Issues
Community Improvement Through Investment
Secure payments instead of taxes from the “non-profit” community as part of the yearly budget process to address the following:
1. Expanded behavioral health services, including inpatient and outpatient services within the district.
2. Expanded mental health services, including inpatient and outpatient services within the district.
3. Expanded substance abuse treatment options, including inpatient beds in the district.
Work with industry to secure the future of the Golden Triangle while securing public investment within District 9. Work with and lobby state and federal partners to ensure and maximize grant money allotments to fund vital community projects and services.
Saving Taxpayer Money
Use the annual budget process to conduct a top-to-bottom review of all county departments and explore possible opportunities to reduce administrative and operational redundancies and save taxpayer money.
- Obtain money to eliminate blight and improve community infrastructure district-wide.
- Craft a commitment to create permanent union jobs in the in-district in exchange for county tax abatements on commercial projects within the City of Pittsburgh.
- Secure a commitment from developers to forgo ALL property tax appeals on commercial property for ten (10) years when receiving public support on other projects within Allegheny County.
- Develop a study to examine possible savings by merging the Allegheny County Police ($41,968,922) and Allegheny County Sheriff ($22,918,716) into one department, the “Allegheny County Department of Public Safety.”
- Work with the County Executive, District Attorney / Public Defender, and President Judge and "non-profits" such as UPMC and ANH to create a county-wide community diversion program for all non-violet, low-level crimes involving behavioral/mental health and substance abuse and reduce the Jail ($96,858,510), Booking Center ($7,288,418), District Attorney ($24,090,244), Public defender ($13,485,423), Juvenile Court Placement ($39,754,137) and Court of Common Pleas ($92,260,420) budgets by 25%.
Fair Taxes for All
Create a fair and reasonable property tax system based on current market rates, not assessed values from 2012. Our current broken system has allowed wealthy folks in communities like Upper St Clair, Wexford, Bridgeville, Pine Township, and Mt Lebanon to pay lower taxes based on property values from 12 years ago. At the same time, folks in the Mon Valley have been locked into higher assessed values from the same period.
- Use 2025 as the baseline value for assessment purposes for all property located in Allegheny County.
- Pass an ordinance requiring reassessments every five years county-wide.
- Develop community-specific reassessment trigger provision when economic growth/contraction reaches 25% of community GDP from the most recent assessment year to ensure stabilization based on current market conditions.
- Establish an Office of Property Tax Advocate to assist lower-income property owners in navigating the property tax appeals process.
Reform County Government
We must clean up the current political status quo by championing good government reforms to fix our corrupt and broken political system here in Allegheny County.
- Introduce ballot questions to limit the County Executive, District Attorney, County Treasurer, and County Controller to a maximum of two (2) consecutive four-year terms.
- Introduce ballot questions to limit members of the Allegheny County Council to two (2) consecutive four-year terms.
- Create the “Office of Good Government” and empower the Allegheny County Ethics Commission to make criminal referrals of officials and staff engaged in improper behavior.
Environmental Action
The communities of the Mon Valley have lived with polluters for decades. While plants like the Clairton Works have created hundreds of good-paying union jobs, they have also poisoned our air and water and caused many health programs for citizens downwind. We must continue fighting for and funding environmental impact funds to improve our communities. However, these funds need comprehensive oversight to ensure that money is used to help citizens and not be misused by the municipalities as slush funds to pay for non-environmental and health-related projects. We need to take the following steps:
- Create an Office of Environmental and Health Funding Oversight to administer and oversee all municipal grants and requests paid from impact/re-development funds set up by companies such as US Steel and other polluters to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.
- Promote direct ballot initiatives for impacted communities to exercise more citizen input on project spending when the municipal funding request is over $50,000.
- Exclude all non-environmental and non-health-related projects from receiving monies from the environmental impact funds.
- Work with state and federal policymakers to secure funding to install over 500 EV charging stations at all county parks and other county-owned properties throughout Allegheny County.