Filed Under: News || By Submitted Report
Category: News || By Jason Togyer
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An aggressive program to combat petty and nuisance crimes is designed to improve the quality of life and make people feel safer in their homes, Mayor Mike Cherepko and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. said yesterday.
At a press conference at McKee's Point Cafe, Cherepko, Zappala and city police Chief Bryan Washowich announced that during 12 sweeps involving multiple law-enforcement agencies, more than 100 people have been arrested on charges such as drug possession, trespassing and loitering as part of a concerted effort to take back McKeesport's streets.
"Rudy Giuliani started cleaning up New York City with this kind of approach," Zappala said. "We are trying to send a message that even nuisance-level crimes will not be tolerated."
The program --- being run through the Allegheny County District Attorney's Narcotics Enforcement Team, or DANET --- is only a few months old, and Zappala and Cherepko acknowledged that there are no statistics yet to prove that program is lowering the crime rate.
But the initial feedback from residents and community leaders has been "nothing but positive," Cherepko said.
"What we're hearing about is a reduction in the fear of crime," Washowich said.
Besides improving quality-of-life, Zappala described the effort as an economic development campaign. "You can't do anything as an elected official if it's not safe," he said. "You can't bring businesses down here, you can't get people to invest."
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Category: News || By Submitted Report
Auberle hopes that its new facility for girls and young women at risk of juvenile delinquency becomes a model for other programs around the country.
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Category: Announcements || By Submitted Report
A local, community-operated radio station can be an important image-builder for a community.
It also can help young people get hands-on experience in electronics, communications, information technology, journalism, computers, public relations, audio production, and music.
For this reason, we think a public, community-operated radio station would be a fantastic asset for McKeesport: McKeesport deserves a better image, and needs more places for people to prepare for technology careers.
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission issued a ruling that would guarantee a minimum number of radio stations in each metropolitan area of the United States that would be community-based, non-commercial. These stations are in the "low-power FM" --- or "LPFM" --- category and could be received by anyone within about a five- to eight-mile radius, using a regular FM radio.
. . .
In the Pittsburgh area, three FM radio channels are apparently going to be set aside for LPFM use. Under the FCC decision, these stations would be restricted to either 100 or 250 watts, would have to remain locally owned by people who live in the communities they serve, and would not be allowed to run advertising.
The LPFM class of radio stations was created in 2000 by the FCC, but few stations were ever licensed because the U.S. Congress passed a law placing new restrictions on low-power FM radio. Those restrictions were overturned in 2010 by the federal Local Community Radio Act.
The LCRA was co-authored by U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, Democrat of Forest Hills, who represents the Mon Valley area in Congress.
All of Tube City Community Media Inc.'s board members were part of an effort in 2000 to start a McKeesport-based LPFM. Needless to say, we're pleased by the FCC's ruling.
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Category: News || By Jason Togyer
St. Joseph Regional School in Port Vue will close at the end of this school year and its students will be transferred to St. Angela Merici School in White Oak.
The announcement was made Sunday by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and reported Monday by the Daily News. Technically a merger between St. Joseph and St. Angela, the school in White Oak will receive a new name, yet to be determined.
Three Catholic schools in the Woodland Hills area also are being consolidated into one school.
The decision to merge the two elementary schools is a reflection of "changing demographics and sustained economic challenges" in the Mon-Yough area, said the Rev. Kris Stubna, diocesan secretary for Catholic Education, and is the result of an 18-month process that included the pastors of all of the McKeesport-area churches whose students attended the two schools.
"It was important to develop a plan that will sustain the viability and affordability of Catholic school education well into the future," Stubna said, and "doing nothing is not an option."
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Category: News || By Submitted Report
Sara Payo, a first-year student at Penn State's Greater Allegheny Campus in McKeesport, has been elected to the University Faculty Senate.
A 2011 graduate of Upper St. Clair High School, Payo will represent 14 Penn State campuses, including Greater Allegheny. The announcement was made by Nancy Herron, associate dean for academic programs in the office of the vice president for Commonwealth Campuses.
Payo is an aspiring graphic artist who is also interested in musical theater, according to her profile on LinkedIn. In addition to the campus' student government association, Payo is active in the annual THON fundraiser and is a co-founder of the campus' Graphix Club.
