May 10, 2008

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Posted at 01:01 am by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: Cartoons | four comments | Link To This Entry

May 09, 2008

Fifth, Walnut Improvements Coming

The long-awaited renovation of Fifth Avenue is set to begin later this summer.

City Administrator Dennis Pittman says the $929,000 project --- which will include new sidewalks, traffic signals, street lights, and the restoration of Downtown's main commercial street to two-way traffic --- was delayed until the remaining concrete archways of the Midtown Plaza Mall were removed.

This week, city council awarded a contract for nearly $60,000 to MB&R Piping Co. to demolish those archways. Funding for the demolition was provided by the state Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED).

The support beams are the last remaining part of the parking deck that once formed an overpass over Fifth Avenue, turning the already-narrow corridor into a tunnel. Work should be complete by June 30, Pittman says.

Fifth Avenue's reconstruction is being funded by the state's Home Town Streets initiative.

. . .

As for the failed Midtown Mall itself, Pittman says demolition of the interior is largely complete, and several potential tenants are interested in the space.

But leasing the space has been delayed because of the archways, he says.

Although the parking lot was demolished nearly five years ago, the concrete supports left behind were "a major deterrent," Pittman says.

Why? "Pigeons," he says. "They wait up there and get you."

(Pigeons! "PittGirl" is right!)

. . .

The Fifth Avenue work isn't the only improvement coming to a main street in the city.

City Clerk Patricia Williams announced that the DCED has awarded a $250,000 grant to install sidewalks along Walnut Street between the 15th Avenue Bridge and the Christy Park area.

Besides making it more convenient for people in the Third Ward to walk to Christy Park businesses (or vice versa), the sidewalks will add to the usability of the nearby biking-walking trail.

In other trail news: Council also gave its approval to convey more right-of-way for the segment of the trail between the McKees Point Marina and Duquesne.

The right-of-way will connect the former Union Railroad Bridge to the trail via Center Street, on the former National Works property.

. . .

Marshall Drive Extension: Work to extend Marshall Drive to Route 48 should get underway before the end of the year.

Mayor Jim Brewster said this week that the city is still waiting for a review to be completed by the state Department of Transportation. The contract will probably be awarded before the end of the year.

Extending Marshall Drive, which serves the Haler Heights area and Serra Catholic High School, will add a traffic-light controlled intersection.

Currently, the only access to Marshall Drive is via two blind intersections between Route 48 and Old Long Run Road; those intersections have been the scene of many accidents.

If the approval process isn't complete in time to get the work done before asphalt plants close for the winter, Brewster said, the paving may have to wait until Spring 2009.

While the state has awarded the city $800,000 to put toward the Marshall Drive project, the city will have to make up any funding difference between the grant and the final cost.

Besides the obvious safety improvements, completion of the extension will make vacant land near Tom Clark Chevrolet more marketable, Brewster said, noting that increased business tax revenue should offset any cost to the city.

"Sometimes people say, 'If you can't afford to fill my potholes, how can you extend Marshall Drive?'" he said. "These are two completely different pots of money."

. . .

To Do This Weekend: McKeesport Little Theater presents Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite," through May 18. Showtimes are 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Dinner will be served before this Saturday's show, but reservations are required.

The MLT is located at 1614 Coursin St., near the Carnegie Library and Cornell Intermediate School. Call (412) 673-1100 or visit their website.

Posted at 07:35 am by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: Events, News | two comments | Link To This Entry

May 08, 2008

Mayor: Health Care Bill 'Obscene'

Mayor Jim Brewster's new goal is to "fire Blue Cross-Blue Shield" as the city's health insurance carrier.

The pledge comes after Highmark, the Pittsburgh region's Blue Cross licensee and its dominant health care provider, raised the rate on one city plan by $620,000 --- nearly 84 percent.

According to city Controller Ray Malinchak, the increase amounts to approximately $16,000 for each of the 80 city hall, public works and other administrative employees covered under a collective bargaining agreement with Teamsters Local 205.

At last night's city council meeting, Brewster called the increase "obscene" and said that Highmark officials have declined to discuss their decision, except to say that the rates were increased because of an spike in the number of claims filed by people covered under the policy.

However, Highmark will not release the number or type of claims, the mayor said. "We already asked for it," he said. "We can't have it."

