April 17, 2012 marked the day to which a woman had to work in order to equal a man’s earnings for 2011. Equal Pay Day, as it’s called, brings attention to the enduring disparity between men’s and women’s wages in our country. Following decades of advancements in opportunities and increasing prominence of women in the media, it can be forgotten that large inequalities still very much exist. On average a woman is paid 77.4% of what a man earns. Over a lifetime, lost wages can total in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. If the gap continues to close at its current rate, women’s earnings will not reach men’s until the year 2075.

Here in Pittsburgh two groups, the Council of the City of Pittsburgh and a team from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, recently took up the challenge to combat this inequality.

On Equal Pay Day, Councilmembers Bill Peduto and Natalia Rudiak sponsored a resolution authorizing an audit of compensation, hiring, and advancement practices for City employees with the express purpose of identifying any discrimination. Such an act not only serves to expose any unfair treatment, it also signals the commitment of our City government for wage equality. The resolution comes in response to a 2009 audit commissioned by former Councilmember Doug Shields which found clear examples of wage discrimination, political decision-making, and barriers to advancement in the City workforce. Councilmembers Peduto and Rudiak hope to learn whether the City has made progress in correcting these disparities and what work still needs to be done.

Over at CMU, a group of graduate students and professors teamed up to compete in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Equal Pay App Challenge. The Challenge asked competitors to increase awareness of the issue, make data more accessible, and provide tools for users to combat the wage gap in their own lives. Under the leadership of Professor Linda Babcock, noted gender and negotiation expert, the team (of which this author was a part) created a website that combined a personalized salary calculator with tips and training in negotiation. The website won the Grand Prize as well as the Excellence in Non-Profit Award. To check out the Heinz submission and get your own personalized salary comparison, go to closethewagegap.com.

Pittsburgh City Council, yesterday, gave final approval to legislation asking banks that hold City deposits to create community reinvestment plans to outline how they will invest City money back into our neighborhoods. Pittsburgh becomes just the third city in the United States, after Cleveland and Philadelphia, to pass such an ordinance.

Councilman Peduto crafted this legislation after a year of working with community representatives, the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group, and 16 of the region’s small, medium, and large financial institutions. The original bill was introduced last year and passed by Council but vetoed by Mayor Ravenstahl. It was then reintroduced by Councilman Lavelle two weeks later. Councilman Lavelle’s bill was very similar to the original legislation but included some provisions that ran afoul of federal reporting guidelines. The proposal was amended to meet all federal requirements and still provide the needed goals of neighborhood investment. After a year and a half of hard work, we finally have a Responsible Banking ordinance in the City of Pittsburgh.

The legislation, while not perfect, will create competition among financial institutions that do business with the City to see which ones can offer the best interests rates while also providing the most home loans, small business loans, and neighborhood grants to areas of the City most in need. It will also provide the public with a detailed record of which financial institutions are excelling in their community investment practices and which still have some work to do.

The process that this important piece of legislation went through is a great example of what is possible when community organizations, the business community, and elected officials sit down together to discuss common goals and strategies for positive change.

With Earth Day approaching on Sunday, April 22nd, it’s a good time to think about both the strides Pittsburgh has already taken towards becoming a sustainable 21st century city and the work that remains to be done. We want to bring you a few updates about what has been accomplished over the past year as well as some big initiatives on the horizon.

The Pittsburgh Climate Initiative (PCI), a coalition of government, higher education, nonprofit, and the private sector introduced the Pittsburgh Climate Action Plan in 2008. This comprehensive roadmap to sustainability set forth clear and achievable goals for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, increasing our energy efficiency, and improving our air and water quality. The conveners and stakeholders of the PCI used 2011 as a time to look back on the original plan, chart out what has been accomplished, and put in place new milestones for a more sustainable city. Councilman Peduto introduced this new plan, dubbed Pittsburgh Climate Action Plan, Version 2, in Council last month and it passed with a unanimous vote.

We’ve already seen some of the tangible results of the recommendations of the Climate Action Plan. Next time you’re in your neighborhood’s business district in the evening, take a look at the new LED lights that have been installed. These bright, energy efficient new fixtures are a direct result of Councilman Peduto’s advocacy for cost-saving sustainable technology and the hard work of the participants of the Pittsburgh Climate Initiative. To learn more about the new lighting code passed by City Council and the research that went into choosing the best available, most cost effective lighting technology, visit The Pittsburgh LED Project.

While the Climate Action Plan provides the policy roadmap for the future, Pittsburgh is also faced with some immediate environmental issues that we must tackle now. Chronic flooding in many of our neighborhoods has led to loss of life, economic hardship, and environmental degradation and we need both short term and long term strategies to alleviate it. After a citywide public meeting in September, Councilman Peduto began working one on one with neighborhoods in his district to identify specific flood-prone streets and intersections, map them out, and look for potential breakdowns in our water and sewer system. The results of this six-month long study were released to the leadership of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, the Mayor’s office, and the media on March 1st and action is already being taken to address the most serious problems. These short term fixes are only the first step, however. The long term strategy lies with the fantastic work of the Green Infrastructure Nework (GIN). Coordinated by The Pennsylvania Environmental Council and 3 Rivers Wet Weather, GIN is a voluntary partnership of over 35 organizations from all sectors working collaboratively to solve the region’s stormwater problems. The group is a shining example of what is possible if we pull together broad coalitions of stakeholders to work towards common goals.

