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October 8th, 2003
 | 10:40 am
So, Pittsburgh, after building the new stadiums, conference center, etc. is basically out of money. There have been several proposals by the various city officials on how to deal with this, and we'll see what the long term solutions are. The mayor, a man of staggering ideas, took action a couple of weeks ago: reduce the number of sanitation and safety (police, fire) employees. This has, so far, made the following impacts:
No Animal Control -- it has been months since the last time there was a show of law enforcement at Frick, or likely elsewhere. Given the real Animal Control issues, and that there is now approximately one ACO active at any time in the whole extended area...
Trash Delays -- unexpected, but yes indeed. Trash is picked up on Mondays, and this week was also a recycling week, as confirmed in the calendar I received last week. Like everyone else in the neighborhood, I diligently put my trash out the night before, despite this activity keeping me active at 4am. I've found that inevitably, the day I decide to do it in the morning, unless I get up at 6am, will be the day the trash collectors come early (window: 8am-2pm, actual arrival: 7:15am). That didn't happen this week. This week, the trash was collected around 12pm on Tuesday, and the recycling sometime around 3pm.
Otherwise, it pains me to hear city council members' soundbytes on the radio where they specifically call into question (and propose cancelling or halting) the frisbee fields. Its such a good idea it is painful: the Ultimate community and the City are each putting up 1/2 the price (100K each) to design and build three lit ultimate frisbee fields (and near my house, no less). The city will retain possession of the fields, and be able to permit the fields to whoever they want. All Ultimate gets out of it is the existence of good in-the-city fields, and first priority in the permitting process. Talking at Zodiac from people in Rochester, Toronto, Ottawa, all with thriving Ultimate scenes, this is exactly what the city most needs because Ultimate people are the kind of demographic the city wants to retain. But no.
They still haven't completely laughed off the demands of financing and building the Penguins a new arena. Silly city.
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![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/5701837/116972) | | From: |  denorae |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 08:21 am (UTC) |
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"professional" sports are stupid. who cares about new stadiums. they should stop giving so much to the obscenely overpaid "professionals" and focus on the communities. who's demanding the new arena, anyway? | | From: | daemonv |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 08:54 am (UTC) |
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The penguins.
In many cases, the city will try to finance new stadiums by issuing bonds backed by the income taxes of the obscenely overpaid professionals. This is a bizarro feedback loop in public/private-finance, and I don't think it works. But they try anyway, and we taxpayers make up the difference (1% of that city income tax, I believe, covers the payments to go on Three Rivers Stadium). ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/85335221/122780) | | From: | zare_k |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 08:45 am (UTC) |
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The trash delay is (theoretically) this week only. A sanitation worker was killed in an accident recently and employees were given a day off to attend the funeral. | | From: | daemonv |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 08:55 am (UTC) |
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Curse you and your superior knowledge of local affairs! | | From: | zare_k |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 09:32 am (UTC) |
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I owe it all to morning NPR. | | From: | daemonv |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 09:57 am (UTC) |
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You and your so-called "mornings". ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/45861231/605848) | | From: | fws |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 09:24 am (UTC) |
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city council members' soundbytes on the radio where they specifically call into question (and propose cancelling or halting) the frisbee fields
And you will see how fast the Pittsburgh ultimate community will respond. | | From: | daemonv |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 09:57 am (UTC) |
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That was weeks ago, btw. | | From: | fws |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 12:31 pm (UTC) |
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Well, then I wonder if anyone in CPU is acutally aware of these statements. Everyone's been pretty caught up in Club Champtionships. | From: | zkhan |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 11:39 am (UTC) |
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I've never understood this whole statium thing. Do they really bring in money? They should. No? Do the team managers and the capitolists that work with them have a have a great deal of influence of Pittsburgh city hall?
What do statiums buy city councilmen? Re-election? Are they that popular? ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/51962770/485511) | | From: | leko |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 01:06 pm (UTC) |
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wtf makes a frisbee field special? Having specific frisbee fields is orders of magnitude more absurd than having two stadiums for baseball and football, and we already know how stupid that is. | | From: | daemonv |
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| Date: | October 8th, 2003 01:25 pm (UTC) |
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Nothing makes a frisbee field special, which is why it will also be used by soccer, lacrosse, field hockey teams or any other kind of activity that benefits from having a large flat bit of grass (with lights for playing late). They are called frisbee fields because they will probably be large enough to handle three regulation frisbee fields, and because the frisbee community is going to pay for it. But they are as much frisbee fields as the fields where summer league plays are soccer fields. The thing is that there is so little available flat-green space in the city that the leagues have to have games and practices strewn about the region. Fall league is in Polish Hill and Blawnox... last year North Side as well... Summer league night games were in O'Hara. While its been a boon to my interest in knowing obscure parts of the area, it is not so much fun. Besides, estimates of cost are sub-300k$. Not much compared with arena math. |
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