PPG Center, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0)image from allenran 917′s photostream

Where can you find a Latin American choir, a jazz band, a funk and soul band, a hot DJ, food, drinks and some of the best folks in Pittsburgh?

(map)

Wine Glasses, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from dangodin’s photostream

 

Ryo the magicial music horn, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Chovee’s photostream

Coro Latinoamericano-Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh’s Latin American Choir

A Taste of Pittsburgh
Great food from over a dozen local restaurants

Black and Gold Martinis
from Boyd & Blair

And introducing Pittsburgh’s new craft distiller
Wigle Whiskey

 

 COL Jazz Band 8:00 – 9:00 PM
2nd Place, Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival

Old E All Stars 9:00 – 10:30 PM
Pittsburgh’s premiere funk and soul band

DJ Doug Marshall
Keeping the party moving

Local Brews from the Church Brew Works & East End Brewing Company, plus our famous “Peduto Punch”

“God is a DJ”, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from .Bala’s photostream

Credit Card payments can be made here (or pay at the door).

For additional information: 412-951-4322 or info@billpeduto.com

Paid for by the People for Peduto

Proceeds to benefit City Council campaign account

A portion of this year’s proceeds will benefit the Center of Life (COL) in Hazelwood to assist in repairing their roof.

 

 

 

UPMC Shadyside Hospital, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0)image from rwoan’s photostream

UPMC Shadyside Hospital has gone through many changes over the years — from its origins in downtown Pittsburgh in 1866, to its move to Shadyside in 1910, to gaining the name Shadyside Hospital in 1938, to moving to its present building in 1972, to becoming part of UPMC in 1997– it has evolved greatly. And, it is proposing more change. But, now, when a large institution wants to make major changes, it must involve the community. Every ten years, large institutions are required to work with the community in drafting a new 10-year master plan. The plan defines what future development will look like and how expansions will be addressed to minimize the impact to adjacent neighborhoods. UPMC Shadyside is in the final stages of over one year of meetings with residents and businesses from Bloomfield, Friendship and Shadyside (and even from Oakland and East Liberty). This is done because while large institutions are critical to the well being of our region, their plans shouldn’t have to come at the cost of those closest to them.

The UPMC Shadyside Hospital’s Master-Plan includes a wide range of projects:

Short-term Projects
- Building Renovation: A research facility will be developed in and around the Ford Motor Company Building, also known as the Reidbord Building.
- Traffic & Parking: New Luna Parking Garage will provide approximately 1,000 new employee parking.

Long-term Projects
- Outpatient Services Building: A new outpatient building on Centre Ave. would replace the buildings and parking lots currently used by UPMC Urgent Care, Shadyside Family Health Center, and Boston Market.
- Inpatient Expansion: The building of a new inpatient tower at the site of the existing School of Nursing/North Wing building.

You can learn more about UPMC Shadyside Master-Plan process from the following links to presentations from their community meetings:

November 16, 2011 UPMC Shadyside Master Plan Community Group Meeting Presentation

UPMC Shadyside Campus Master Plan Traffic Study, November 2011

September 15, 2011 UPMC Shadyside Master Plan Community Group Meeting Presentation

October 4, 2011 UPMC Shadyside Master Plan Community Group Meeting Presentation

Accordingto John Innocenti, UPMC Shadyside’s president, “the next step is to schedule a public hearing before the Planning Commission early next year, followed by another public hearing before city council.” However, community groups, including the Baum Centre Initiative and Shadyside Action Coalition, plan to oppose a plan to rezone hospital properties in the area.

i find this photo ironic, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from saeru’s photostream

Founded in 1972, the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition is a non-profit, grassroots community group dedicated to “preserving and improving the quality of life in the 14th Ward of the City of Pittsburgh.” In furtherance of that goal, the SHUC concerns itself with such issues as housing, education, transportation, commercial, residential and institutional development, and parks and open spaces. One of the very first issues they took on was replacing the water and sewer infrastructure between Murray and Shady. Now, the SHUC is conducting a study to better understand the effects of stormwater runoff for business and property owners in the Squirrel Hill area in order to have an accurate picture of the problem, as well as to “serve as a catalyst for future steps toward solutions.” To this end, SHUC would like to survey businesses and residents in the area on their experiences and opinions regarding stormwater flooding.

We’ve written about this problem many times before on this blog noting the need for sustainable and green infrastructure solutions which can both improve our environment and save billions of ratepayer dollars. Moreover, Councilman Peduto conducted a meeting on the East End Flooding problem in September of this year. Over 300 people attended and decried the “chronic flooding that’s rotted their walls, ruined their carpets, set their cars afloat and cost thousands of dollars in repairs.” Also in attendance at the meeting were Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Public Safety Director Michael Huss, Public Works Director Rob Kaczorowski, as well as executives of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, and state legislators and city council members.

You can make your voice heard on this problem by taking the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition’s survey:

For Business Owners: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BXCJGVC  

For Property Owners: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BNDZCN9

The natatorium in the basement, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from justmakeit’s photostream

Abstraction in Steel, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 24thcentury’s photostream

While Pittsburgh has been called “America’s Most Livable City,” there is one area where we consistently rank among the worst: the quality of our air. There’s no doubt that we’ve made vast improvements over the decades, but air quality in southwestern Pennsylvania remains among the worst in the nation. Pittsburgh has ranked in the top five worst cities for fine air particulate pollution for the past five years. Our air contains such toxic heavy metals as mercury, arsenic and chromium 6. The consequences for our health are enormous and include asthma, heart attacks, cancer and premature death. Our poor air quality is also a detriment to both people and businesses moving to this area. This summer, Pittsburgh City Council passed the Clean Air Act in an attempt to address the problem, but much more needs to be done.