"It's a very emotional issue, because if you have children or you're elderly or you have health problems, you start to worry that you're going to lose" your coverage, Brewster said, "or you're going to have to pay a lot more out of your paycheck."

If passed directly along to city employees, the increased premium would cost each of them about $325 per week, he said.

. . .

The city learned of the increase when it was invoiced on Friday.

"I think it's a complete corporate embarrassment that (Highmark) did not even contact this city or this mayor and give us any advance warning," Brewster said. "Nothing."

Although the contract with the Teamsters has specified Blue Cross-Blue Shield coverage since at least 1994, Brewster said it allows the city to substitute an "equivalent or better" health insurance plan.

The mayor said he met this week with Local 205 President Bill Lickert and other union officials, and the Teamsters understand the city's need to shop for a less-expensive alternative.

Brewster has already scheduled a meeting with another health insurance carrier.

Highmark's "attitude is there aren't many other vendors out there," he said. "Maybe they don't think we're smart enough (to find one). They say, 'Well, Mr. Mayor, just raise taxes.'

"Well, we're not going to raise taxes," Brewster said. "We'll give them a little taste of McKeesport competitiveness."

. . .

Councilor Paul Shelly asked Brewster if the city could purchase health insurance jointly with other governmental entities --- for instance, neighboring communities --- and increase the risk pool to save money.

Brewster said the city is investigating the legal implications, but that he's already approached the McKeesport Housing Authority and the McKeesport Area School District.

The city is also considering a complaint to the state Insurance Commissioner.

. . .


The health insurance increase wasn't the only unexpected bill handed to city councilors last night.

By a 6-0 vote, they also awarded an emergency $42,000 contract to Patterson Home Improvements to repair the roof at the former municipal building on Lysle Boulevard.

Although city offices have moved to the old McKeesport National Bank building at Fifth and Sinclair streets, the 1959 structure at Lysle and Market still houses the police and fire stations.

Police and fire personnel are expected to move in a few years to a new regional courthouse and public safety building on Walnut Street in the Third Ward.

Malinchak and Councilor Darryl Segina questioned where the city was going to find the money for the roof repairs.

Brewster said at least three tenants --- state Sen. Sean Logan, the Regional Chamber Alliance, and the Twin Rivers Council of Governments --- have asked about leasing offices in the Lysle Boulevard structure.

The rental income would more than offset the cost of the repairs, the mayor said.

"The alternative to not doing this is continued damage," Brewster said, which would make it impossible to sell or lease the building.

Posted at 08:00 am by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: News | one comment | Link To This Entry

May 07, 2008

Radical Cleric in Our Midst

I don't want to discuss the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his relationship to Barack Obama, which has been beaten to death by talk radio and cable TV news.

But according to stories coming out of Indiana, about half of the people who voted against Obama in the Democratic primary say that Wright's controversial remarks --- especially the sermon where he said "God damn America" --- were an important factor in their decision.

Exit polls in Pennsylvania, where white Catholics went overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton, indicate that many voters here were also offended by Wright's remarks.

Well, hang onto your hats. You'll only read this at Tube City Almanac.

By accident, I have unearthed similar radical sermons by a local Catholic priest who has been endorsed and praised over the years by many politicians and community leaders, including several mayors of Pittsburgh, state Rep. Dave Levdansky of Elizabeth, Andrew "Lefty" Palm of the United Steel Workers of America, and Duquesne University Chancellor John Murray.

And I demand to know why these people haven't denounced this left-wing anti-American zealot the way that Barack Obama was forced to denounce Wright.

Here's what this local priest said about the Iraq war:

What have we to be proud of? Licking a nation of 19 million people and a tired army that had not mastered modern military science? Its real soldiers were outnumbered three or four to one.

That was not a war but a punitive expedition against an outmatched foe. But it pleased George Bush, who likes the idea of being a "war" president a la FDR and Wilson, and our war-like people for the most part enjoy the excitement and pumped up tension of war, especially one against a tin-horn "strong" man.

Remember, we have never tasted firsthand here at home the horror of a modern war.

It sounds to me like this radical pastor is bashing our troops in a time of war --- and saying that America should be attacked as punishment! He's also an elitist who considers average, working-class Americans "war-like."

And I want to point out again that some of our most prominent local officials have praised this man. Appalling!

