Jobs
We'll talk and write a lot more about our plans and policies in the coming weeks. But for now, we'll tell you that Kevin promises to make Pittsburgh...We'll grow the city for the first time in generations. We'll take care of our own, bring our people home, and put Pittsburgh back on the map as the country's leading job and business creator.
KEVIN'S THOUGHTS ON JOBS & THE MAYOR'S OFFICE
Delivered as Part of His Campaign's Closing Argument
October 28, 2009
Good morning. Thank you for being here today.
Over the course of this campaign, from the beginning of June when I announced my candidacy all the way to today, with less than a week until the election, I’ve run with one idea in mind: that our neighborhoods are being neglected, and that they need a voice in the Mayor’s office.
At the same time the region’s jobless rate has hit a 23-year high, Mayor Ravenstahl is running a campaign ad entitled, “Jobs,” that touts our city’s “low” and “healthy” unemployment rate. That ad is both hurtful and offensive to the thousands of Pittsburghers who are right now looking for work. And it’s a reminder that a Mayor who listens only to corporate developers and fundraisers will always be out of touch with the struggles of the hard-working people in our city.
In this campaign, we’ve proposed a slew of innovative ideas for Pittsburgh and for hard-working Pittsburghers — ideas to reign in abandoned housing and fix BBI; to put more police on the streets and make our neighborhoods safer; to solve our pension crisis and secure the retirements of our city employees; to reduce wasteful spending and produce an alternative city budget; to refocus the URA away from corporate welfare for big-money developers and back on our neighborhoods and business districts.
We've also called out corruption where we've seen it. Now LET ME BE CLEAR – what I find objectionable about the Mayor's relationship with John Verbanac is the privileged, insider access and influence it affords. The Mayor’s powerful friends — big-time developers, lobbyists, CEOs and other corporate interests — have a direct line into his administration. But the rest of us do not.
When John Verbanac wants to take a jaunt down to Nemacolin with the Mayor, he gets it set up and on the books in one afternoon. When he wants someone hired or fired, it takes one email to the Mayor, and the change is made. If he has an opinion on an important issue before the city, he gets heard and served. But the rest of us do not.
LET ME BE CLEAR – while corporate interests like John Verbanac are sitting in the Mayor's office, calling the shots and getting their way, the doors to the Mayor's office are literally being chained shut, and slammed in the faces of Pittsburghers who want to talk with the mayor about crime, about their forgotten neighborhoods, about how big corporate developments are hurting our city. While the Mayor and John Verbanac trade emails from Grant Street to Cranberry, people in Beechview and Carrick, in Garfield and Sheraden and Homewood, are left to suffer.
These relationships of Mr. Ravenstahl’s have a wide-ranging, devastating impact on the working people of our city. While City Planning and BBI have been gutted, the URA has stepped up to hand out corporate welfare to our city's biggest developers. While the Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime took over a year to find funding, the Mayor was handing out sweetheart deals to some of his biggest campaign contributors. While rich insiders become even more powerful and politically connected, the hard-working people in our neighborhoods become ever more powerless and politically forgotten. That is the priority, and the legacy, of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.
Once more, LET ME BE CLEAR – this Mayor's priorities are hurting our city, our neighborhoods, and our working families. We need new leadership in the Mayor's office, so we can invest more in our neighborhoods, put more police on our streets, and make our communities attractive destinations for young families. These are the only ways for us to grow Pittsburgh, and to put it back where it belongs: on the side of its hard-working people.
Thank you. I’ll take any questions you have.
CBAs and GOOD UNION JOBS
REMARKS BEFORE CITY COUNCIL | Public Hearing for Bill No. 2009-1462
KEVIN ACKLIN
July 27. 2009
Good morning, Council President Shields and Members of City Council.
My name is Kevin Acklin. I'm a resident of Squirrel Hill, and the Independent candidate for Mayor of the great City of Pittsburgh.
I’m here today to express my support for the efforts of our fellow Pittsburghers who rightly encourage the Mayor, and all of us, to consider the needs of the community when promoting development on the North Side, and in all City neighborhoods.
Like many Pittsburghers, I was shocked and disappointed to see what happened outside these doors on Friday. It’s unfortunate that the Mayor so rarely shows up to engage and truly understand the problems facing our neighborhoods, and it’s a disgrace that the doors of his office should ever be chained shut for any reason, much less when a group of concerned citizens simply wants to voice its collective opinion.
I want to remind Mr. Ravenstahl that the Mayor’s office doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to the people.
The images we saw on TV last Friday are a sad but fitting metaphor for the way this administration treats its citizens. Only a chosen and privileged few are allowed access; the rest are locked outside, their voices unheard, their problems unsolved.
Pittsburghers deserve a Mayor willing to engage the community and eager to propose real solutions to our problems.
That’s why it’s troubling to hear that this Mayor's policy now seems to be that all Community Benefit Agreements are dead on arrival. CBAs can be a valuable tool to attract private investments that benefit the entire community. They can provide good union jobs, help alleviate poverty, and help solidify the middle class in their communities.
A successful CBA requires a Mayor willing and able to bring all parties together to work for a fair outcome for everyone.
As someone who grew up in a family of union values -- my Grandfather was a Battalion Chief in the Fire Bureau, my Uncle is a Boilermaker, my brother is in the FOP, my stepfather is a member of Laborers’ Union -- I understand the importance of these agreements for workers and their families. As a lawyer who has negotiated hundreds of business agreements, I know the hard and often painstaking work they require.
This is the kind of hard, painstaking work we elect our Mayors to do, and the kind of leadership we expect them to deliver.
And when it comes to community development, the community deserves a seat at the table.
Thank you.
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