How should Allegheny County spend the $11.8 million in fines it’s collected from companies polluting more than their air permits allow?

The answer to that question has been a focus of tension between the Allegheny County Health Department and some environmental groups. Both parties advocate for public health, but they have differing opinions on how the money in the Clean Air Fund should be spent.

The health department wants to spend up to half the fund balance on renovating an older building the county owns in Lawrenceville to house a new air quality program headquarters. If approved, it would be the largest one-time allocation from the fund since at least 2003.

Those against spending the money on a headquarters for the air program say directing the money toward capital projects goes against the spirit of why the fund was created.

Instead, they’d like to see the fund support the planting of more trees, reducing diesel fumes and educating county denizens about air issues.

“Given the sorry state of our air, it is critical that the [Allegheny County Health Department] use the Clean Air Fund to underwrite projects that will create tangible improvements to air quality and educate citizens about the dangers of air pollution,” Rachel Filippini, the executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution [GASP], wrote in an email.

Filippini is also one of the 10 members of the health department’s Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee, which evaluates if projects should get money from the Clean Air Fund.

The health department, which also wants to add more air program employees and upgrade equipment, sees the money as an opportunity to improve the air quality program without waiting for county tax dollars.

“The renovations will allow the program to expand to provide additional space, including space for public meetings and community engagement, and would also allow for new or upgraded equipment as needs arise,” Ryan Scarpino, the health department’s spokesperson, wrote in an email.

The headquarters project would also, finally, put the money to use. The $11.8 million balance has built up over several years. According to advisory board members, no formal process has ever been put in place to spend the money collected from fighting pollution.

What is the Clean Air Fund?

Companies pay into the Clean Air Fund when they violate the terms of their air permits. The permits give companies the ‘right’ to emit a limited amount of specific pollutants. The amount varies based on the type of pollutant emitted.

The fund was created nearly 40 years ago as the state tried to implement the federal Clean Air Act. The fund balance increases by an average of $1.3 million a year. And, a recent increase in civil penalties for violating air permits could lead to even more money collected in the future.

According to county laws related to the fund, the money is intended to be used on efforts to improve air quality.

For example, the county’s Board of Health has used the Clean Air Fund to pay for a study of diesel fumes Downtown ($860,000 in 2011), for solar panels at the Community College of Allegheny County ($400,000 in 2015), and on a program that allowed residents to swap out gas lawn mowers for electric ones ($12,000 each year from 2014 to 2017).

Over the past four years, an average of $1.1 million has been annually disbursed from the fund, according to Scarpino.

The question of whether or not the fund can be used for county capital projects has come up before. In 2006, the county proposed using $1.2 million to demolish the asbestos-filled remnants of a U.S. Steel plant. GASP sued the county to prevent it, arguing that the private company should be responsible for it.

A judge later stopped the project from receiving Clean Air Fund money.

Two years later, the county withdrew a proposal to use $270,000 for a road widening project after GASP raised concerns about the project. The county said it would ease congestion.

In 2009, the county changed the rules guiding the fund. An amendment authorized the use of the fund for “any other project that is consistent with the purpose of this section and the mission of the Board of Health.”

Since the changes, the fund has been used to finance internships and plant trees as well as to fix a roof, add energy-efficient windows and replace a boiler in the air quality program’s current location, in another Lawrenceville building.

According to county spokespeople, using the Clean Air Fund for the renovated headquarters makes sense.

“Throughout the 26-year history of the [air quality program], the county has provided for many of the large costs of the program, including providing a location and other building improvements needed to support the program,” Scarpino wrote in an email.

Allegheny County spokesperson Amie Downs agreed. While the county has funded the air program over time, she said the option to use the fund for more of the program’s everyday expenses has always existed.

And, Downs said, using the Clean Air Fund instead of county dollars makes financial sense in a time when “…there are so many more demands upon the county’s resources.”

What’s happening now?

The Frank B. Clack Health Center is an eight-building facility next to Arsenal Park in Lawrenceville. Built in the early 1900s, 120 health department staffers work there; 50 are in the air quality program.

For at least two years, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the department has planned to upgrade the air quality program’s offices, citing space concerns.

Scarpino elaborated on the need; he said employees are doubling up in offices and that meeting spaces are cramped. If the project is approved, the air quality program would move from building 7 off of 39th Street to a renovated building 1.

Meanwhile, a Feb. 22 draft of an audit by the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] supported expanding the air quality program’s staff.