Worse yet, when Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, he received the enthusiastic endorsement of this priest. Why didn't Clinton reject his endorsement? I think we have a right to know.

Here's some more of this priest's dangerous thinking:

Seers in the White House are relieved that, according to public opinion polls, the American people are not bothered by the overkilling of Iraqis.

If the polls are correct, we Americans are not a good people, but are heartless and selfish. Now the God who, the self-same polls assure us, we believe in ... will surely punish us and our children severely. It will go much worse for us that we believe in Him and actually do much in His name which we invoke ad nauseam.

But I hope against hope that the polls are wrong because I love my country. I fear for her soul ... Are we really that evil?

He considers Americans "heartless" and "selfish" and "evil," and predicts that God is going to punish us. By the standards of commentators for talk radio, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and major American newspapers, this so-called "holy man" is a dangerous un-American leftist.

Unfortunately, no one in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh is able to punish him!

You see, he died two years ago.

Those passages were written by the late Msgr. Charles Owen Rice. Both were published in that well-known radical newspaper, the Pittsburgh Catholic.

The first is from March 8, 1991, and the second is from April 12, 1991.

No, I don't really think Pittsburgh's legendary "labor priest" was a dangerous radical. In fact, I think he was a great and brave spiritual leader.

I also find it funny that when Msgr. Rice wrote those things in the bishop's official newspaper, read by more than 100,000 local Catholics, few people batted an eye.

Now, many Catholics (and I am one) are claiming that they voted against Obama because of things his pastor said --- which frankly aren't all that different from Rice's comments.

It makes me wonder if a lot of people who voted against Obama are using Jeremiah Wright as an excuse.

I can't possibly speak for Rice, but I strongly suspect that if the monsignor were alive today, he'd be telling those people to find some other excuse.

Or more likely, counseling all of us to examine our consciences carefully.

(more)

Posted at 11:43 pm by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: Politics | nine comments | Link To This Entry

May 06, 2008

Despite Challenges, City YMCA Endures

The next few months could determine the future of McKeesport's 120-year-old YMCA.

But one thing is for certain --- like the mission commander in the movie "Apollo 13," YMCA Executive Director Dexter Hairston says "failure is not an option."

In fact, he does more than say it. Hairston's got it posted in one of the upstairs classrooms used by the McKeesport Y's Teen LEAD empowerment program.

Hairston and others are awaiting the results of a report commissioned by the national board of the YMCA examining the challenges facing the local institution, including long-term debt, an aging building, and a depressed market.

. . .

One problem the McKeesport Y doesn't suffer is a lack of local interest. In fact, the YMCA, located in a landmark building Downtown on Sinclair Street, remains a vital community asset.

It currently serves more than 5,000 people annually in various education and wellness programs, including 1,100 regular members who primarily use the fitness center, swimming pool, indoor running track, handball court and gymnasium.

The McKeesport Y also operates Camp T. Frank Soles, a 263-acre facility near Seven Springs, as well as two educational outreach centers at the city's public housing communities, Crawford Village and Harrison Village.

Hairston came to the YMCA in 2001 to oversee the Teen LEAD program.

He was named executive director last year after what current and former McKeesport YMCA board members privately tell Tube City Almanac was a period of lackluster oversight and leadership. They claim that partnerships with other local institutions were ignored, maintenance was deferred and fundraising was conducted informally or not at all, leading the McKeesport YMCA to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

New finance director Fred Vey Jr., who came to the McKeesport Y in March after working in development for LaRoche College and other institutions, is in charge of straightening out the books.

. . .

This month, the McKeesport Y is trying to raise $30,000 in contributions for long-needed capital improvements. Board members and staff are meeting in person with potential donors to plead their case. They're hoping for individual donations of $1,000 and up.

Hairston admits that $30,000 is a modest goal, but says it was necessary to keep initial expectations low; the campaign is the first concerted fundraising effort by the McKeesport Y in several years.

"We're trying to have as many face-to-face meetings as possible," he says. Next week, staff, volunteers and board members will meet to discuss their progress and start planning for next year.

. . .

The Y's mission has traditionally included athletics --- besides its fitness center, it sponsors basketball, swimming and dek hockey teams --- but one of the most crucial programs it currently offers might be its variety free homework help, tutoring, teen counseling and leadership seminars.

The programs are designed to encourage McKeesport kids to aspire to a life off the streets and following a career and life path of their choice.

