Wagner lobbies to keep weights-and-measures authority
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New Controller Chelsa Wagner wants to make sure her office continues to monitor store scales and gas pumps throughout Allegheny County.
In a statement issued this morning, Ms. Wagner said she is concerned that county Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who also took office this month, wants to take over the regulations of weights and measures. The task of making sure that measuring devices, including UPC scanners and parking meters, are accurate has been the responsibility of the controller since 2008, but Mr. Fitzgerald's office is reviewing whether that should be an administrative function.
"County residents deserve to know that a gallon of gas is a gallon of gas, that a pound of lunch meat is a pound of lunch meat," Ms. Wagner said in a statement. "And that is precisely why, by law, this function is performed by the controller's office -- to ensure that independent validation."
Amie Downs, a spokeswoman for Mr. Fitzgerald, said his administration has had conversations about the topic, but no legislation has been presented to council proposing a change.
It may make more sense, she suggested, to have such duties handled by the county's executive branch. Checking scales and gas pumps is more an administrative function of government, while the controller's duties center on auditing activities, Ms. Downs said.
First Published January 31, 2012 12:00 am
