The Worst Advice Money Can Buy

Tampa has hired Tom Murphy for a paid speaking engagement. Murphy will give advice to civic leaders on how they can renovate downtown Tampa. Murphy generated publicity for his proposals to revive downtown Pittsburgh. Eric Heyl documents the good works Murphy did.

The front of the boarded-up G.C. Murphy building might never have received the fresh coat of eye-appealing black paint it sports today.

The long-abandoned Revco drugstore building on Fifth Avenue might never have discovered new life as, er, a long-abandoned Revco drugstore.

The wig stores, nail places and check-cashing marts that sprung up in the Fifth-Forbes Avenue corridor during Murphy's tenure might have fled for tonier suburban locales.

The scent of urine along McMasters Way, the narrow alley linking the panhandlers of Market Square and the nearly deserted Fifth Avenue, might not be nearly so pungent.

Maybe that's why downtown Pittsburgh has a Safety Ambassador Program.

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership (PDP), a nonprofit organization that manages the Business Improvement District (BID) in Downtown Pittsburgh, plans to launch a new Safety Ambassador Program in summer 2006. PDP’s Safety Ambassadors will provide a range of public safety and hospitality services geared toward Downtown workers, businesses, residents and visitors. The specially trained Safety Ambassador team will augment existing public safety services, act as informational resources and function as liaisons with street-level merchants. The Safety Ambassador team will be trained in CPR and basic first aid, conflict resolution and problem solving, and will have extensive knowledge of human service issues, such as homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness, etc. The Safety Ambassador team will augment the efforts of the Pittsburgh Police Department and will work closely with the police to identify and address nuisance crime issues. The Safety Ambassador team will not be commissioned, will have no powers of enforcement, and will not be armed.

Let me get this straight. Tampa is paying Murphy to help create, a homeless and drug problem, they already have downtown. The stupidity is these people never even visited Pittsburgh before they signed Murphy.

If anyone has information about Murphy's speaking engagement - email me.