"We make a big deal out of bringing in outsiders to talk about healthy decision making," Hairston says. "We want to make sure that kids see as many different faces doing positive things as they can."

McKeesport is a "sports-crazy town," he says. "Everyone wants to be the next NFL player. But playing football or basketball should be a path to getting a college education. You've got to have a plan B or even a plan C."

Students who have participated in the Y's leadership programs have gone on to nearly all of the region's colleges, Hairston says.

. . .

One traditional function that endures in McKeesport despite being dropped by most other YMCAs is low-cost housing. Although almost all YMCAs once offered sleeping rooms and small apartments, the city's Y is one of only three in Allegheny County, and a handful in Pennsylvania, that still allow overnight stays.

Most of the McKeesport Y's 87 upstairs rooms are now occupied by people with physical disabilities, mental illness, or severely limited incomes. The residential program is self-supporting and funded in part through local and federal subsidies.

"It was the original concept of the YMCA, and we still get people who want to stay overnight" while they travel, Hairston says.

But the residents aren't a good fit with the people (many of them children) who use the Y's other programs.

"It's not a good operational mix," Hairston says. "We are looking at ways to separate the residential program."

. . .

One way to keep fitness buffs and residents from bumping into each other might be for the YMCA to move the fitness and educational programs out of its historic 86-year-old building to another site in the city.

Though many members love the atmosphere, maintenance costs are steep and the entire building is in need of expensive repairs and improvements, Vey says.

"How much longer can we continue to occupy this building if we want to continue to grow?" Hairston says.

Another way for the McKeesport Y to grow, unfortunately, might be for it to surrender its independence.

. . .

McKeesport's board members are currently considering a plan to merge the Y into the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh, which absorbed the East Suburban YMCA in Wilmerding several years ago.

In fact, the McKeesport and Sewickley Ys are the only independent YMCAs left in Allegheny County --- and the Sewickley area's economic status is drastically different from the Mon-Yough area's, to put it mildly.

A merger would give the McKeesport YMCA access to marketing and personnel resources that it can't match on its own, Hairston says.

"They're a big metropolitan YMCA, and they have a strongly recognized organization throughout the area," he says.

The Greater Pittsburgh YMCA is already lending management expertise to the McKeesport YMCA, and with the help of the national YMCA, a group of management students recently fanned out through the Mon-Yough area to interview residents and help the McKeesport board set a direction for the institution.

"What are we going to look like in two or five years? Do we want to go in more of a wellness direction and do less with our programs, or vice versa?" Hairston says. "We're making decisions based on the facts, and listening to the community."

. . .

Donations to the YMCA of McKeesport may be made via the United Way of Allegheny County (you must specify donor code 112) or sent to 523 Sinclair St., McKeesport, PA 15132.

The Y's offerings include health, fitness and swimming classes, and programs aerobics, aquatics, camping, family and youth development. Its facilities include a pool, gym, fitness center, weight room, aerobics/dance studio, handball/racquetball court, indoor running track, sauna/steam room, whirlpool/jacuzzi, and meeting facilities. Call (412) 664-9168.

Posted at 07:16 am by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: News | No comments | Link To This Entry

May 05, 2008

Smog Gets in Your Eyes

In case you missed it, last week the American Lung Association named Pittsburgh the "sootiest city" in the United States, surpassing Southern California.

(Los Angeles is still the champ in overall air pollution, so we have some work to do if we want to catch up. Get out there and run those lawnmowers, people!)

And it's all because of the air monitoring station in Liberty Borough, which sniffs the smoggy air drifting across the river from Clairton ... specifically, from U.S. Steel's Clairton Works.

First, a note about Clairton Works is in order. Although it's owned by U.S. Steel, it's not a "steel mill." It no longer makes steel, but still makes "coke."

We're not talking about the stuff you put in rum. This coke is highly concentrated coal used to fuel industrial furnaces.

To make coke, they heat coal to extremely high temperatures and burn away the impurities. Many of these impurities can be captured and reused to make chemicals, coatings, paints and gases, but others escape into the atmosphere, and they can be pretty foul.

. . .

Growing up in Liberty, I always took the pollution from Clairton Works in stride, even though a mentor of mine was heavily involved in the Group Against Smog and Pollution, which has campaigned against Clairton Works for years.

