As first noted here last week, when students heard about Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's tuition tax, they took to the Tweets rather than the streets. A few more Web sites have gone up since then, and these are more focused on political action than on bitching on someone's Facebook wall.

CMU students have assembled a "Stop the Tuition Tax" Web site, complete with city council phone numbers, sample letters, and an online petition. 

Over at the University of Pittsburgh, meanwhile, grad students -- who've been often overlooked in the debate so far -- have launched an online petition opposing the tax.

And if you're browsing the internet anyway, check out this story about how the higher-ed community is watching Pittsburgh grapple with the tuition tax. One takeaway here is that whatever you want to say about Ravenstahl's proposal, the city is on the cutting edge of something:

Other cities are trying to find some way of generating tax revenue from the thousands of students who study there each year.

Maybe it was the rain, but it was hard to be optimistic about today's rally to save Braddock Hospital. I wasn't alone feeling that way, either. As I walked over to it, I saw a number of residents sitting on porches, just a block or two from the facility. 

"Not going to the hospital rally?" I called out to one resident.

"They're going to do whatever they're going to do," he shouted back, waving his hand dismissively.

UPMC's decision to shutter Braddock is really just the latest in a decades-long story of neglect and betrayal. Braddock is already on life support, and until now, the hospital was its lifeline.

As you may have heard by now, city council has introduced legislation that would require paying a prevailing wage to custodial, food-service, or other employees employed at projects that receive city tax-subsidies. 

The legislation has been talked about for months now, and is the first of a handful of initiatives designed to improve labor and environmental standards at city-backed developments. Presumably, the measure will be discussed more fully at next week's city council meeting. But for now, a few things are worth noting. 

First, the bill has seven co-sponsors. Among them are outgoing councilors Tonya Payne and Jim Motznik (who got a big attaboy from labor figures and other supporters outside council chambers yesterday). NOT among the sponsors are Patrick Dowd and Ricky Burgess. 

Payne and Motznik's support is notable because they are usually staunch allies of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl -- and the mayor opposes the bill.

No one knows what lies in store for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's 1 percent tuition tax. But one thing seems clear: It's going to be a test for the state-appointed financial oversight process. 

There's already been some attention given to a letter city councilor Bill Peduto sent to the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority today. In that letter, Peduto notes that the ICA was formed in part because in 2003, then-Mayor Tom Murphy proposed a budget that relied on non-existent tax revenue. "We again find ourselves in the same position," Peduto wrote. Ravenstahl's tax is supposed to raise $15 million, but it's not clear whether his tax proposal is legal either.

Oh, you've done it now, Mayor Ravenstahl. You have awoken the sleeping -- or perhaps hungover -- giant. In response to the mayor's 1 percent tuition tax, students have launched their own Facebook page. 

The Facebook group -- called Pittsburgh College Students Against the Tax on College Students -- already has 137 members. Which ain't bad for starters. (UPDATE: By day's end, the number of members was nearly twice that.

If you're anything like me, the first reaction you had to Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's tuition tax (or as I'm calling it, the "Get the Hell Off My Lawn" tax) was, "Well, that's all fine and good. But what are city Republicans going to think of it?"

Well, wonder no longer, my friends. For Bob Hillen, the ever-affable chair of the city GOP, has sent out the following missive late last night.

Text below, and italicized for your convenience. Two things strike me as interesting about it. 

1) Will union apprenticeship programs be subject to the tax? 

2) On the central issue at stake here -- the question of whether non-profits should be taxed -- Hillen and many local Democrats are in agreement.

So much for the post-election lull. City councilor Ricky Burgess is campaigning to be the next president of city council -- a position  currently held by Doug Shields. And while such contests are usually of interest to only a small number of City Hall junkies, who becomes council president next year may say a lot about the future, and the relationship between a newly-elected mayor and the legislators across the hall. 

Interviewed in his office, Burgess said he decided -- "somewhat relucantly" --  to seek the post, which will be chosen by the nine-member council early next year. The president, he says, must "serve all nine members of council," while being a "fair negotiator with the mayor and his administration. I believe the position cannot be an audition for mayor, but must be held by someone who can work honestly and collaboratively with the mayor, so we can work to address the needs of the city." 

There needs to be "open dialogue between the administration and council," he says.

Today's story about Daniel Lavelle by Rich Lord is a typically solid effort from the P-G's ace city hall reporter. But tucked into the piece about the new councilor-elect is an interesting disclosure: 

Mr. Lavelle has filed a written complaint against [incumbent councilor Tonya] Payne, who is the Pittsburgh Democratic Committee chair, for failing to support her party's nominee. Allegheny County Democratic Committee Chair Jim Burn said he will meet with Ms. Payne and decide if she will be stripped of her party posts.

What brought this on? There was an 11th-hour write-in campaign on Payne's behalf during the Nov. 3 election, even though she'd lost to Lavelle in the May primary. And Democrats generally don't look kindly on insiders who try to actively thwart the party.

There's an old saying -- I've heard it ascribed to FDR adviser Harry Hopkins -- that while tax policy often amounts to "robbing Peter in order to pay Paul," the person who does it can usually count on Paul's vote.

Which is an especially good deal if Peter doesn't vote at all. 

One way of looking at Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's proposal to tax college students is this: It's robbing the crowd at Peter's Pub  to pay the rest of Pittsburgh. And that's a politically viable idea because -- surprise, surprise -- college kids don't pay attention. 

To prove it, I took a look at nearly a dozen voting precincts in the city where at least 80 percent of the residents are between 18 and 39 years old. (I'm working from US Census data compiled by PA Voice, a project that tries to turn out young voters and others who historically don't show up at the polls much.) These precincts are concentrated largely in Oakland, Shadyside, and the areas around Duquesne University.

Today witnessed the pomp and pageantry of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's annual budget presentation to City Council.  And as first reported in today's Post-Gazette, the linchpin was a sure-to-be-controversial tax on college students.

The tax would be a 1 percent levy on their tuition (room and board would not be counted). A Pitt student, for example, would be paying about $135 a year -- with Carnegie Mellon students paying more, and CCAC students paying far less.

Ravenstahl couched the matter in terms of fairness -- to the point of calling this the "fair share" tax. (The official name is the "Post-Secondary Education Privilege Tax.") And he played, none too subtly, on the town-and-gown fissures that tend to afflict any college town.