This past Friday, the 21st of September, a rally was held for me at Rumshakers in the South Side. I would like to thank all those in attendance for coming and I hope you all enjoyed your evening as much as I did.
I would also like to especially thank the staff at Rumshakers for doing a hell of a job and also the owner, Theresa, for hosting the event.
I've known Theresa for a while now and I know the kind of work ethic and professionalism she approaches business with, so I was not surprised in the least with how well the night went. Theresa is a self made woman and an entrepreneur who has overcome the challenges of starting her own business and is succeeding at it. That's the good part. The bad part is that, instead of supporting Theresa in her efforts to bring business and jobs to Pittsburgh, the city government instead, wants to tax her out of business, limit her freedom in running that business and even going so far as to target her as a problem because she is successful.
Let me explain the last one more fully; Theresa hires an off-duty officer to stand at the door of Rumshakers so to avoid any problems within and to handle any that might arise. When problems do arise the Officer simply arrests the perpetrator while other establishments would simply kick them out on the street to continue the trouble elsewhere. This, on paper, makes it seem as if Rumshakers has more problems than other places, where in truth, the inverse is true. I find it personally repugnant, that a hard working, honest woman who is doing her best to be successful in her profession and is doing what is right (ie officer at the door) can have a knee jerk government try to punish her with some feel good politicking in order to give the illusion of trying to solve the problem.
The problem? The problem is that the government, though fat in feeding it's own bureaucracy, has thinned and cullied the police force out of manpower, equipment and training in order to save a quick buck. The current government would rather build walking bridges and dig tunnels than actually work on improving city life. Who pays for this hubris? You and I do. Theresa and other business owners do, the future of this city suffers and all that choose to stay and all those who choose to leave.
Either we take a hard look at what is REALLY going wrong with the city and make attempts to fix it, rather than having political photo opportunities at walking bridges to nowhere and unneeded tunnels, or we should all just pack up and leave. If things stay on the course they are now the city Pittsburgh will become will be a place no one wants to live in.
