Allegheny County Council divided over appointments to Allegheny County Sanitary Authority
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- For years, Allegheny County Council has been a mostly sedate board, but lately, it's been anything but.
The council is now deeply divided over appointments to the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority. On Tuesday night, that anger spilled over again.
When council rejected Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald's two appointments to the ALCOSAN board two weeks ago, the debate spilled outside with council members jawing at each other in the hallway. But on Tuesday when Council President Pat Catena tried to censure one of those members, he got an earful from Councilman DeWitt Walton.
Catena: I'm going to ask you to kindly refrain from using foul language at a county council meeting.
Walton: Well, censure me. Censure me. I'm trying to operate in an honorable and transparent manner.
But the confrontation between Catena and Walton did not end there.
Catena: Again, I'm not going to warn you again about your language.
Walton: Put me out, have me arrested.
Catena: Do you want me to have you removed?
Walton: Have me removed.
Afterward, a calmer Walton said Fitzgerald's appointments should have been approved but politics got in the way.
"What's occurred tonight should not have occurred," Walton said. "Those individuals who were rejected two weeks ago deserve better. Our county deserves better."
Council did not act on that censure motion and sent it to committee. But the divisions remain.
