Joseph Sabino Mistick: 'Is this a good idea?' the first question to ask

“Is this a good idea?” Many questions are important, but if you are in a political or government position and your decisions affect the lives of others, it is exceptionally important.

When Pittsburgh City Council members were sworn in this month, newly elected 34-year-old Bob Charland used his remarks to question some of the policies of Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration and suggest better ways to move the city forward. It got some attention, coming from a freshman legislator with the mayor sitting just feet away.

Charland asked if it is a good idea for the city to “extract as much as we possibly can” from developers instead of working with them to make housing more affordable. Gainey has managed to look “tough on developers,” but his out-of-touch demands have halted much-needed development and scuttled his own affordable housing goal.

Charland asked if it is a good idea to “villainize every officer who wears a uniform” instead of building trust in the city’s police department. Gainey has defunded the police — diverting some of their funding, cutting their budget and allowing the force to dwindle to dangerous levels.

Charland asked if it is a good idea to draw “blood from nonprofits” instead of having them pay their employees fairly and using their tax dollars to help the city. Unrealistically, Gainey has attempted to mount a war with UPMC — the region’s largest employer — challenging its tax assessments while demanding that it recognize the SEIU, his largest union campaign contributor, to represent its employees. So far, he has lost nearly every appeal.

Along with all that, consider the ongoing questions surrounding no-bid contracts and the administration’s award of grants to community groups with no accounting for their spending, and it is clear that council members should be asking “Is this a good idea?” more often. That’s what it means to be a living part of a check-and-balance system. For the taxpayers, and for their own sake and the mayor’s, this council should stop rubber- stamping the administration’s submissions.

It is also a good question to ask more often on the national level. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough calls Donald Trump “the political heroin of losing.” While Trump has been the leader of the Republican Party, Scarborough says, the party has lost elections every year from 2017 through 2023.

There have been opportunities for Republicans to separate from Trump and possibly end their losing streak — two impeachment votes and in the days when he was temporarily ostracized after he led the Jan. 6 insurrection — but his supporters in Congress and the party let him back in every time. Things could be much different for other national Republican candidates if someone had asked, “Is this a good idea?” and moved on without Trump.

And it is good question for all of us to ask, even in our personal lives, when we are not sure what to do. When now-retired Allegheny County President Judge Joe James taught ethics at Duquesne Law School, he opened his first lecture by saying that 90% of the tough questions we all face can be handled quite easily.

Looking at the class while poking his own belly, James would say, “In life or in the law, if something doesn’t feel right in your gut, it’s usually not right. Before making a big decision, just ask yourself this question: ‘Is this a good idea?’ ”