City Council postpones Fair Share Tax vote again

Divided Pittsburgh City Council members decided once again to postpone voting on the Fair Share… Divided Pittsburgh City Council members decided once again to postpone voting on the Fair Share Tax by one week yesterday.

The council members spent about half an hour debating the merit of postponing the vote to give city officials more time to negotiate with local universities.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, who met with the presidents of Robert Morris, Carlow and Point Park universities earlier this week, had asked the council to postpone its vote by another week so he could continue his negotiations with the institutions.

Last week, council members Tonya Payne, Theresa Kail-Smith, Darlene Harris and Jim Motznik met privately with Point Park President Paul Hennigan and Mary Hines, Carlow University president and chair of the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education, which represents Pitt, among other schools.

Council president Doug Shields said he called several university presidents and knew “nothing” had come out of the meetings.

“Not one of these conversations has been productive. It’s just a fact of life, guys,” Shields said,

Shields and Councilmen Bruce Kraus and Bill Peduto voted against postponing the vote, while Payne, Kail-Smith, Harris and Councilmen Ricky Burgess and Patrick Dowd voted in favor of postponement. Motznik was absent.

Kail-Smith disagreed with Shields’ comments about the negotiations, saying, “For us to assume there was no progress made, that’s just what we’re doing — assuming.”

Shields said continuing to consider the Fair Share Tax threatens the universities to pay the city in other ways.

“The threat becomes even more empty when you don’t act on it,” he said. “I would ask that we simply vote this away.”

Payne disagreed.

“This is not about threats. This is about generating revenue, ” she said.

Burgess said he’d like to see city officials continue to negotiate with the universities. He referenced a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article that said several of the city’s nonprofits, including Pitt, agreed in 2004 to pay $6 million per year in donations to the city.

Burgess said the nonprofits had not given the city the donations and that, “If they want to do the right thing, they will have to put money on the table … If the students are taxed, it won’t be the mayor’s fault.”

Pitt spokesman Robert Hill said in an e-mail, “There was never an agreement by the nonprofits to pay $6 million.”

Dowd voted to postpone the vote because there were too many people in support of the Fair Share Tax.

“There wasn’t a student tax when I came here, and I hope there won’t be one when I leave,” he said.