Obama Rules The City; Paris Gets Closer

The Week In Pittsburgh

By Jeffery Fraser

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama trounced his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, in Pittsburgh and won handily in Allegheny County on his way to becoming the nation’s first African American president. And election-weary souls seeking respite in a foreign land should’ve been pleased to learn last week that Paris will soon be only a nonstop flight away.

Obama swept the city with 75 percent of the vote to McCain’s 24 percent in last week’s presidential election. He grabbed 57 percent of the voters in Allegheny County on his way to winning Pennsylvania. Looking at the Pennsylvania county totals, McCain won in most of them, but Obama cashed in big in those with the highest numbers of voters to take 55 percent of the state vote against McCain’s 44 percent. Allegheny and Philadelphia counties alone accounted for about 30 percent of the 3,184,778 votes Obama won in Pennsylvania. His success suggests that Democrats continue to gain strength in Pennsylvania. Despite McCain’s vigorous last minute campaigning in Chester, Montgomery, Bucks and Delaware counties, he lost all of them. In fact, Obama took more than 60 percent of the vote in Delaware and Montgomery. Obama also outperformed previous Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and Al Gore in counties such as Lancaster.

As in other cities across the nation, African American Pittsburghers celebrated the historic presidential election. The election also inspired a large voter turn-out across Pennsylvania, but did not set a record. Statewide, 66.7 percent of the voters voted. In Allegheny County, a little more than 68 percent went to the polls. In Beaver County, voter turn-out hit 71.6 percent.

In what is seen as a major coup for western Pennsylvania, Delta Air Lines announced last week it will begin nonstop flights to Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport from Pittsburgh, most likely in April. Pittsburgh International Airport has been without nonstop flights abroad since 2004, when US Airways eliminated flights to London and Frankfurt. The Delta flights are supported by $9 million in state government and local subsidies. Pennsylvania and the Allegheny Conference on Community Development agreed to pay the subsidies for two years if the Paris flights fall short of certain revenue levels.

The Allegheny Conference also sounded bullish about the region last week. Despite the tough economy of late, the Conference sees the region thriving. The organization’s incoming and outgoing chairmen last week said Pittsburgh is poised to be a cleaner, greener city by 2018, with vibrant rivers and riverfronts, a diverse employment base and a new energy economy that includes clean coal, natural gas and nuclear energy. New Conference chairman, U.S. Steel Corp. CEO John Surma, said the goal is "sustainable prosperity."

First, though, the region, state and nation have to ride out one of the worst economic downturns in generations. More signs of distress were reported last week. The nation’s unemployment rate hit 6.5 percent in October, a 14-year high. However, analysts believe unemployment in western Pennsylvania – now at 5.4 percent – won’t fall that far.

Universities are starting to feel the sting of the dreadful economic downturn. One of the locals, Carnegie Mellon University, saw its endowment investments fall 9.5 percent from July through September as stocks tumbled. The endowment had a value of about $1.07 billion as of June 30. The University of Pittsburgh has not commented on the health of its endowment, which is valued at about $2.4 billion.

In the short term, the region may also be faced with a public transit crisis. You have to wonder what the Port Authority’s union bus and trolley operators are smoking. Officials of Local 85 of the Amalgamated Transit Union said last week that a work stoppage is likely on Dec. 1 if the Authority imposes a contract of its own on its members. The two sides haven’t been able to hammer out an agreement. Last month, the Authority said it will impose a contract that calls for 3 percent annual wage increases over the next three years, raising the retirement rate to age 60, and raising employees' health care contribution to 3 percent of the base wage, the same rate management pays. A job, an annual raise and health benefits at a time when hundreds of thousands of American workers are joining the ranks of the unemployed every month. That sure is something to take to the streets to avoid.

There was a sliver of good news on the health care front. Despite having posted a $63 million loss in the fiscal year that ended June 30, West Penn Allegheny Health System is reportedly getting some positive feedback from analysts who sense the region’s second-largest health care system is on the mend. In a statement to investors, President and CEO Christopher Olivia said the health care system’s liquidity position has stabilized. And analysts said the company’s conservative investment portfolio has helped it avoid absorbing the kind of damage others are experiencing as stocks tumble. Standard and Poor’s last week said it expected to take West Penn Allegheny off its credit watch list this week.

If the region is to grow greener, it must find a way to solve its diesel exhaust problem. A Carnegie Mellon University study released last week found elevated levels throughout Allegheny County of 12 cancer-causing pollutants, including those found in diesel exhaust, benzene from coke plants in Clairton and Neville Island, and formaldehyde.

In other environmental news, the fact that rain has become a scarce commodity in the region was underscored last week when the state Department of Environmental Protection slapped a drought watch on 29 western and central Pennsylvania counties, including Allegheny. This first-level action calls for a voluntary 5 percent reduction in non-essential water use.

For the moment, you might not be able to take a nonstop to Paris to escape such woes, but you can find comfort in a snort of fine spirits this week when the Pittsburgh Whiskey and Fine Spirits Festival opens at Heinz Field on Friday.

And finally, it’s not often we get to report good news related to our forever-bottom-dwelling Pittsburgh Pirates. But last week, a Gold Glove was awarded to Nate McLouth, who committed only one error in 155 games and led all National League center fielders with a .997 fielding percentage. As a hitter, McLouth was torrid during the first half of the 2008 campaign, then cooled. But his defensive play was consistently outstanding.

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[Paris Flights]

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