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Councilwoman Rudiak's South PGH Newsletter | July 2017
Sent 07/07/2017 @ 2:52 pm
Working to Make South Pittsburgh a Better Place, Every Day...
Every month, our South Pittsburgh newsletter highlights neighborhood news, project updates, and major developments in our District. Much of our everyday work that goes into these bigger accomplishments goes unseen. Here are just a few things that Councilwoman Rudiak and staff did in June!
-Councilwoman Rudiak brought the City's new Director of Mobility and Infrastructure on a driving tour of South Pittsburgh. Director Ricks was able to see first-hand some of the challenges that we face trying to get around, including traffic gridlock and lack of access to public transit on Route 51, speeding along our residential and main streets, and lack of comprehensive traffic calming things like speed humps and pedestrian crossings at key intersections.
-We met with the new Critical Communities Initiatives Manager from the Mayor's office to discuss mutual efforts to address the heroin epidemic.
-Councilwoman Rudiak spoke to 5th graders from Roosevelt Elementary School at their promotion ceremony about kindness. We wish them all the best as they enter the 6th grade!
-We attended another Friends of Phillips Park meeting. The trail names have been set and we were thrilled to see that group members made requests for things like clearing out the trails and fixed eroded steps in the Capital Budget process.
-Beechview neighbors joined us for the Beechview "Walkshop", where we walked Broadway to discuss community needs in light of the $600,000+ grant that our office landed for the neighborhood. In total, over a million dollars will be invested to make Broadway Avenue work for everyone who uses it!&
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-We interviewed candidates for the position of Executive Director for Gender Equity. This person will work to make sure the City has a level playing field for men and women.
-Brag Open House: My staff joined board members of the Beechview Revitalization Advisory Group, or
BRAG, for an open house at the new green space on Beechview Avenue, near the parking lot. Neighbors came together to enjoy delicious local food, talk about their hopes for the community, and sign up to stay in touch about future opportunities to volunteer or v
oice their opinions for neighborhood projects. You can stay in touch with BRAG on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeechviewRevitalizationAdvisoryGroup/
-We met with the Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich, Fire Bureau Chief Jones and two public safety emergency planners to discuss flooding concerns on Route 51 and Provost Road; we discussed how to reduce the amount of water that ends up on the roads through stormwater management, we talked about how we need to clean up the creek, and we also talked about ways to get organizations like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers involved to come up with permanent, long-term solutions for our neighbors who are repeatedly flooded out.
-The first meeting of the Early Childhood Task Force was held in the Mayor's conference room and subject matter experts from child care centers, philanthropy, and other organizations talked about updates to the child care provider quality rating system, and taking best practices from other cities on how to implement universal pre-K.
-We held the first meeting of the South Pittsburgh Opioid Action Coalition (SPOAC), a group we formed to address opioid addiction and ov
erdose in our neighborhoods. The vision statement of the group is: “Connect every person to all the help they need when they need it, with empathy and compassion, breaking down barriers through education and advocacy”.
-Our office attended the Chicken Hill Meeting; which is working to finalize the plans to improve McKinley Park.
-We spent the day with about 30 new police recruits at the Pittsburgh Police Training Academy going through the Bureau's inaugural heroin/opioid training, where those in recovery and service providers helped everyone gain a better perspective on how police can address the epidemic from their position as law enforcement.
Carrick High School Receives National Award
U.S. News & World Report has awarded Carrick High School a Bronze Medal designation in its 2017 Best High Schools nationwide rankings! In Pennsylvania, Carrick ranks number 130 out of 675 high schools.&
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Rankings include criteria on college-readiness, performance on state tests, graduation rates, and performance of historically disadvantaged populations. Rankings were based on data from over 20,000 public high schools in every state and the District of Columbia.
Congratulations are also in order for Pittsburgh CAPA, Pittsburgh Science & Technological Academy, and Alderdice High School; all of which earned Silver Medals.
Overbrook Community Council presents Neighbor, a PopUp Café -- Saturday, 7/8 noon to 9:30pm
This Saturday, July 8th from noon to 9:30PM, the fields at the Old Overbrook School (2140 Saw Mill Run Boulevard) will be transformed into a PopUp café and community space! The day will include food trucks, live music, games, face painting, beer, cocktails, 6' beach balls, plenty of time and space to spend time with neighbors, and MORE!
Neighbor features an ADA-accessible bathroom, and all are welcome and encouraged to attend! Join us as we raise money for the Overbrook Community Council and have a great time celebrating South Pittsburgh and all it has to offer!
Broadway Avenue Improvements: Public Meeting
Join us on Wednesday, July 19th at 7:00 PM at St. Catherine's Church in Beechview to share your vision and dreams for Broadway Avenue improvements! Back in 2015, our office wrote an application to the PA Department of Community and Economic Development Multimodal grant fund. The Multimodal program helps communities grow and prosper by ensuring safe and reliable connections to transportatio
n. We thought Broadway Avenue was the perfect place for this kind of work, and they agreed, granting the City $600,000 for street improvements. Funds may be used to rehabilitate the T-stops, improve the streetscape, add lighting, enhance sidewalks, improve pedestrian crossings, and more.