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Category: Announcements || By Submitted Report
The Allegheny County Department of Public Works today announced that traffic on the Mansfield Bridge will continue in its current configuration (one lane in each direction in the curb lanes) until 6 p.m. March 28. At that time, traffic will be routed to the upstream side of the bridge with a single lane in each direction maintained at all times.
Originally, traffic was to be rerouted to the upstream side of the bridge at 6 p.m. today.
Also today, a county spokesman said traffic restrictions begin Monday on Coultersville Road in White Oak. Traffic will be restricted to a single, alternating lane near the road's intersection with Lincoln Way in White Oak from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays, continuing through May 25.
The restrictions are necessary so crews may perform repairs to a bridge on Coulterville Road. Traffic will be controlled by flaggers on Coulterville Road.
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Category: Announcements || By Submitted Report
Fabric artist Martha Ressler is the featured speaker at McKeesport Art Group's next meeting, 7:30 p.m. Monday in the art room at McKeesport Area High School, 1960 Eden Park Blvd. The public is invited and light refreshments will be served.
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Category: Announcements || By Staff Report
McKeesport Symphony Orchestra goes on the road this weekend for two concerts, including one in Bethel Park.
The concert program, called "Mostly Mozart," will feature some of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's most famous arias, duets and trios, says Bruce Lauffer, music director and principal conductor. It will feature soloists Julie McGough on flute, along with vocalists Alexandra Loutsion (soprano) and Kyle Oliver (baritone).
Loutsion and Oliver also perform with the Pittsburgh Opera, while McGough is principal flautist of the MSO, Lauffer says.
The concerts are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Independence Middle School, 2807 Bethel Church Road, Bethel Park, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the First Evangelical Free Church, 4001 University Drive, McKeesport, next to Penn State Greater Allegheny Campus.
The McKeesport concert will be recorded by Tube City Community Media Inc. for later broadcast over Pittsburgh's WRCT-FM (88.3), a non-commercial radio station owned by students at Carnegie Mellon University.
For more information or directions to either location, visit the symphony's website.
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Category: News || By Submitted Report
Allegheny County spokesman Kevin Evanto announced Wednesday that one lane in each direction will be closed on Monday and continuing through Thursday. Then, on Thursday, all traffic will be moved to the eastern side of the bridge --- the lanes normally used by traffic outbound from McKeesport --- so that work can begin on the western side of the bridge.
Signals were put in place earlier this month on both ends of the bridge to handle the new traffic patterns.
The 1,900-foot bridge across the Monongahela connects Dravosburg with the city and Glassport, and is a major artery for commuters heading from the Mon-Yough area to Pittsburgh and the South Hills. According to state Department of Transportation statistics, about 17,000 vehicles use Richland Avenue (more commonly known as Dravosburg Hill) daily. Richland connects the Mansfield Bridge to Lebanon Church Road and Pittsburgh-McKeesport Boulevard.
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Category: Cartoons, Commentary/Editorial || By Jason Togyer
State Senate Republicans engaged in fraudulent lawmaking this week when they passed a bill that creates a far bigger problem than it purports to resolve.
It shamefully adopted a law to discourage voting under the guise of fighting vote fraud.
The bill will require all voters to present photo identification when voting. As lawmakers know, many young, older and poor voters don't have those requisite IDs. As the lawmakers also know, those voters lean Democratic. -- Scranton Times-Tribune
. . .
An anti-marriage bill from Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Cranberry), is up for discussion and potential vote tomorrow before a state House government committee that Metcalfe chairs.
The bill, according to Metcalfe's web site, would amend the state's constitution ... Same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania is already illegal. But as Ted Martin, executive director at Equality PA points out, "this bill is much worse and meaner."
Martin says that if it passed, future discussion of civil unions or domestic partnerships "would be off the table." And, it would forcefully terminate domestic partnership benefits provided to public employees. --- Pittsburgh City Paper
. . .
Pennsylvania has become the latest among a growing number of states to make the transvaginal ultrasound probe a pawn in the abortion debate. The bill had been slated for a House floor debate this week. It has stalled, but it's not dead.
"I have fought too many battles, too much discrimination and harassment, and I've watched how hard women have worked to get equality," said Dr. Sherry Blumenthal, chairwoman of the Pennsylvania section of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. "I have strong feelings about anyone trying to tell us how to handle our own reproduction." --- Harrisburg Patriot-News
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Category: Announcements, Commentary/Editorial || By Submitted Report
The 65th anniversary of the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1947 will be marked with a labor history symposium at the Palisades ballroom from 9 to 11:30 a.m. April 21.
