is threatening to sue the county for refusing to
remove the plaque. The group contends that the plaque, which also displays a
passage from Deuteronomy, violates the Establishment clause of the First
Amendment, the basis for the country's separation of church and state.
A
more pressing matter than the fate of a plaque is the impending closure of the
outbound lanes of the Fort Pitt Bridge and Tunnel. County leaders will work with
state transportation officials in 2001 to prepare for the construction-related
closure in 2002. A traffic nightmare is in the offing.
"People are very
concerned about that," Wagner said.
Because Allegheny County has one of
the oldest populations in the country, it is only appropriate that issues
affecting seniors will heat up on the front burner in 2001.
One of
Roddey's transition committees created a little excitement this year by
recommending that the county close half of its 80 senior centers. Roddey, trying
to keep angry seniors at bay, formed another committee to study that one
recommendation.
This special committee will issue its own recommendation
in 2001 and the first senior-center closures could follow months later.
"We are not going to see wholesale mergers and closures of senior
centers," Roddey assured.
What seniors might see are significant changes
at the county-run Kane nursing homes.
Another of Roddey's transition
committees recommended putting the Kanes under the control of an independent
authority, much like the county has done with Pittsburgh International Airport.
Democrats on the County Council have balked at that idea. So, in 2001,
Roddey plans to propose a compromise -- the creation of an advisory committee to
oversee the Kanes.
The senior-center and Kane recommendations are just
two of about 500 that Roddey's transition committees gave him this year. Roddey
wants most of them implemented in 2001. He'll be getting still more
recommendations in the spring when a consulting firm delivers a master plan for
the nine county parks.
Budgetary constraints will continue to hamper the
county's ability to implement any recommendation that costs money.
The
Roddey administration is projecting a $ 9.6 million shortfall for 2002, but that
budget gap could disappear with some help from Harrisburg.
"Balancing
the budget will be a lot easier than last year," Roddey said.
He is
still intending to keep his campaign promise of cutting property taxes by 10
percent. Roddey said he hoped to phase in the tax cut over two years, beginning
with the 2002 budget.
After strengthening the county's relationship with
legislators and the governor in Harrisburg, Roddey also has designs on federal
money for 2001.
He and county commissioners from all over southwestern
Pennsylvania have been discussing the idea of jointly hiring a lobbyist to
represent them in Washington, D.C., where tens of millions of dollars are
available for the region's sewer and transportation projects.
Roddey,
looking to capitalize on his relationships with President-elect George W. Bush
and other federal officials, expects to do some lobbying of his own in
Washington, as he has done in Harrisburg.
After an exhausting 2000,
spent setting precedents and getting a new government up on its feet, Roddey is
looking forward to 2001.
"This year, we demonstrated that we can balance
the budget. We re-established our relationship in Harrisburg. We've gotten
through the first phase of the reassessment. We approved an administrative code.
This year was very complicated.
"I think next year will be relatively
simple."
There is just that little matter of the election to contend
with.
At a glance
The players: Allegheny County Chief Executive
Jim Roddey and the 15-member County Council.
What happened in 2000:
They led the county's home-rule government in its first year of
existence.
Major issues: Adopting an administrative code to guide the
day-to-day operations of government and restoring the county's financial health.
Controversies: The Democrat-controlled council defied Roddey and
exempted row officers from the county's uniform, merit-based hiring system. And
Roddey defied a Washington, D.C., group that wants a Ten Commandments plaque
removed from a exterior wall of the Allegheny County Courthouse.
FIRST
IN A SERIES OF ARTICLES Baumhammers, Taylor, Cornelius. New county government.
Fifth-Forbes. Road construction, and more road construction. New stadiums. This
has been a year of nonstop local news stories. To wrap up the old and preview
the new, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette staffers have prepared a series of articles
that recap what happened and lay out what's to come in 2001. Today, Jeffrey
Cohan looks at the new county government that came into being in 2000.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO 7, PHOTO: Wayne Fontana; PHOTO: Ron
Francis; PHOTO: Charles Martoni; PHOTO: Joe Natoli; PHOTO: Richard Olasz Sr.;
PHOTO: Tom Shumaker; PHOTO: Eileen Wagner
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December 29, 2000 
