Bike-Burgh

Adfreak takes notice of Bike Pittsburgh:

http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/05/pittsburgh-spro.html

The reason for the holiday

Memorial Day factoid: estimated number of Veteran deaths in the Pittsburgh MSA 2001-2010.

2001    8,182
2002    8,224
2003    8,297
2004    8,275
2005    8,240
2006    8,181
2007    8,019
2008    7,938
2009    7,835
2010    7,712

Jero-Burgh

Mentioned here earlier, but an obligatory post noting that the PG's Next Page section is devoted all to: Our Man in Japan -- Jero, aka Pittsburgh's Jerome White. It covers the Jero story pretty well and I may be the only one fascinated with the historical symbolism that Jero's Japanese nickname is Kurofune means Black ship and references Commodore Matthew Perry who compelled the 'opening up' Japan in 1854. It also is the actual namesake of the Perry Traditional Academy Commodores which Jerome actually graduated from before going to Pitt.... not Oliver Hazard Perry of the Battle of Lake Erie. Jerome also has his own wikipedia page. I'm sure his Japanese fans would love some early history that Pittsburghers could provide.

two e's

Just a random neuron firing... but with the talk of Veepstakes rising on both sides of the aisle, just one name that I would not be surprised by on the D side despite nobody really talking about it: Kerrey... with two e's. Yeah, I know some of the obvious reasons it wouldn't work, but think through it a bit and it's interesting.

for Memorial Day

Not a new photo, but this says it all. For Memorial Day on Monday - new bricks being staged at Soldier and Sailor Hall last year.

Mapping Pittsburgh 250

Maps in History... I had no idea this was out there: 250 Years of Pittsburgh Maps.

Wettick waiting?

Just wondering what the status is of the court case over Allegheny County base year assessements that was sent to the State Supreme Court last fall. You have to wonder whether the Supreme Court really wants to throw asunder the property assessment systems across much of the state which is pretty much the result if they affirm Judge Wetticks ruling here.

Like so many things in the region if you think this all started recently, think again.

on TIFs

The Trib reviews some analysis by the URA on the efficacy of the city's TIF programs through the years. See Bonnie Pfister's: Tax-increment financing successful, city data indicate. For those who want to get into it, my colleague Sabina had a class dig into this a bit more. See:
Planning and Government: Tax Increment Financing as an Economic Development Tool and Policy, from 2005.

The only thing that is a bit odd in the Trib story, which probably reflects the URA analysis it is reporting on (and which I have not seen as yet) is that the only mention of former mayor Murphy is as an adjective of sorts desribing the "ex-Mayor Tom Murphy's doomed Fifth & Forbes master plan".. The rest of the article is if anything relatively positive on TIFs which is curious when you realize from the dates given that most TIF's ever created within the City proper were the creation of the Murphy adminstration, good or bad. So any analysis of current TIFs, which take years to put in place, let alone see any economic benefit of, must be a retrospective analysis on the Murphy policies.

but it gets weirder. Where is Sam out there? His favorite politician, and well known TIF opponent, is in the news related to this (h/t to O) with one of those uber positive Pittsburgh quotes that you really only get from non'Burghers. This is the mayor of Kansas City rk Funkhouser

“Pittsburgh’s a winner,” Funkhouser said. “We’re not close to Pittsburgh. It’s got a vibrant street life.“It’s what I hope we’ll be like.”

Not quite sure how to reconcile that statement with Funkhousers strong opposition to TIFs. If there is a place that has used a lot of TIFs its been the City of Pittsburgh through the 1990s and early 2000s. Maybe there is no connection, but it does deserve some study.

The Billboard Strikes Back

So... I had an excessively long missive (sounds better than 'rant') on just how ridiculous the latest iteration of the Lamar/City Council/Billboard/lawsuit entanglement was last week..... but by the time I finished it even I didn't know what I was saying1. The bottom line is that there are no winners in any of this. It is hard to not find fault with just about every actor connected to the dysfunction of last week.

What is more important now is what is all means going forward. Gotta start with Mr. Unintended Consequences. The whole billboard issue itself started out as a pretty serious hit on the mayor and it may wind up that way in the end. But if you ask my take on public sentiment right now, the billboard issue remains confounding at best to most and what happened last week in council is just completely incomprehensible other than it's all clearly bad. I really think that as a result of last week City Council is taking a much bigger hit with the general public than the mayor. Not sure if that was the intention of whomever generated the annotated Sirk blog archive so long ago. Blame that butterfly.