The audit found the agency was behind on 13 out of 32 permits for Title V pollution sources; 10 permits had expired and were past their year-and-a-half review period, while three had never been issued.

Title V sources, a classification established by the Clean Air Act, include major polluters like U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works and the Cheswick power plant.

The Clean Air Council — a Pennsylvania-based conservation group — threatened to file a lawsuit against the EPA earlier this month for not sanctioning the county health department.

The group says the ACHD should be sanctioned for its backlog and “undermining the public participation requirements of the Clean Air Act.” With the agency lagging on renewals, the council argues that county residents don’t have the opportunity to review and provide input on air permits.

In 2016, the estimated cost of the renovation project for the air quality program headquarters was $9.3 million. At the time, the health department recommended that $4.7 million come out of the Clean Air Fund. Another $450,000 from the fund was already spent on a feasibility study and design work.

According to Scarpino, the design is 60 percent complete. He estimated that $5 to $6 million would be drawn from the Clean Air Fund for the project, if approved.

The most allocated from the fund since 2003 for a sole project was about $1.1 million in 2004, for a study of Neville Island, according to minutes from Board of Health meetings.

Jayme Graham, the health department’s air program manager, said there would still be enough money in the fund for future endeavors.

“The fund has been sufficient for any kind of projects that people have come to us for or we have developed, so I don’t feel it’s going to strangle us,” Graham said. “We still have the opportunity to spend a significant amount of money on good projects if good projects come our way.”

Earlier this year, the county changed its civil penalty policy, Scarpino said. Applied to 2016’s violations, he said the new policies could result in a 60 percent increase in fines, which could help replenish the fund.

But GASP’s Filippini said it’s too early to tell if the new rules will have an effect on the fund. Plus, she said focusing on new funding misses the point.

“The health department shouldn’t be looking at how to raise more money for the Clean Air Fund so they can use it for building repairs,” she said. “They should be looking at how to use it for systemic change that will result in less pollution overall.”

Filippini, along with other environmentalists like Zach Barber of PennEnvironment, attended a Feb. 12 advisory committee meeting to state their case to the board.

Barber, an organizer with the statewide environmental activist group, said the renovations were important due to the age of the building.

But he made clear that he wasn’t comfortable with funding the upgrades with the Clean Air Fund, when the $5 to $6 million could be used for other initiatives like planting trees or supporting citizen air monitoring efforts.

What’s next?

Filippini and another member of the Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee say the Clean Air Fund funding process can be inefficient and lacks objective review.

Essentially, if air quality staffers see value in a project idea, they put it on the advisory committee’s agenda. If the committee feels similarly, they pass it on to the Board of Health for formal approval.

The proposals usually come from private partners, including environmental nonprofits. For example, a $920,000 program to help construction contractors retrofit diesel equipment on their dump trucks, backhoes and other heavy equipment passed in 2010. Filippini said the idea came from GASP.

The department found a partner, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Air Management Association, to implement the program in 2010.

As of late, proposals seeking money from the fund have slowed, according to Scarpino. Filippini said many organizations don’t even know the fund exists, which limits what the money can do.

“It’s fair to say that more effective, more worthy projects could be coming to the committee on a regular basis,” Filippini said.

Another advisory committee member, Robert Orchowski, said he takes issue with the process. Orchowski previously worked for Duquesne Light and Orion Power for 30 years as an environmental compliance officer before starting his own consultancy.

He said the current system does not weigh the pros and cons of spending fund money.

“I have constantly commented there needs to be objectivity in how the monies are spent,” Orchowski said. “What are the projects the county can fund that will achieve the most emissions reduction for the fewest amount of dollars?”

He said using a metric, such as dollar per ton of emissions reduced, could lead to better results.

At February’s committee meeting, Graham alluded to a recent slowdown in spending on new projects. She attributed it to changes in the allocation process that add more open bidding and project scoring.

To counter the slowdown, Scarpino said the department is preparing to ask the Board of Health to issue a request for proposals seeking several small-scale air improvement and educational projects that total $300,000.

As for the renovation project proposal, Scarpino said he expected the plans to be finished in late spring and then sent to the advisory committee for a vote.

Filippini wants to make sure that when that happens, she and the board have plenty of time to look over the designs.

“People need to start thinking about it now instead of seeing it on an agenda and only having 24 hours to think about it,” she added.

When weighing the need for improvements and available funding sources, Orchowski characterized himself as a reluctant ‘yes’ in favor of approving the use of the Clean Air Fund for the air program’s headquarters.

