The Hot Sheet

School Board District 1 public education forum

We are helping facilitate a Community Forum on Education & Schools for School Board District 1 - which includes the neighborhoods of Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar, Homewood North, Homewood South, East Hills, Friendship, Shadyside, Point Breeze, Larimer, and Point Breeze North

WHEN:  Monday, May 4th, 6pm - 8:00pm
WHERE:  Faison Primary School, 7430 Tioga Street 15208

The Community Empowerment Association is organizing this community forum to address topics effecting the community, parents, youth, teachers, and administrators from District 1.  They hope it will be the first of a series of discussions regarding reform in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.  All school board candidates for District 1 have been invited to attend and participate.

Tags: and Point Breeze North, board, candidates, christine stone, East Hills, forum, Friendship, Homewood North, Homewood South, Larimer, Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar, pittsburgh, Point Breeze, public schools, school, Shadyside, sharene shealey, sherry brooks

Violence and crime in the city. Discuss.

The community safety mayoral debate is in full swing here at the kingsley association on this rainy night. First question: when will we see an assault weapons ban?
Catch the full debate on PCTV ch 21 on May 16th, just before the election!

Important City Council update!

ACTION ALERT! Pittsburgh City Council plans to vote TOMORROW on a package of legislation that deals with lobbyist and campaign finance disclosure and no-bid contracts, introduced by Councilman Bill Peduto.

#1 Campaign Finance Reform bill would:

• limit Council campaign contributions to $1,000 for individuals, $2,000 for PAC’s
• limit Mayoral contributions to $2,000 for individuals, $4,000 for PAC’s
• require the creation of a searchable database of all campaign contributions and city contracts.

#2  No-bid contracts bill would eliminate no-bid contracts with the city valued at more than $30,000

#3 Lobbyist Disclosure Act would require all Request-For-Proposal responses to disclose finder’s fee or payments to lobbyists or consultants.

#4 Lobbyist Registration Act would require anyone engaging in more than 30 hours of paid lobbying during a three-month period to register as lobbyists with the city.
The vote is scheduled for TOMORROW, Wednesday April 29th. This would be a major step for Pittsburgh towards good government practices and policies.

Call your city councilperson and ask them to VOTE YES for Councilman Peduto’s proposed good government legislation!

http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/council/

Tags: campaign finance, city council, legislation, pittsburgh, reform, transparency, vote

Get a Scholarship to NetRoots Nation

The 2009 Netroots Nation convention is the fourth annual gathering of the netroots community from across the country and includes panels and caucuses led by national and international experts; prominent political, issue and policy-oriented speakers; a progressive film screening series and the most concentrated gathering of high-profile progressive bloggers to date. Lots and lots of bloggers!  And this year’s convention is in Pittsburgh, PA from August 13th to 16th!

Lots of local activists, organizers, and caring volunteers are already planning to either attend or be a part of this thing.  It’s a big deal.

DFA and Netroots Nation sends a group of progressive activists who had proven their skills, but may not have the resources to get to the convention on their own. Last year, they sent 30 great progressive leaders.

THE COMPETITION STARTS TODAY - APPLY NOW

The scholarship covers the cost of admission and lodging.  Go here learn more about the NetRoots Nation event.

Tags: blogs, competition, contest, democracy for america, netroots nation, progressive, schoarship

Our mayor, our safety, our future!

Hear what the Pittsburgh mayoral candidates have to say on topics relating to our city’s safety and plans to address violence and crime in our neighborhoods.

Remember, what happens in any part of the city affects us all, so this is an important event not to miss!

Tags: debate, forum, gang, gun, mayoral, pittsburgh, public, safety, violence, Youth

Voter Guide outreach’s got soul

Tags: big throwback, election, local, may 19, Pennsylvania, primary, voter guide, voter turnout

KDKA Mayoral Forum back on!

So the mayoral debate we worked with the League of Women Voters to schedule with KDKA and the primary candidates was postoned and has now been rescheduled — mark your calendars for 8pm on Saturday, May 2nd when it will air.

(That’s only 17 days before the election, folks!)

Informed voters are better.

We got candidates to answer a lot of questions to help people make a better decision at the polls on Election Day.  But now we need to tell people about this information so they know where to look!

Help us pass out our voter guide! Next Saturday, we are going south of the city.  Email Adam Schloss, our Field Coordinator, if you want to help get out the informed vote!

• Saturday, April 25th
  1pm - 4pm
  Meet at the Westfield T stop in Beechview

Email adam@paleague.com

Tags: beechview, canvass, pittsburgh, volunteer, voter guide

Get a voter guide and dance your a** off!

We’re going to be giving away print copies of our 2009 Primary Voter Guide at The Big Throwback, the killer monthly funk/soul dance party, this Thursday, April 23rd from 9-10pm. And it’s their 3-year anniversay, no less!

At the Brillobox, 4104 Penn Ave

Phantom Ballots mentioned in Trib-Review

(Click to see the full article)

The Pennsylvania League of Young Voters, which opposes the lack of a paper-ballot backup to Allegheny County’s touch-screen voting machines, warned there remains no independent way to verify vote totals from the machines. A recent study by the group found 311 over-votes in 1,011 precincts in November.

Over-votes occur when the number of votes the machines record exceeds the number of voters elections judges record.

“There aren’t any checks for the ballot in the machine,” said Carly Dobbins-Bucklad, the league’s director.

Wolosik said the discrepancies almost always are the result of human error — for example, an elections judge giving the same number to two voters, making the final count one vote short.

Just want to say — not true about that last point!  We looked at the actual voter logs for the precincts with over-votes (or phantom ballots) and looked at the numbers as they counted up the voters.  There’s another problem occurring somewhere.

Tags: over votes, Pennsylvania, phantom ballots, voting machines