A new project is also underway that will tie these efforts together and produce a set of specific policy recommendations to help us put in place a strong foundation for sustainable development. In November, Councilman Peduto’s office submitted a grant proposal to Smart Growth America for technical assistance with a sustainable zoning code review. Pittsburgh was chosen as one of only 15 municipalities across the country to receive the assistance, courtesy of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities program. Smart Growth America will send a team of experts to Pittsburgh for two days in May to pour through the city code and work with a diverse group of city employees, elected officials, and community stakeholders to identify barriers to innovation and help lay the groundwork for smarter, more sustainable development.

So take Earth Day as an opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come but also know that there are dedicated, passionate people working every day on these issues to move us towards a more sustainable Pittsburgh.

In order to better serve City residents we are “relaunching” Reform Pittsburgh Now with more content and a broader scope. We will continue to bring you the latest news from City Council and the rest of City government but we will also be introducing a group of talented and accomplished guest contributors who will write about what they are doing to reform Pittsburgh, how other cities are tackling some of the very same issues that we face, and how we can learn from the successes and failures of the rest of the world to create a broad-based platform for change and reform for a new Pittsburgh.

We will be introducing our new contributors this month and are very excited to bring you their views on a range of policy issues facing our city. Stay tuned for much more!

The Mayor has ten days from the bill’s passage (December 19th) to either veto (with a potential Council override), sign, or let the bill become law without signing. If the bill becomes law, Pittsburgh will become only the third city in the country to include Responsible Banking legislation as part of our city code. (Cleveland and Philadelphia have already enacted similar ordinances.)

Pittsburgh’s checkered past when it comes to debt is well-known to many of you who remember the Act 47 takeover by the state and the fight over the Ravenstahl Administration’s attempt to privatize our parking assets. We have finally been able to wrangle control of our debt and the outlook is, while still not perfect, better than it has been in many years. Debt is not necessarily a bad thing for a City that wants to invest for its future and lay the groundwork for long-term growth, but it is a tool that must be used carefully and sparingly. Since the Act 47 takeover, the state oversight body has asked the City to implement a debt management policy to ensure that decisions made regarding the issuance of debt are not made lightly and that there are clear policies that must be followed. This month, I introduced a strong, clear debt management policy today that will achieve these goals.
 
My Debt Management Policy pulls together recommendations from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), an international body of experts in municipal finance, as well as best practices from other cities to put in place clear boundaries for how and under what circumstances the City can take on more debt. We must be sure that debt is only being used to fund long-term projects that will benefit the entire City and that these investments will pay off in the future. The legislation will also allow the Council to bring in an independent financial advisor to provide an assessment of any potential debt deal and make the findings public.
 
With this legislation in place not only will one of the unmet conditions of our Act 47 plan finally be met, but the citizens of Pittsburgh will know that important financial decisions are being made with a clear policy in place and that they are being made free from the influence of politics.

Though the worst of the Great Recession is over and the United States economy is beginning to grow again, people who were put out of work or saw their hours cut when the economy collapsed have not fully recovered. Unemployment and underemployment are still too high, corporations and banks are holding cash instead of making loans, and development projects have stalled throughout the country. The prospect of help from Congress looks dim as the 2012 Presidential race kicks into gear so Pittsburgh City Council must step up and do what we can to spur economic growth and get our residents back to work.
 
The Pittsburgh Stimulus Plan, introduced last month, will do just that. The plan provides anyone interested in starting or continuing a residential, industrial, or commercial development 10 years of property tax relief on a graduated scale. In the first two years the tax bill is cut 100%, the next two years it is cut 90%, and so forth until in the final two years, taxes are cut 60% before the plan is phased out. The temporary relief and flexibility provided by this plan will get the shovel in the ground for projects that have not been able to secure full financing. Construction and trade workers who have seen their hours cut and their jobs grow fewer and farther between will get back to work and long-awaited projects will finally break ground.
 
This measure is based off an identical plan that currently applies to residential projects in certain neighborhoods. Under the Pittsburgh Stimulus Plan, all neighborhoods and all projects will benefit. The project also mirrors a program that the County has for suburban communities. This legislation will get people back to work in the City of Pittsburgh, while also fighting the suburban sprawl that has impacted this region for so long.
 
We can’t wait for the Congress to get its act together and provide economic relief to struggling families in Pittsburgh, the time to act is now.