“I think we would be better off if the county would fund this out of their operating budget,” he said. “But the reality is — given how tight their budget is — if it doesn’t come out of the Clean Air Fund, it’s not going to happen or it would take many years.”

Stephen Caruso is a journalist who covers government and politics at The PLS Reporter, an online news outlet focused on Pennsylvania state and local topics. He also freelances. Reach Stephen at stephencaruso23@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

The post A clash over how Allegheny County should spend millions collected from the region’s polluters appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

At a small country bar near the border of Washington and Greene counties, owner Vince Rudnick sat below a corner TV that occasionally flashed searing political ads.

His wife — co-owner of the bar named Rudnick’s and the 135 acres of farmland it’s on — was flipping burgers as thick as a book. Playing video solitaire, 64-year-old Rudnick reminisced about the Bethlehem Steel coal mine he used to work at, and the cows he used to slaughter to make those burgers.

But the mine business has been sputtering, and, about 10 years ago, the restaurant stopped using its own beef due to U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations.

Rudnick is one of the roughly 707,000 people who live in Pennsylvania’s District 18, where the special congressional election between Republican Rick Saccone and Democrat Conor Lamb will take place on March 13.

The winner of the election, necessitated by the resignation of former Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy in October, will head to a polarized Washington, D.C.

Saccone has promised to fight for President Donald Trump and his agenda. Lamb said he is running against Saccone, not Trump, and many in the political world think his victory could foreshadow big Democratic gains in the November midterm elections.

The two candidates, both military veterans, diverge on nearly every topic, from the recent tax bill to abortion to immigration. The only common ground is opposition to stricter gun control; after the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting both said in a debate that they wanted to improve the federal background check system rather than pass new laws.

Over a few weeks in January and February, PublicSource made stops throughout the district’s 2,072 square miles in four counties — from affluent Pittsburgh suburbs to former coal towns — to interview residents who would be making the decision on March 13 and try to understand what issues are most important to them.

A registered Democrat, Rudnick stated his priority: “I’d like to see it get a little better for working people.”

That means lower taxes, adding that the recently passed tax bill seemed “better than nothing.”

It’s a major factor in why he may jump party lines; Rudnick said he’s leaning toward Saccone.

Not everyone had the same clarity as Rudnick — some people had only vague ideas about the election. But others already had the date circled. Some had political talking points at the ready; others seemed more ambivalent to the outcome.

Some people weren’t even sure what district they lived in, citing the jagged lines that define the district and that have led to a court-mandated redrawing of Pennsylvania’s congressional map.

Below are some of the people in District 18 who shared their perspectives:

Sandy Kadash

Pushing a grocery cart filled with Herr’s Chips and gold potatoes through a Washington, Pa., SHOP ‘n SAVE, Sandy Kadash was thinking of her neighbors as the reason for her vote.

Kadash, who lives about a dozen miles south of Greensburg in Amity, was shopping for an 88-year-old family friend who is too old to go herself.

“I would like to see more programs for people on fixed incomes,” Kadash said.

And it’s not only a concern for the elderly. Kadash has a 29-year-old son with autism.

“When he aged out of school, there aren’t programs,” she added.

Talking to Business Insider in mid-February, Saccone said the social safety net “obviously” needs reform, but that he wouldn’t necessarily support cuts in service. Lamb meanwhile put out a TV ad promising to defend Social Security and Medicare from cuts.

A registered Democrat, Kadash said she plans to support Lamb.

Jim Archbold

During his tour of Brady’s Train Outlet outside of Greensburg, Jim Archbold of New Eagle said he wants his candidate to put America first.

“This country has been raked over the coals since World War II,” the 72-year-old said.

A Reagan Democrat who switched over to the Republican Party in the 1980s, he is fiscally conservative and is opposed to abortion.

While he said he might vote for a local Democrat, he won’t pull the lever for a national, more liberal Democrat, because, according to Archbold: “They believe in what I don’t believe.”

Rose Gutowski and Vanessa Gasper

Rose Gutowski, 18, was sitting with two of her high school friends in the White Rabbit, an ornate coffee shop with green walls and chandeliers on Greensburg’s main drag.

A senior at Hempfield High School who will be voting in her first federal election, she pointed to abortion as the issue that would matter to her when voting.

”I was raised by my parents really Christian,” she said.

Though undecided when we talked to her in January, she identified as ‘pro-life’ and said she wants politicians who believe similarly.

Saccone opposes abortion. As a state representative, he co-sponsored a 2012 bill that would mandate women who are considering an abortion to undergo an ultrasound.