The debate between then-freshmen U.S. congressmen John F. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Richard Nixon, Republican of California, was held at the Penn-McKee Hotel and was hosted by the city's Junto club.
The symposium is being sponsored by the Pittsburgh-based Battle of Homestead Foundation, the McKeesport Preservation Society and the Pennsylvania Labor History Society. Leo Gerard, president of the United Steel Workers union, will serve as the keynote speaker.
In November, the groups announced that they had obtained a state historical marker for the 1947 Kennedy-Nixon debate. The marker will be unveiled following the symposium.
The Battle of Homestead Foundation is seeking more than $2,000 in donations to pay for the marker and other expenses, a spokeswoman said in a press release. Any funds raised beyond those costs will be used to support the foundation's educational programs, according to the release.
The hotel's design is credited to famed Pittsburgh architect Benno Janssen. It opened in 1926.
Following stints as a retirement community and a home for transients, the hotel was abandoned in the early 1990s. It has since been looted and vandalized, and has been the target of at least two arson fires. The hotel has lately been the subject of a court fight between the city and Mary Ann Huk, president of the McKeesport Preservation Society.
. . .
Editorial Comment, Jason Togyer: You can read my personal position on this historical marker in the Post-Gazette:
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Category: Announcements || By Jason Togyer
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Category: News || By Staff Report
Police, firefighters, paramedics and other personnel saluted Ed Coulter this morning during his final journey through the city he loved.
Coulter, 73, died Monday at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Jefferson Hills borough. For six years, Coulter was the city's Emergency Management Coordinator and had just completed McKeesport's official "hazard assessment plan" for submission to Allegheny County.
"It was one of his final acts on behalf of the city," Mayor Mike Cherepko said this week. The mayor and several other city officials wore green and white ribbons in Coulter's memory during Wednesday's council meeting.
A graduate of Penn State University and an accountant by training, Coulter was owner of upscale men's clothing stores in McKeesport, Altoona, Indiana and Johnstown before his retirement in 1990. But his real legacy may be his role in helping to establish the McKeesport Ambulance Rescue Service after the former McKeesport Emergency Medical Service filed for bankruptcy.
"He saved an ambulance service for McKeesport at a time when we were in danger of losing it," City Council President Darryl Segina said.
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Category: News || By Submitted Report
A new state law prohibiting motorists from "texting while driving" took effect yesterday.
The law makes texting while a car is in motion a so-called "primary offense" --- meaning that a police officer can make a traffic stop --- subject to a $50 fine.
"Your most important job when behind the wheel is to focus only on driving," said Barry Schoch, state Secretary of Transportation. "Most people would never close their eyes for five seconds while driving, but that's how long you take your eyes of the road, or even longer, every time you send or read a text message."
The new law makes it a crime to use a smartphone, laptop, PDA or other device for sending any text-based message, reading email or surfing the Web while behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. Police will have the authority to pull over a vehicle if the driver appears to be texting or using a laptop or other device to send a message, State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said.
"This is a serious problem and we are hoping that we can educate citizens on the dangers of texting while driving and prevent future accidents," he said. "Ultimately, we hope that our enforcement efforts will create voluntary compliance by the majority of motorists."
According to state officials, there were nearly 14,000 crashes in Pennsylvania in 2010 where distracted driving played a role. Sixty-eight people died in those crashes.
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Category: News || By Submitted Report
New signs designed to reduce accidents on the McKeesport-Duquesne Bridge were installed this week, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation said.
The signs along northbound state Route 837 warn trucks of the tight curves at the Duquesne end of the bridge and were designed in cooperation with state and local officials, said Dan Cessna, PennDOT District 11 executive.
"This is the first step in a multi-prong approach to improve safety and ultimately reduce crashes of large trucks at this location," Cessna said.
Large trucks have been cutting the turn from the ramp onto the bridge too close, causing them to hit the inside barrier and crash, he said.
Two temporary "TRUCKS TURN WIDE" signs were placed this week on temporary poles, and permanent signs will be installed at a later date. In addition, new paint markings designed to better guide trucks and other vehicles when approaching the bridge will be installed when weather permits.
