Transcripts of talk on 2-12-06

:Ready when you are Markie.
:It is Markus for short. Markus Rauterkus.
I'm a candidate for city council, as you all know. I want to go over these ten questions with you as I think that they are quite important. I'll bullet through them. Then I'll talk a little bit more about my campaign and what I stand for if it is not evident.
Budget deficit.
We are already one of the highest taxed places in the nation. But there are two small areas that I would be in favor of increasing taxes. I think we need a new sales tax on gasoline that would pay for transportation – mass transit tax. There are a lot of constitutions around the nation that forbid gasoline tax to be used on anything other than roads that pushes the sprawl a lot farther. 
The other thing, I'm in favor of a tax shift for Pennsylvania's new health care reform package that is Senate Bill 1085. Senator Ferlo has already introduced it. If we are going to do a single payer health care it needs to occur on a state by state basis, not on a national basis. When we do that it will be good for the hospitals. It would be good for every citizen. It would be good for all those who are uninsured. It would be good for doctors as there is a malpractice components in this package. There is mental health part to this bill. I've called upon my state senator, Senator Fontana, to co-sponsor this. There used to be, a few months ago, about 20 PA House Members of the Republican Party that were going to co-sponsor this bill, but with the Clean Sweep efforts, they have all now set on their hands. 
So, other than those two types of tax changes, I'm against all other types of raising taxes.
I think that the worst tax of all, especially for the young people, is the deed transfer tax. This hurts home buyers the most. It freezes people in their homes. It freezes businesses in the neighborhood where they are. You can't upgrade or downgrade and move around the city so I would be calling for a freeze or tax moratorium on all the deed transfer taxes. If we had a tax holiday on that for a couple of years, you'd see a boom in the city. In Pittsburgh we pay 4%. In Cranberry they pay 2%. 
Pittsburgh's legacy of affordable homes and also of a dense downtown is centered upon taxing policy from generations ago where we used a land value tax. That's something that I'm also in favor of returning to. In 1999 and 2000 I talked about this with a lot of different people. Bob O'Connor proposed and Tom Murphy agreed on a unified tax plan because Sabre Systems messed it up so bad. Now, if you have a piece of property and let it go downwards, go south, ruined sidewalk, bad roof, and the place is falling apart, you go in and they say, “Oh wow, yeah. You get a tax break. You pay less.” Meanwhile, another person, they put on a new roof, upgrade the sidewalk, they do a new sun room, and they go down to the tax assessors and they say, “You owe us more.” You are penalized.
In the past, we only taxed people on the land, the footprint that the home sits upon. So you were rewarded for fix-ups. That is why we have USX Tower. Now they have done this unified plan and that is why we are going to see a lot of building going away downtown. They are thinning the buildings. The people that have buildings downtown are now being rewarded when they tear them down and turn them into green space. So, our urban legacy of land value tax needs to be understood, talked about and promoted as far as public policy. 
Second question was how I would have voted on Act 47.
I don't think it is ever a good idea to have OVERLORDS. I am a big advocate of democracy. I need Pittsburgh to be self reliant. I teach my kids to take care of yourself. Clean your room. So, I don't like Act 47 because it imposed unelected people over us. So I said no. 
I also understand, and we are talking about gambling a lot, that if you are in Las Vegas and they are watching you from above, that gives you a little bit of security that you are not going to be robbed. So there is one piece of the OVERLORD puzzle that I like because they were still overspending too much on Grant Street. 
I would definitely not gone with OVERLORDS, but I would have also been more honest at looking at the budget. 
Humpty Dumpty is a story that I say a lot. The king's horses and king's men will not fix this fall for Pittsburgh again. But if the people get involved, then that can occur. It is not going to be OVERLORDS that are going to fix us. 
TIFs, Tax Incremental Finance Plans
This is not controversial to me. I've stood up against many TIFs, many times, many places from the county level. When I ran for state senate I said as well. We need to change the TIF law in Harrisburg. I was there against Deer Creek Crossing as that was something that went down a year ago with Allegheny County. I went down to the county and spoke. I've talked to the School Board about it. And, I'll be talking negatively again about the TIF so that they can build parking garages on the other side of the river on Second Avenue rather than worrying about some in-fill parking around our home and worry about things on this side in established neighborhoods. So, with TIFs, I vote no all the time. I said that in 2001, I stand by those words. 
We need a good accounting of the TIFs that we've already spent. They just don't work. They've prov en not to work. 
There is another question about the slots applications. 
I have some problems with all of the applications. I was against the gambling idea, that I believe is coming. It is getting a bit like the tail that is going to wag the dog. Some of the things with the Penguins plan. If they are going to use the windfall to build a new arena, I want that arena to stay in private hands. We are treading water in the city of Pittsburgh, the last thing we need is for somebody to give us an arena as a public building. Let Mario keep it. He can program it. He can insure it. He can do anything he wants. And, I think that should be the way with PNC Park and Heinz Field. Why don't we have the Steelers, now in their glory, buy Heinz Field from us. 
