Local News In Brief

Allegheny County in Violation of Home Rule Charter

Under its Home Rule Charter, Allegheny County is obligated to “protect the taxpayers of Allegheny County by requiring that each County department, agency and function is subject to” review every four years. Each so-called “sunset review,” according to the county’s administrative code, examines each department’s programs and services to determine whether cuts or changes would benefit the county.

The problem, however, is that the sunset review is more than three years overdue. (CP, 9/2/10)

Although not ideal and certainly not unbiased, sunset reviews could help determine which County services and departments could be merged with the city, which could be merged with other County departments and which could be privatized. More important than the missing data is that the County’s action in failing to perform sunset reviews highlights a dangerous double standard whereby government can violate the law at will while private citizens are held accountable for every illegal act.

PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Opens Luxury B&B

In hopes of reaching out to people who enjoy nature as well as disposable income, last week DCNR officially opened the first luxury hotel located in a Pennsylvania state park. The $7.5 million, 16-room Nature Inn at Bald Eagle, overlooking Sayers Reservoir Lake in Centre County’s Bald Eagle State Park, is comfortable, gorgeous and pricey — perhaps the most visible sign of a successful park system stretching its wings from primitive to posh.   (PG, 9/5/10)

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should not be in the hotel business and it certainly shouldn’t be setting up luxury bed and breakfasts using taxpayer money. We need a wall of separation between the economy and the state.

Allegheny Jail Captain Recorded Attorney-Client Phone Conversations From Home

The fall of Capt. Thomas R. Leicht Jr. ended a controversial wiretapping program the Allegheny County Jail’s internal affairs chief ran from his North Versailles home.

Fired after a Tribune-Review investigation into the veracity of his testimony in the Christine Korbe murder case, Leicht, 47, was dogged by allegations that he jeopardized prison security and pushed the envelope of surveillance laws by eavesdropping on inmates when he was outside the jail. (Trib, 9/5/10)

Leicht not only wiretapped inmates and County employees but also wiretapped and recorded conversations between defense attorneys and their clients; recordings of which he sent to prosecutors. Especially when private citizens in Pennsylvania can’t even record the public actions of police officers without being assaulted, it is indicative of a troubling double standard in wiretap procedures that a law enforcement officer could, for years, wiretap County employees and privileged attorney-client conversations from his home.