I couldn't quite share his outrage at the smog and smell from across the river. I'm enough of a McKeesport kid to know that smoke = jobs = money. About the time that the skies cleared in the Mon Valley, we all started eating a lot of government cheese.

Plus, the stuff that now comes out of Clairton Works is nothing like it was even 20 years ago. The hillside along Glassport-Elizabeth Road used to be completely brown and barren. It's now lush and green.

In addition, U.S. Steel has committed to investing a billion dollars in Clairton Works over the next decade, which should greatly reduce the amount of pollution. (It's not all altruistic. U.S. Steel stands to profit by capturing as many of the coal byproducts as possible --- there's gold in them there chemicals.)

Besides, if I was really freaked out about the environment, I probably wouldn't now live next to Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory. (If the coke gas doesn't get me, the radiation will.)

. . .

On the other hand, when I was a kid in Liberty Borough, I often woke up in the summertime, when the windows were open, to find my bedroom literally full of haze from Clairton Works. It was sulfurous and rank.

I also developed asthma and bad allergies as a kid, and I still have them. I have no proof that Clairton Works was responsible (my grandfather had asthma, too, and he grew up in Indiana County) but sometimes I wonder.

My best friend's dad worked at Jones & Laughlin's now-closed coke plant in Hazelwood. If you remember what Second Avenue was like in the summertime, when that plant was going full blast, you can only imagine what the conditions were like inside.

In fact, the output from the coke plant was strong enough to peel the chrome from the bumpers of his dad's Buick LeSabre. His dad died young, too --- at about the same time the Hazelwood plant closed.

Again, I have no proof that his death was related to 30 years of breathing that smoke and soot, but if the pollution could strip the bumpers of a Buick, it couldn't have been good for your insides.

. . .

We all like the advantages of modern life, and plastics, quick-drying paints, medicines and pharmaceuticals all come from coal derivatives.

(It's not a stretch to say that something you're using right now probably contains chemicals that were captured in Clairton. There are only a handful of American coke plants, and Clairton Works is one of the largest in the world.)

Plus, we need the high-paying, blue-collar jobs that Clairton Works and coal-mining provide.

But we also need clean air, so I can't work up outrage like the editorial board of the Tribune-Review, which last week attacked the American Lung Association for "ecological malpractice."

"This is the same kind of nonsensical selective 'science' that has led to global warming hysteria and proposals for economy-killing 'solutions,'" huffed the newspaper.

That's one of the dumber things ever printed on a newspaper editorial page, which is really saying something. You can almost hear them going "harrumph!" and pounding their canes on the table.

By the way, proving that newspapers hold no monopoly on stupid, here's the Pittsburgh Today blog complaining that the Mon Valley isn't "Pittsburgh," and that Pittsburgh shouldn't be blamed for Clairton's pollution: "If ALA wants to use the air quality readings at the Liberty Monitor (sic) to rank something as #1 in the country, it should rank the Mon Valley as #1, not 'Pittsburgh.'"

Isn't that convenient? When the City of Pittsburgh wants Allegheny County taxpayers to bail them out, we're all part of "Pittsburgh," and should embrace government consolidation.

When the Mon Valley's got pollution, we're on our own.

. . .

I guess what I'm saying is that life needs a balance. U.S. Steel didn't clean up the output from the Clairton Works in the 1970s and '80s because they thought it was the right thing to do.

They did it because GASP, the Lung Association, the Sierra Club and other groups lobbied the government for tighter clean-air standards, and the Environmental Protection Agency sat on U.S. Steel until they complied.

But if we want vinyl seat covers and plastic toys and nail polish and spray paint and medical products ... oh, and steel ... we need to refine coal into coke, and that's going to create pollution.

Personally, I'd rather have the jobs in the Mon-Yough area instead of the third world, so pouting and stomping our feet about the big, bad coke plant isn't helpful.

But railing against environmentalists (for what the Trib calls "agenda-biased ecocratic pronouncements") isn't helpful, either.

. . .

It would be nice if people on the left and the right would occasionally get off of their pedestals and remember that life comes with certain trade-offs. No one holds the moral high ground exclusively or forever.

Instead, zealots on both sides just blow a bunch of hot air.

And as everyone knows, hot air doesn't do anything except make smog worse.

Posted at 08:00 am by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: Mon Valley Miscellany | three comments | Link To This Entry