In 1977, the United States Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) as part of a larger push to end discriminatory practices in mortgage and consumer lending that had led to large portions of, primarily, African American neighborhoods to be redlined. Redlining was the practice of banks and other lending institutions literally drawing a red line around certain neighborhoods and dictating that no loans could be made for residents and business owners there.
 
The CRA effectively ended redlining and led to a renaissance in bank-community relations that lasted several decades. While CRA has been incredibly important, it is federal legislation that doesn’t always capture the unique conditions on the ground in cities and states around the country. It is for this reason that I introduced the Responsible Banking and Neighborhood Reinvestment Act last month.
 
This legislation builds upon the success of the CRA, requiring that any banks holding City of Pittsburgh deposits provide documentation and reports to the City Controller outlining the ways in which they have reinvested public monies into our neighborhoods. The City Controller will then compile a “report card” showing the City Council and the public which banks we’re doing business with are excelling, which are maintaining steady progress, and which are falling behind in their commitments. The City invests tens of millions of dollars in banks each year and that money must be put back to work for our City and its neighborhoods.

The Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities (PLCM) was set up with a mission to “serve local governments by providing programs, cost-effective services, and legislation which strengthen the autonomy of Pennsylvania municipalities.” A year ago the League created the “Core Communities in Crisis” task force to develop a strategic proposal for the new Governor and administration in 2011 regarding growing municipal fiscal challenges. The committee consists of 28 elected officials from every region of our state, including Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto. You can read their findings here.

In June of this year, Lancaster Mayor J. Richard Gray (who is also a member of the task force) released a report by Lancaster’s Municipal Finance Task Force titled “Prosper or Perish: Financing Local Government Services in Pennsylvania.” While the report uses Lancaster as its case study, the problems it identifies are the same in city after city statewide. An editorial in the Erie Times-News  noted as much and the problems listed are ones with which Pittsburgh is well acquainted:

“It’s striking how closely the circumstances outlined mirror those in Erie. What’s wrong is no secret, here or there.

The report acknowledges the case it’s making isn’t new and applies to communities throughout the state. What’s different now is that the cumulative damage threatens to send Erie, Lancaster and other cities into a disastrous, accelerating downward spiral of increasing taxes, declining services, urban blight and suburban flight.

Preventing that requires a wider understanding that in general the decline of Erie and other cities hasn’t resulted from mismanagement, and that their elected officials can’t cut their way out of it. The game is rigged against cities, and only changing the rules will help.

The targets for change identified in “Prosper Or Perish” will be familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention:

- Excessive reliance on the property tax, an issue aggravated in cities by the prevalence of tax-exempt property.

- A system of binding arbitration for police officers and firefighters that doesn’t account for a city’s ability to sustain the costs imposed and that routinely awards pay increases and benefits wildly out of sync with the rest of the economy.

- Fragmented, duplicative local governments that combine with a regressive tax system to leave suburban residents, who are more affluent on balance, shouldering less than their fair share of a metropolitan area’s costs and challenges.”

Sadly as another editorial, titled “SOS,” on LancasterOnline  observes:

“Unfortunately for Lancaster, virtually all of the reforms are beyond the city’s control.

The task force, composed of business leaders, says small cities need a menu of tax options to reduce overreliance on property tax revenue. Only the state Legislature can do that.

And, the report says, the contract arbitration system for police and fire unions has to be rewritten. Again, a job for the Legislature.

The report calls for revenue sharing with federal, state, county and tax-exempt property owners, meaning, among other things, that other government offices would contribute a fair share toward the cost of services provided by the city. Lancaster can’t force any level of government — or any nonprofit agency — to cough up the cash.”

“Prosper or Perish” recognizes this and issues a call to action:

“The time has come for Pennsylvania’s legislature to change the rules by which communities finance their local services. Local governments are forced to operate with a fiscal system that is, at best, irrational and, at worst, dysfunctional; a system that effectively deprives locally elected officials and the people they serve of the ability to be the architects of their own communities and their own futures.”

You can read the full report online here.

The act requires construction vehicles for city-subsidized projects to have the “Best Available Retrofit Technology” in order to reduce these emissions. The benefits will spread even wider when these same contractors end up using the retrofitted vehicles on privately run construction sites. While we were one of the first cities to enact clean air legislation under David L. Lawrence, we’ve sadly fallen behind. The Clean Air Act is the first legislation to clean our air in decades and has been over a year in the making.

Now, as the prime sponsor of the legislation, I’m asking for your help in getting the Clean Air Act passed. This legislation has been co-sponsored in Pittsburgh City Council by Doug Shields, Bruce Kraus and Natalia Rudiak — and they deserve thanks for that. But, last week — when it came up for a vote — a majority of Council decided to put it on hold. The Clean Air Act is ready to go and the preliminary vote is scheduled for Wednesday, July 6 at 10:00 AM.

For the sake of Pittsburgh’s air, please contact City Hall now (click here) and let them know that the time has come to pass this much needed legislation. Let them know you want and need a cleaner, greener Pittsburgh.