So my suggestion with gambling is to let's insist that we zone gambling to be included only in the footprint of the Convention Center. We have a great, open, green building. We could turn that to the gambling people. Then they can buy and build Mario a new arena anywhere they want. That would be fine for us. As well, if they leave the Civic Arena, I think that they should return it to us. The existing Civic Arena is a public building. Carrick High School has its graduations there. We don't need luxury boxes, catering, leather seats in a corporate box to go to Disney on Ice or Carrick High School Graduation. High School State basketball tournaments could be happening at the existing Civic Arena. There could be other uses that need to be making the Civic Arena turn back to its roots. So if they build up a new arena, and I think that is what is probably going to happen, they had better pick a spot elsewhere so we can insist upon a net gain. 
If they build a new Arena, we should keep the old one. One minus one is not a net gain.
As for the Station Square, the thing that alarmed me the most was reading about the new urban townhouses that are actually going to be taller apartments that are going to be able to house 4,000 or 5,000 people there, IF MARKET DEMANDS allow them to be built. That is a big “IF.” Up the hill in Mt. Washington, the Trimont has gone bankrupt at least three times. MARKET DEMANDS are not going to materialize. So we are being sold a bunch of smoke on this. If they were to get rid of that “IF” -- and we insisted that we have housing for mixed use, seniors, poor people, rich people, then we have something to talk about. If MARKET DEMANDS are necessary before the housing gets built, the new urban flats will never occur. 
I was there when Mayor Murphy said “The FIX is IN” about the gambling. That is certainly a scary proposition. I made a comment and he said, “What, and be sued.” The people were not talking about gambling in a really candid way. I hope that this discussion continues. 
Question 5 about community based development plan for each neighborhood in the district. 
I'm a software guy. I'm an open source person. I think we should be establishing a regional park district. (one minute left)
I think that we need to make sure that these local groups are elected. That people under 20 and people under 30 are on all the boards. 
I'm about done here. 
Alternative transportation: 
Bicycle lanes are very cheap. I want to wrap up and mention this t-shirt. Mention my blogs. All these answers will be online in the course of the next 10 or 15 minutes after this meeting.
Domestic Partner Rights. 
I'm a Libertarian. You can't get any more free than that. The worth and dignity of every person is very important to me as a Unitarian Universalist and in our faith we have a lot of same sax marriages. I think that is fine. 
So the Mon Valley Toll Ways is a definite no. 
I think that the other thing that transportation is about is bikes and I think we can do a lot. 
QUESTIONS?
 Are you actually against the buffer zone with question 8? 
The buffer zone I think has a problem with practicality. So, I would be in favor of all the enforcement around, but I would not have voted “YES” for the bubble because it limits freedoms. But also, I know that freedoms have an equal measure of responsibility. I dare say that I would never want to get in someone's face and be irresponsible like that. So, the buffer zone was something that I didn't really approve of just because of the enforceability of the way it was now. It was sorta a knee jerk reaction. 
YOU ASKED ABOUT ANOTHER QUESTION? I'm sorry. 
Domestic partner rights are being threatened by law makers. The threats are real. I would never support those threats. There is a bill out there. I have no problem with same sex marriages in one way or another. In our faith we do those types of services. I've been to those types of marriages as a Unitarian Universalist. As a Libertarian, I say live and let live. So there is no problem with that at all.
 OTHER QUESTIONS.
Say the slots goes through with the new arena, you say the city should not have the responsibility to service the new arena, yet you want to keep the Civic Arena around and service that. I don't understand how that is helping the situation. And, if you can also speak to how a Libertarian wants to raise the taxes in regards to the gas. 
There is some economy to it, saving energy, getting on a train, or getting on the T, and there is some common good as far as lessening the exhaust gases and not needing to build roads – so I call myself a “Common Sense Libertarian.” There certainly are people that are bull-headed in our party as far as logic and those other things, so I am not that way. So, what happens now is all the tax moneys goes to the roads. They got an endless supply of taxes from tires to whatever, to re-invest on roads, and no where are we taxing what we don't want and rewarding what we do want. So there is a coupling there that needs to stop and be re-directed. I also think that in regards to transportation the tunnel under the Allegheny River is a bad idea. We've always coupled the capital budget in this one pot of money and we can't touch that. And the operations in another pot of money -- and we can't touch that. And, never the two shall meet. I think we need to unify those. I think we need to spend the money in a better way with the transportation. This has been ignored greatly.
THERE WAS ANOTHER PART about the Civic Arena.
The Civic Arena has Carrick High School Graduation. They need a place. I have no problem with making sure that we have a civic arena. We can hold a state high school basketball tournament. It is already built. It is already paid for. It is an asset that we need to preserve and we need to be stewards of. I have no problem with that. But sure, if they wanted to sell that as well, I think that might be a good idea as well. But i don't think we just tear down a historic building, and not have a net gain. There is a tractor pull (really a monster truck show) going on there this weekend, fine. 
 Other arena....
Because if there is another conflict. If we are going to grow the city, let's grow it, not just erase one and build another. The overhead on the bigger building is going to be a lot bigger. And, you know what if they don't want it. You have these kids slopping around the new palace just built. So, I don't mind. Let's use this as a big park pavilion and a place that people can gather. 
 Quickly WHAT ABOUT 18 to 24 year olds.
Give them freedom. Get rid of oversight. You'll hear something... Diversity is a by-product of freedom. The t-shirt says, “Liberty XL,One Size Fits All.” I think we have to work on freedom. I also think we have to work on our kids. There would be nothing more than what I want to do with our children. I hope you can visit my blog, visit the wiki, and I'll see you around. 
 TIME. CLAPPING. 
Total time: 15 minutes.