| abstract | - Leadership takes many forms. A coach leads a team to a championship game. A teacher inspires a group of students to explore their artistic interests. An employer gets his hands dirty on occasion to better appreciate what his workers do on a regular basis. There is one trait that is common to leadership: an ability to listen and, subsequently, to motivate a group of people in pursuit of a common goal. Dan Onorato has done a good job of listening to taxpayers in his role as fiscal steward for Allegheny County. But I think county government overall can do even better. It would have been good, for instance, if we had consulted with taxpayers, riders, and other stakeholders before the Port Authority proposed its drastic service cuts. Perhaps the citizenry would have let us increase the county’s contribution to the Port Authority so that entire neighborhoods would not be left without service, or the airport flyer eliminated. And we must take on the challenge of expanding light rail transit as the system of the future for the county. Let’s begin the conversation today about how and when it can be extended from Downtown to the airport, and then perhaps through the Mon Valley, or out to the North Hills. I am proposing we suspend any further work on the North Shore Connector project, the light rail extension from Downtown to the stadiums, until we can piece together this larger strategy. If it can somehow be made to fit within that larger strategy, then it becomes part of it, and not simply the stand-alone project that it is at present. It would have been good, too, if we had consulted taxpayers as we entered into negotiations with the Penguins’ ownership over a new Mellon Arena. Perhaps they would have given the county the green light to put some money into the project to help with, say, infrastructure costs demanded by a new facility. But we didn’t ask in this case either, whether it be through public referendum, or a series of town hall meetings across the county. This style of leadership leaves the impression that we’re afraid to go to the public on the tough issues for fear of what they may tell us. The county Executive needs to be willing to sell his or her solutions on the larger challenges to the public, and let them be the ultimate arbiters. We don’t need to ask their opinion just once every four years.
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