That then becomes ironic given the coincident and nascent chatter that there is a mayors race coming up pretty quickly and the obligatory early handicapping. I myself have pointed out that were are just a few months from when serious mayoral campaigns would have to engage for the 2009 primary. Bob O'Connor was 3 (or is it 7?) years into into his winning campaign at this point 4 years ago. When you can describe the 5th floor last week as something akin to Machiavelli morphing with Barney Fife, the mayor's political situation for the week can be summed up as: With opponents like these, who needs friends? Or as our friend RichL may have once scored the week, a muffed snap in the end zone scores the safety 2 so LR: 2, opponent to be named later: 0.

For those who missed it and have only experienced this vicariously in reading others' descriptions, I'd get some caffeine to go along with the popcorn and soda before settling back to watch this. Honestly, it sounds far more dramatic when you read about it. I swear even the media you see in the back of the room look like they are dozing off. But here is the dramatic (or is that somnolent) city council walkout scene:


If that video does not work, try this link.
_______________________________
Notes:
1. So yes, what follows is the shorter version.
2. No, I don't know how a kicker would actually score a safety since a muffed kickoff would typically result in a touchback...

Why do we have primaries in the first place?

With the primary season more and more agreed to be over with.... I still think its interesting nobody ever asks much why the US alone has such a strange primary system. It's a question we used to ask ourselves according to this piece from the archives of the New York Times "Direct Primary in Operation: So far is has failed ot meet expectation", by Professor Henry Jones Ford of Princeton University, April 19, 1909. I wonder if even the Obama campaign would agree to some degree at this point.

Note that the Crawford County system it talks about is all a Pennsylvania story. For more see: The Origin of the Direct Primary: The Crawford County System. By Paul Giddens. The Western Pennsylvania Historical Review. Vol. 60 No. 2. April 1977

more from Jefferson County

More on the financial crisis in Jefferson County, AL: Jefferson County OK's Forebearance Extension. Why care? It's interesting for lots of reasons. The debt in Jefferson County is higher than for the city of Pittsburgh for sure, but when you add up all debt and work it out per capita you get some more similar or worse numbers. Also in that article I see that some of the debt is causing them problems is because they were issued in the auction-rate securities that caused UPMC such problems recently. I still wonder when the bond holders, bond insurers, and reinsurers will become part of the mix in the city's Act 47 process here.

Now tie the city's debt issue with the story yesterday of natural population decline and you can see where some real issues will be in local public finance, here and elsewhere.

old, older, oldest

In the NYT today with a dateline of Pittsburgh of course: As Deaths Outpace Births, Cities Adjust, by Sam Roberts and Sean D. Hamill.

But looking forward is a different type of story. Here is a graphic I sometimes point out to folks. From where we are at already and projecting out, there are places that are expecting to see some really phenomenal increases in their elderly populations. By state the projected percentage increase in the elderly (age 65+) population between 2000 and 2030 by state looks like this. And if I were put the Pittsburgh region into that graph, it would come in a full third lower than Pennsylvania overall depending on what you are defining as the region.

No air, air.....

Here is something from ABCNews biz columnist Rick Seaney: “Mother of All Capacity Cuts”, Which Cities Have Lost the Most Air Service. Pittsburgh islooking pretty bad in his calculation of anticipated air service cuts by this coming fall (-22%), but actually less than Ontario (-25%) fwiw.

Where in the (financial) world is the Majestic Star

Here is a question I can't answer.... just how much of a box is Don Barden and the Majestic Star really in. The local news summarizes his financing as Up in the Air. It's a bit more complicated than that of course. At least the first part of his debt offering was oversubscribed as of Monday, which means more are offering $ than he needs. But additional tiers are being less well received. Here is what an industry source (Credit and Investment News) said last week:

The $370 million first-lien term loan for casino operator PITG Gaming was oversubscribed Monday after the discount was lowered to 94 cents on the dollar from an original issue discount of 96. The company's $250 million second-lien term loan was flexed to 92 from an OID of 96; but the tranche was only half subscribed by last Tuesday and having difficulty attracting investors, a portfolio manager looking at the deal said.

lead arranger Credit Suisse launched the first lien and second lien, along with a $100 million revolver, April 18. Pricing on the first lien was initially LIBOR plus 6% with a LIBOR floor of 3.25%. The second lien was priced at LIBOR plus 10% with the same floor. The loans are non-call for 18 months, after which there is hard-call protection of 102, 101. The financing backs the construction of the Majestic Star Casino in Pittsburgh, Pa. Jon Bennett, cfo and treasurer, did not return calls.