The Breathe Project is a coalition of individual citizens and 40 industry, government, nonprofit and business organizations in southwestern Pennsylvania working together to clean up our air pollution. The coalition includes the Heinz Endowments which has put its “considerable influence and $7 million” towards the project according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Some concrete steps towards solving the problem have already been identified (also from the P-G):

Mr. Vagt [Heinz Endowments president] said the Breathe Project has already identified a number of initiatives for investment, including adding $900,000 to a Clean Diesel Construction Equipment Retrofit Fund established by the Allegheny County Health Department to defray costs for small construction companies to comply with new emissions reduction regulations.

Other initiatives will include a $287,000 study to determine the feasibility of converting Port Authority buses to natural gas fuel; a $120,000 pilot project by Carnegie Mellon University in East Liberty that will develop a light signal system that aids traffic flow; a large scale planting program to add 20,000 trees to city streets in the next three years; an analysis of the economic benefits of air quality improvements; and a “Mayors Summit” meeting to gather information from other cities that have successfully reduced air pollution.

You can help in the fight. The Breathe Project website’s ACT page has many actions that individuals can pledge to take from doing a home energy audit to purchasing green credits to riding a bike. You can also “like” them on Facebook and view their video below to learn more about the project:

new orchard, old homes, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from mulch.thief’s photostream

Building One Pennsylvania is a statewide, grassroots coalition which emerged from a 2010 summit of more than 600 leaders concerned about how to deal with the problems of older cities, towns and boroughs in the state. These communities face the same problems: a diminished tax base, an increase in property taxes, a decline in school and municipal services, and a deteriorating infrastructure. The Building One Pennsylvania coalition is comprised of community leaders from many sectors including: municipal, school, faith, business, labor and civic. The group’s main goals are to “stabilize and revitalize their communities, reinvigorate local economies, and promote regional opportunity and sustainability.” Building One Pennsylvania works with its national partner, Building ONE America.

Building One Pennsylvania’s statewide steering committee has been holding regional events around the state. On October 27th, they held a conference of 800 people in Lancaster, PA which featured Shaun Donovan, United States Secretary for Housing and Urban Development, as the main speaker. Donovan spoke of what he called, “the tyranny of the ZIP code.” From LancasterOnline:

There’s a big divide in America that could be called “the tyranny of the ZIP code,” a member of President Obama’s cabinet said in Lancaster on Thursday.

If you live in the right ZIP code, with more access to opportunity, your chances of succeeding are much better.

And “while we have made real progress, despite the economic headwinds we’re still facing,” more needs to be done to level the playing field when it comes to housing and other opportunities, Shaun Donovan said.

Donovan and local officials at the conference identified a need for communities to take a regional approach to their common problems. Donovan added, “Solutions must be tailored to the area, not a one-size-fits-all.” There was also recognition that state and federal policymakers will have to play a real part in turning around Pennsylvania’s older communities. Leo Lutz,Columbia Mayor, said, “Like many of our communities, our problems are not caused by local decisions, and they will not be solved by local decisions.”

You can view a video of Donovan’s remarks to the conference here.

Rusty Storm Drain, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from GrungeTextures’ photostream

On October 27th, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a memorandum entitled “Achieving Water Quality Through Integrated Municipal Stormwater and Wastewater Plans.” In it, they addressed the need for states and municipalities to best achieve compliance with the Clean Water Act (CWA) through integrated planning. They acknowledged that meeting the objective of the CWA to keep raw sewage and pollutants carried by stormwater out of our drinking water will be a costly undertaking. But, they offered hope to cash-strapped cities in the form of green infrastructure:

As you know, given the multiple benefits associated with green infrastructure, EPA strongly encourages the use of green infrastructure and related innovative technologies, approaches, and practices to manage stormwater as a resource, reduce sewer overflows, enhance environmental quality, and achieve other economic and community benefits. Many cities and communities in the United States are now employing green infrastructure practices and know the value of such projects to not only protect water resources, but also to bring opportunities for greenways and multiuse recreational areas, improving property values, saving energy and creating green jobs.

According to American City & County, the new guidelines were “hailed by the Washington-based U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) as a step forward in the partnership between federal, state and local governments in addressing the problem.”

We’ve blogged many times on these pages about the need to take a green approach to Pittsburgh’s own stormwater runoff issues. And, we are far from the only ones here advocating such an approach. Action United is just one of the groups calling for a better way:

As a community, we need to have a say in how this problem is corrected. ALCOSAN is proposing one path, which relies on large concrete tunnels under our rivers to store and move water from one place to another. We can follow that path. Or, we can find solutions that use green technologies like roof gardens, trees, permeable pavement and rain gardens to capture storm water where it falls. These solutions are greener and better for our communities. Plus, they have the added benefits of creating permanent jobs and beautifying neighborhoods; making them places where people want to visit, live and shop.

By ALCOSAN’s own estimates, their proposed price tag to solve the problem is over $2 BILLION. You can make your voice heard in how we approach this problem at a town hall meeting on November 9th:

ALCOSAN (Allegheny County Sanitary Authority) Town Hall Meeting
WHERE: I.B.E.W.#5 Circuit Center & Ballroom, 5 Hot Metal St., Pittsburgh, PA 15203
WHEN: 11/9/11, 5:30PM – 7:30PM
COST: “FREE and open to the public, and refreshments or light lunch will be provided.”

You can let the Clean Rivers Campaign know you’re attending by RSVPing on Facebook here.