I wish there was a way to make this work

In Thursday's edition of the P-G, there was this article about a former borough manager who had stolen money from Braddock, a financially strapped community just outside the city limits. This woman has been repaying her debt very little by little (in about 1.5 years' time, she has paid $30 out of the $170k) because she has had trouble finding suitable employment, thanks to her felony conviction. That dilemma was quite timely for me as just over a week ago I posted a blog about giving people (criminals) second chances. In that post, I wondered if someone had redeemed himself, should he get another chance? And I had questioned, mostly seriously, if someone could not go on to get a job after prison, then what was the point of getting out of prison.

But this woman's owing so much and paying so little was not what really struck a cord with me. Rather it was this sentence: "If she can't pay Braddock back in dollars, she should pay it in community service," Mr. Fetterman said.

Mayor John Fetterman has been a champion for Braddock, as far as I can tell from what I have read in the papers and have seen on the local news. He believes in the community and wants to make it better. And I applaud his idea. Prisons are overcrowded. And they are often dangerous, soul-crushing hellholes that cost taxpayers a lot of money. People who have not committed heinous crimes and who are not a danger to others probably should not be there. Plus if one is in prison, one cannot make restitution very easily. And in many cases, people who have to make restitution often can't or never do. So having those people help make the community better seems like a reasonable solution.

Unfortunately, if memory serves me correctly it apparently is something that is not easy to do. Two or three years ago, a similar proposal was brought up by the county council. At the time, I called my county councilman to let him know that having first-time DUI offenders (I believe that is who it was) picking up litter was a great idea, and he should do whatever he can to make this happen. But, alas, my councilman told me that there were cost issues that made this community service option a bit thorny. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I seem to recall it had something to do with needing people to oversee the trash gatherers, which would be an expense, and there was probably something about needing insurance on these people.

That is so unfortunate. In my world, you would trust these people to do the clean-up or some similar service because the threat of prison or an exorbitant fine should be a pretty good deterrent against not doing the work. But what do I know?

What I do know is I feel strongly enough about this issue to have sent a follow-up email to my councilman. I will have to see what, if anything, happens (or has happened already).

What do you think? Anyone with me? Good idea or bad? Does the cost (depending on what it is) outweigh the benefits? Sometime the optimist in me can't help thinking it will all just work out.

Let's build something together!

That is one of my favorite slogan's (Or is that a tagline? Over a year removed from a design firm, and I can no longer remember). It belongs to Lowe's, although I am more of a Home Depot gal. But suffice it to say if someone handed me a $5,000 gift card to Home Depot (or Lowe's), I would be ecstatic. If I had $10,000 to spend, you could hear my shouts of joy from miles away. The things I could do with that money. Well, the things I could have Brian do with that money anyway. I love walking around Home Depot and admiring the fancy bathroom sinks and tubs. I look at the lighting and think about where I would put each fixture. I touch textured and colorful tiles and wistfully look at the fancy kitchen cabinets. I admire the various carpet styles and blinds. I look at the fancy front-loading washer and wonder what it must be like to have a steam dryer. I even look longingly at the vacuum cleaners because I can no longer buy a replacement filter for my eight year old mo...

If only I had taken pictures of my detoured drive

When I moved to the Burgh just over 14 years ago, I had a lot of anxiety about getting from "here" to "there." I found the city, which is triangular, and even some of the suburbs quite confusing. On top of that, a lot of the signs were of little help. Clearly they were put up by either natives who had no need for directions or people with a sick sense of humor who thought it would be funny to put signs in random places, leaving off important roads. At some point, I got over that fear of driving to a new building downtown. I don't recall when it happened, but eventually I just figured most of the city out; and when I had to head to a new place, I just drove around, no longer with a feeling of dread, knowing I would eventually get there. But on Sunday morning, that awful, long-ago feeling returned, thanks to the closure of the outbound Fort Pitt Tunnels. I had to pick my mother up from the airport, so there was no avoiding it. (For some reason, my family think...

Summer in review

This summer I made it a point to try to take at least one pic of Jordan whenever we went somewhere, which most often was a park. I wanted to capture all the great, fun things we did this summer, knowing that it was probably going to be my last summer not working for quite some time. So here goes. I have expressed my love of Frick Park, particularly Blue Slide Park, in other posts ; it really is one of our favorites. And this summer marked the first one I did not feel the need to follow J around like a little puppy dog. I actually let her run around and explore, though, admittedly, I would panic if more than three minutes went by and I had not seen her. In the pics above, J is at the end of the blue slide, and then hanging several feet above concrete (which scared the crap out of me). We also visited another section of Frick Park, the area on the corner of Braddock and Forbes, a few times. There is not as much to do as Blue Slide, but we go there to mix things up a bit. In the p...

Facie’s Ramblings

Search This Blog