Beechview residents are invited to this meeting to review preliminary designs for Broadway improvements, and share their likes, dislikes, and concerns with the designers. The team will compile all the feedback they receive, and use it to make the final design the best it can be. See you there at St. Catherine's on Wednesday, 7/19 at 7pm!
Pittsburgh Marathon thanks District 4!
District 4 was awarded a medal of honor thanks to all of the South Pittsburgh runners who participates in the 2017 Dick's Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon. Out of all runners, District 4 had:
-783 Total Runners
-55 "Run for a Reason" charity runners, who raised $21,026!
-The HIGHEST "Toddler Trot: participation
-140 "Kids of Steel" who participated in the Toyota Pittsburgh Kids Marathon
Congratulations to all of the District 4 Runners!
Carrick-Overbrook Block Watch Schedule
The summer meetings of the Carrick-Overbrook Block Watch will be held in the basement of the Zion Church at the corner of Madeline and Brownsville Road. Use the red door on Madeline to enter.
In September, meetings will return to their usual location; The Auditorium at Concord Elementary School.
Oasis Intergenerational Tutoring -- An Hour a Week Can Change a Child's Life
Volunteers tutor students in Pittsburgh Public or Woodland Hills School Districts in grades K-4 in reading and writing. Free training will be given to mature adults (50+). All materials and clearances are provided by OASIS. Training sessions will be held on Tuesday, August 8th and Thursday, August 10th from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at OASIS Office located in the Duquesne Light Building, Suite 525, 411 Seventh Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. For more information on how to become an OASIS tutor, please contact John D. Spehar, Pittsburgh OASIS Tutoring Program Director at (412) 393-7648 or by email at jdsp...@oasisnet.org. OASIS is an affiliate of Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council.
At the Beechview Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Louis Suarez was hired last summer as a temporary teen employee for The Labs Summer Skill Intensives program. Last summer, there were five such programs focused on hands-on creative skills like music, outdoor painting, and street art. Beechview teens focused on photojournalism, using newly-acquired skills to document their community. Mr. Suarez helped to create the online portfolio for the project. Check out https://thelabs.wordpress.com/ to check out their work!
Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) - Be Prepared for Emergencies
When first responders are delayed or a major emergency occurs, who can help until aid arrives? In the 1980s after a series of
earthquakes, Los Angeles developed a program to train civilian community members to meet their immediate needs in a major e
mergency. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recognized the value of preparing citizens to respond and ass
ist government in an emergency. FEMA adopted and expanded CERT materials, making them applicable to All Hazards Incidents.
The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills; fire safety, light rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations among them. Using the training learned in the classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhoods when professional responders are not immediately available to help. CERT members are also encouraged to support emergency response agencies by taking a more active role in emergency
preparedness projects in their community.
CERT Team Training provides team members with classroom and hands-on training in real world emergency response procedures. The CERT training for community groups is delivered one evening session each week for 7 weeks. Sessions are about 2.5 hours long. Training includes:
-Disaster Preparedness
-Fire Safety and Utilities
-Disaster Medical Operations
-Urban Search and Rescue
-Team Organization
-Disaster Psychology
-Terrorism Awareness
The Program will identify and control lead-based paint hazards in approximately 175 eligible renter and owner-occupied units in Allegheny County for those who qualify based on income.
If you rent or own a home in Allegheny County:
-Built before 1978
-Have a child under 6 years old or a pregnant person living in the home
-Your pre-tax income falls below the following:
Family Size Pre-Tax Income
2 $45,600
3 $51,300
4 $56,950
5 $61,550
6 $66,100
Then you may be eligible. The program will test for and identify lead-based paint hazards in your home. A Pennsylvania State Certified Lead Abatement Contractor hired by the Program will repair lead hazards found during testing, like painting lead-hazardous surfaces, window repair/replacement, enclosing exterior trim, and door repair or replacement. Once the work has been completed, a visual inspection and lead-dus
t sampling and testing will be performed to ensure the home is lead-safe.
Call the Allegheny Lead-Safe Homes Hotline at 412-227-5700 t
o learn more. For more information about Lead, contact the Allegheny County Health Department Housing & Community Environment at 412-350-4046 or ACHD.net. You can also learn about Lead from the CDC at www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead or the EPA at www.epa.gove/lead.
Meeting and Events
Saturday, July 8, noon to 9:30pm – Neighbor Café: a PopUp Community Event, fields at the Overbrook School, 2140 Saw Mill Run Boulevard
Tuesday, July 11, 7pm – Brookline Block Watch, Judge Motznik's Office, 736 Brookline Boulevard
Monday, July 17, 7pm – South Pittsburgh Development Corporation, Brookline Teen Outreach, 520 Brookline Boulevard
Tuesday, July 18, 6pm -- Carrick Communities Against Crime, Dairy District Pavilion, 1529 Brownsville Road
Wednesday, July 19, 7pm – Broadway Avenue Public Meeting, St. Catherine's Church, 1810 Belasco Avenue
Thursday, July 20, 5:30pm – Beltzhoover Community Forum, 201 Chalfont Street
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Contact:
Bethani Cameron
Community Relations Manager
Office: 412-255-2131
Email
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