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Category: News || By Jason Togyer
McKeesport's solicitor will "have to face the music" at a preliminary hearing over a drunken driving charge, City Council President Darryl Segina said Wednesday night.
Until then, Segina said, residents and city employees should stop speculating and spreading rumors about J. Jason Elash, 40, who was charged Feb. 10 with driving under the influence of alcohol or controlled substances, driving an uninsured vehicle and speeding in connection with an accident on Route 48.
The charges were filed by McKeesport police. A hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. March 26 before Magisterial District Judge Eugene Riazzi.
For now, Elash remains city solicitor, but council last night decided by 5-2 vote to postpone awarding a contract that would have paid him a $1,500 monthly retainer plus $75 per hour for doing legal work as head of the city's law department. Councilors V. Fawn Walker-Montgomery and A.J. Tedesco Jr. voted against tabling the agreement.
"We're not here to defend Mr. Elash, but we're not here to vilify him either," Segina said. "We have done our due diligence and council has gone back and forth on this."
City council met in executive session to discuss Elash's future, Segina said, adding that council and Mayor Mike Cherepko have continued to talk about the crash that happened early Jan. 22.
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Category: News || By Jason Togyer
Three residents yet to be named will join four members of council in conducting a yearlong review of McKeesport's home rule charter.
At last night's meeting, Council President Darryl Segina appointed Councilman A.J. Tedesco Jr. to head a committee to review the nearly 40-year-old document that outlines the duties and responsibilities of city officers, boards and commissions.
"The home rule charter is in need of an overhaul," Segina said. "Every one of our administrative codes is in need of an overhaul, but I think (the charter) is a very urgent matter."
In Pennsylvania, cities, boroughs and townships are generally governed under respective "codes" that may be modified or amended only by the state legislature. However, since 1972, Pennsylvania municipalities have had the option of "home rule charters" that allow them to set their own duties and governmental structures.
Modifications to the home-rule charter must be approved by the voters in a city-wide referendum. In Allegheny County, McKeesport, Clairton, Mt. Lebanon and Monroeville are among these "home rule" communities. Allegheny County adopted its own home-rule charter in 2000.
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Category: Announcements || By Submitted Report
High suspense meets hilarious in "The 39 Steps," a comedy adapted by Patrick Barlow from the novel by John Buchan and from the 1935 movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
The play opens this week at McKeesport Little Theater, 1614 Coursin St., and continues through March 25, with performances at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and at 2 p.m. Sundays.
Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of "Monty Python" and you have "The 39 Steps," a fast-paced whodunit for anyone who loves the magic of theater. More than 150 characters are played by only four actors; the play even includes an on-stage plane crash.
Winner of two Tony Awards (and nominated for a total of six), "The 39 Steps" is the story of a man with a boring life who meets a woman with a thick accent who says she's a spy. When he takes her home, she is murdered. Soon, a mysterious organization called "The 39 Steps" is hot on the man's trail in a nationwide manhunt that climaxes in a death-defying finale.
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Category: News || By Staff Report
An armored car company is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual who murdered a security guard from East McKeesport and stole more than $2 million.
Garda Cash Logistics is asking for the public's assistance in both solving the homicide of Michael R. Haines, 31, and recovering the money stolen from the truck he was protecting, said Joe Gavaghan, spokesman for the Montreal-based company.
Haines was found shot to death Tuesday afternoon near the 31st Street Bridge in Pittsburgh's Strip District.
Pittsburgh police have obtained an arrest warrant for his partner, Kenneth Konias Jr., 22, of Dravosburg, in connection with the slaying and robbery.
According to published reports, Konias disappeared after the shooting and police later discovered a blood-stained uniform in the Euclid Avenue home he shared with his parents. Published and broadcast reports have indicated that the robber or robbers may have made off with about $2.3 million.
The Post-Gazette reported Friday that Konias is a graduate of McKeesport's Serra Catholic High School who briefly served as a volunteer firefighter in Dravosburg and Duquesne. The Duquesne department dismissed him after six months, the newspaper reported.
Police said Konias may be driving a champagne-colored (tan or light gold) 2006 Ford Explorer SUV with Pennsylvania license GZW-4572, and that he may be armed with at least three handguns.
Anyone with information about Konias' whereabouts is asked to call Pittsburgh police at (412) 323-7800.
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