By Yaël Ossowski | September 25, 2015 | Watchdog.org The city of Erie is in desperate times, and a consultant hired to map a positive future isn’t optimistic. “The plan I am trying to write is a plan to get the city out of the hole it is in,” Charles Buki told Watchdog.org. An urban […]
Erie’s 10-year ‘comprehensive plan’ consultants cost over $100,000
By Yaël Ossowski | September 18, 2015 | Watchdog.org Hoping to leap into the future, Erie will spend over $100,000 to pay consultants to draw up a 10-year comprehensive plan to revitalize the city and “bring it into the future.” The total amount of $137,880, approved preliminarily by the city council in February, will be […]
‘Vicious political campaigning’ backfired on MO unions
By Yaël Ossowski / September 15, 2015 / Watchdog.org They say it takes extraordinary circumstances to get ordinary people into politics. For Mary Hill, a registered nurse, that extraordinary moment came when union activists began pressuring workers at her hospital to unionize. She was ready to join the union, she tells Watchdog.org, but began to […]
Onetime supporter says ethics board devolved into ‘lapdog, not a watchdog’
By Yaël Ossowski | September 10th, 2015 | Watchdog.org The effort to reform politics in the city of Tallahassee in the form of an appointed board was not only undermined by mistakes but also devolved into a disappointment and failure of democracy, say principal supporters of the plan. “The people of Tallahassee are disgruntled, both […]
National ethics group broke state laws to acquire signatures
By Yaël Ossowski | September 1, 2015 | Watchdog.org Wherever it campaigns for political ethics reform, the activist group Represent.us seems plagued by legal and ethical challenges of its own. Earlier this week, Watchdog.org reported that the Represent.us-backed ethics board in Tallahassee, Fla. was slammed – by its own former supporters – for conflicts of […]
Anti-corruption group’s ethics boards face ethical problems
By Yaël Ossowski / August 31, 2015 / Watchdog.org Just eight months after it was created to eliminate corruption in local government, the Tallahassee Ethics Board seems to have ethics problems of its own. At the end of its July meeting, board members quietly agreed to hire as their legal counsel the very same law […]
Western Pennsylvania school districts brought down by pension debt
By Yaël Ossowski / July 31, 2015 / Watchdog.org A frank assessment from Moody’s rating agency this week has given several Pennsylvania school districts sour financial notes, and western PA’s schools top the list. Schools in Allegheny, Washington, and Fayette County have all been downgraded to junk status, according to the rating service’s latest […]
Rand Paul’s ‘Economic Freedom Zone’ a fix for western PA?
By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org Rand Paul wants troubled cities declared “Economic Freedom Zones,” with targeted tax cuts and reduced regulation to promote growth and spur jobs. So-called Economic Freedom Zones — known as Zones for Employment and Economic Development in their more developed form in places like Honduras — offer targeted areas the benefits […]
Erie stocks up on prison gear after shootings, but leaves community without answers
By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice awarded Erie, Penn., $600,000 to revitalize its crime-troubled Little Italy neighborhood, and another $300,000 to help combat violence throughout the city. The money never came. Last week, following several shootings, the Erie City Council agreed to spend $25,000 to boost police equipment in […]
Obama’s ‘girl power’ foreign policy boosts UN aid
By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org The U.S. government’s ‘girl power’ foreign policy has been signed into law, boosting support for a UN aid project to empower girls in developing countries. Just last month, President Barack Obama signed the Girls Count Act, promising government resources “to effectively address the needs of birth registries in countries where […]