Politicians Answer Questions at Pennsylvania Legislative Breakfast

There's nothing quite like breaking bread while discussing tax payer dollars early in the morning, but several local businesses took advantage of the opportunity to have breakfast with a few of Pennsylvania's top politicians Sept. 7, at the Doubletree Hotel Pittsburgh Airport. The panel including Allegheny County Council Member Michael Finnerty, Pennsylvania State Representative Nick Kotik, Pennsylvania State Representative Mark Mustio, Allegheny Country Chief Executive Dan Onorato, Pennsylvania State Senator John Pippy and Auditor General Jack Wagner fielded questions on a range of issues. Topics included, among other things, Port Authority inefficiencies, the proposed drink tax, alternative fuels, cancer research and the region's future transportation options.

The most intriguing of discussions was about what most cynical residents would refer to as politics as usual, but the panel attributed to abuse of power and ineffective leadership. Wagner got the ball rolling with details of an audit his office is performing regarding the Port Authority.

"We have revealed some items that were actually amazing to find, that the Port Authority relocated their offices from Manchester to downtown Pittsburgh and never had to and spent $15 million of public money that never needed to be spent. Extravagant pensions, the management setting a bad example throughout the whole Port Authority of Allegheny County," Wagner said. And he wasn't alone in the sentiment.

"It seems like we discover something new every day of what they've (Port Authority) been doing for the last 15 years if not 20 years. And I'm here to tell you that all that is changing," Dan Onorato stated.

"We were taken by surprise as members by some of the things that happened to leadership that we were unaware of and this past two years has been, we've made a lot of headway cleaning things up but as you can
tell by what we're reading in the papers we have a long way to go," Mark Mustio added.

But that was about the only issue the group agreed on. There was some contentious debate regarding a proposed drink tax and car rental tax that would subsidize funding for the Port Authority with Onorato taking the brunt of the heat from both sides of the podium.

"Obviously this is not the perfect way to do it. I don't think it's the way I would have picked or the way anyone here would have picked, but it's better than what we currently have. You know, we looked at the top 25 cities in the United States that have transit authorities our size and 80 percent of them use a dedicated sales tax. The tax goes directly to their transit. It doesn't go to the government. We tried to do that but the body of politics at Harrisburg wouldn't produce it, it couldn't get passed.

"I was willing to take $20 million out of the existing 1percent sales tax to build municipalities, municipal officials in the room would hate that. They get $20 billion collectively a year for them to have a transit. But once again, the body of politics in Harrisburg wouldn't produce that vote. What was produced was a drink tax and a car rental tax and my guess is the reason why that came to Allegheny County is Philadelphia has the exact same tax, 10 percent drink tax and $2 car rental tax."

Onorato was quick to point out the taxes aren't a done deal. Those opposed can still lobby legislators and pitch alternatives.

"Right now Allegheny County has three options, a drink tax, car rental tax or property tax to fund transit. You can't say we're not going to fund it." Onorato said, "I'm required to put $30 million up, I have to. We don't have it anymore in property taxes we just simply don't have that kind of money. I will not raise property taxes to pay for transit."

The audience raised several points, including the possibility of a light rail or other form of transportation being developed from Moon Township to downtown Pittsburgh.

"That's an issue that we as a region worked on together, Mustio said. "It may not directly impact the representative from Westmoreland County for example but you'd see the impact that it would have to redevelop particularly the McKees Rocks and Coraopolis area and the impact it would have on Robert Morris University. So, it's not necessarily something that's in the paper every day but it's something we discuss and try to fund on a regular basis." In addition, in order to make the Pittsburgh International Airport more competitive international flights may soon be added according to Onorato.

"We all know what the missing piece is out at the airport and that's direct flights to Europe. And what we discovered is every city that had a hub that lost that hub, they did not have direct flights to
Europe, so what you're seeing is the marketplace playing out."

Ultimately, those in attendance seemed to like what they heard but the event appeared to be more of a networking opportunity rather than time to rant at civil leaders.