What does that mean? LIBOR +10% puts you at around 16% these days which is pretty unfavorable as these things go and remarkable when you go back and look at some of the early financial analysis of a casino license in Pittsburgh. This one assumed a cost of capital in the range of 6-10% and by 10% the profitability was getting pretty shaky. At 16%, there must be an implict assumption on Barden's part that he will refinance lower as soon as the prospects for a profitable operation are a little more secure. It may be a bit boring for many, but given how big a deal this all is in town, you would think there would be story just in these interest rates he is being forced to offer to get his financing. That's a huge issue all around even if he gets all the funding he is looking for.

Dire times ahead? Maybe, but my speculation is that this all comes under the GM rule at this point. While the casino may not be "too big to fail" in and of itself, the investment made into the Barden proposal makes it really too much to disappear completely at this point and leave the prospects for a casino here back at the starting gates... but....

Stranger With a Pen

It's too easy an explanation to just say race explains a lot of the election results, even considering the lopsided WV results. From the Newhouse News Service is something that may do a more thorough job at explaining a lot of things, not just the election results of late. See today's piece: Obama's Appalachian Problem by Jonathan Tilove. Might also portend the VP slot, but who knows.

Largest city in Appalachia? Must be somewhere else right? Some stuff of note in the collected volume written not long ago: Pittsburgh and the Appalachians: Cultural and Natural Resources in a Postindustrial Age

PSA: Hear Mark Roosevelt over lunch

The Economic Club of Pittsburgh is hosting a lunch with Mark Roosevelt, Superintendent, Pittsburgh Public Schools and you are invited

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 (that is one week from today)

11:45 a.m. Luncheon
12:30 p.m. Presentation
1:15 p.m. Adjournment

at The Omni William Penn
530 William Penn Place, Downtown Pittsburgh

COST: Members/Non-Members: $30.00/$40.00 (hey, you get lunch, -ed)

(Please pay at the door, by cash or by check made payable to “The Economic Club of Pittsburgh.”) RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED. (that means call now).

Please make your reservations by email to reservations@econclubpgh.org no later than May 16, 2008. If you find that you cannot attend or arrange for an associate to attend, please cancel by May 16th or you will be billed for the cost of the luncheon. Please call (412) 762-2671 for cancellations.


http://www.econclubpgh.org/Economic%20Club_May_2008.pdf

Steel Forging Ahead... Steel rails that is?

JasonT caught something worth noting. Transrapid, which is the company whose technology was long going to be used for the ethereal Pittsburgh MagLev has decided to dissolve itself. What that means here I dunno, I have not talked to anyone working on our Maglev project in many years now. As of earlier this month, Grata was reporting on Transrapid as still being in the mix.

*******
via SteelStripWorld is a pointer to this article in the Chicago Tribune on the state of the Steel Industry: In hard times, steel firms forge ahead.

This kind of thing used to be news here? The share price of US Steel has gone from under $10 to over $170 in the last 5 years.

bio-war online

Pitt lead researcher Herbert Needleman has a piece just released in the open-access biology journalPLoS BIOLOGY (http://www.plosbiology.org/) that is causing a stir. For more see:


The Case of Deborah Rice: Who Is the Environmental Protection Agency Protecting?

As the crow flies

Quiz: What is closer, the Grove City Outlets Mall or West Virginia?

This primary season has gone on so long that for media and public alike I wonder if there is any objectivity left. For an outsiders perspective on the West Virginia primary today, the Financial Times yesterday does not dance around anything in: Democrat country keeps its distance from Obama.

Pittsburgh vs. Philly

No, not hockey; Wi-Fi.

News is that the Philadelphia experiment with city Wi-Fi service is on the verge of collapse. Given that general trend across the country, and given the circuitous route of Pittsburgh's Downtown Wi-Fi... you have to give some credit where due. However they have done it, the free Downtown Wi-Fi was still working pretty well.

Does that count as something else we are beating Philly at these days?

update: Governing goes in depth into Untangling Phialdelphia's Wireless Mess