Let me get this straight: county government can put a referendum on the November ballot by the drop of a hat, but when people organize to get 40,000+ signatures, the question may not be legal? People are speaking, and the government is saying, “we are either going to raise your taxes here, or we are going to raise them elsewhere.” Basically, they are raising taxes because they can’t stay within their budget. If this question doesn’t make it to the ballot, but Onorato’s does, that is pure hypocrisy. It is getting the point that people are starting to push back and say: ‘hey there Onorato… do a better job cause you are not getting anymore money from the taxpayers.’

One of the best (or worst, depending upon your perspective) instances of political chutzpah I’ve ever seen came from County Council President Rich Fitzgerald, who argued that the referendum put forth by the anti-drink tax faction was “illegal” because it would throw the county budget “out of balance”. I suppose, under Fitzy’s logic, that ANY action that would potentially place the county ledger out of whack (tax cuts, anyone?) would fall under the same classification? Now, as responsible citizens of Allegheny County, we wouldn’t want to put Council in a terrible position of having to make “Draconian” cuts (i.e., re-negotiating overly generous labor contracts at the PA) in the county budget in order to “bring it into balance” should the anti-drink tax referendum be approved, now would we? What a pity that would be…

Cheers

Mr. Onorato, and his tax-addicted friends, are in complete control of Allegheny County and they are destroying it.
Still, Democrats will blindly go on voting for the same people who go right on making them poorer.