Lamb, a Catholic, has supported abortion rights on the campaign trail. During a Feb. 19 televised debate on KDKA, he said, “I don’t believe that my personal religious beliefs should dictate the legal rights of women.”

One of Gutowski’s friends, Vanessa Gasper, also pointed to her ‘pro-life’ stance as a sticking point for her, but said she also would favor a politician who backs the use of medical marijuana as a plus.

“I’ve watched so many documentaries on how it’s helping kids with seizures,” Gasper said.

During KDKA’s debate, both politicians took their party’s line on medical marijuana — Saccone was opposed, while Lamb was in favor.

Janet and Dennis McCarthy

Janet and Dennis McCarthy simply want to “kick the Republicans out.”

Both 72, the Mt. Lebanon residents have been disappointed in the quality of government lately. Janet especially has been feeling that she isn’t being heard and that elected officials could do more to be accessible.

In fact, she was one of many area residents who would attend “Mondays with Murphy” outside the former congressman’s office in the town.

Her main memory from the events is never actually seeing Murphy. Instead, a few staffers would stand outside, averting their gaze for a few minutes before retreating inside the office.

When asked to elaborate on their political leanings, the couple shared their interest in protecting abortion rights. But overall, the two mostly wish for a return to functioning government.

“I don’t think the government is functioning now because of extreme partisanship,” she said.

Jenny Messmer

Jenny Messmer, a stay-at-home mom, said the main issues she cares about are health care and abortion.

Messmer wants the Affordable Care Act [ACA] to stay as is, an opinion formed after witnessing how it affected her friends.

The 39-year-old Washington, Pa., resident said some of her friends’ children have medical conditions that have gotten treatment only because the ACA prevents insurance companies from capping healthcare plans.

On health care, Saccone has promised to use “free market principles,” while Lamb wants to work on improving the ACA.

Messmer also supports abortion rights, as she said it won’t stop people from getting them and that limiting the services will put women at risk.

“We’ve seen what happens when you try to regulate abortion out,” Messmer said.

Messemer said she hadn’t done enough research to make her decision yet.

Rose and Jeff

Rose and Jeff from Upper St Clair, who preferred not to give their full names out of concern that their words would be distorted, are sitting outside a Starbucks at a Mt. Lebanon mall.

They agree on the priorities for any elected official — to reduce regulations and taxes. Jeff said he thinks those policies lead to economic growth.

“It’s all a circle,” Rose added.

The couple, who we met in late January, indicated they were keeping an eye on the campaign and are ready to cast their votes.

“My calendar is marked,” Rose said.

Rose and Jeff, who said he’s conservative, did not share who they planned to support.

Frank Dallas

In February, a manger scene was still sitting outside The Diner in the heart of Oakdale, a town on the outskirts of Allegheny County.

Local resident Frank Dallas, 80, was finishing up his cup of coffee at The Diner, where he’s a regular.

He said his primary concerns are health care and the cost of medications.

“I have three prescriptions that cost $600 a month, and that’s a copay,” he said, adding:

“If I don’t have ‘em, I don’t leave the house.”

Dallas said his problem is a lung condition that he attributed to years of breathing in the county’s polluted air.

He hopes whomever wins can “do something about controlling the cost [of medicine] — for the elderly especially.”

Dallas said he’s voted in every presidential election since 1960, when he voted for Republican Richard Nixon in his first, unsuccessful run for president. Like then, he plans to vote for the Republican, Saccone.

Robb Full

A 39-year-old bartender from Mt. Lebanon, Robb Full said he wants his elected official to fight inequality, and health care seems like a good place to start.

His position today is informed by his past.

“I’d love to see a push for Medicare for All,” Full said, referring to a bill supported by Sen. Bernie Sanders that pushes single-payer health care. “I’ve been in tough times. I didn’t have health care for most of my 20s.”

As a liberal, Full said he was leaning toward voting for Lamb.

Jim Caprio

On the way to his Upper St. Clair home from work, Jim Caprio stopped at Family Deli in Bethel Park for a quick bite to eat.

The 65-year-old is quick to identify himself as a single-issue voter: The issue is abortion.

To Caprio, who opposes abortion, a politician’s position on the divisive topic serves as a marker for him to know if he agrees on other topics.

As he puts it, “People carry the Republican bucket or the Democratic bucket.” Opposition to abortion is in the Republican bucket, so that’s how he plans to vote in the special election.

Caprio added that he couldn’t vote for someone who “doesn’t believe or know that that baby is a life.”

Tom Scantling

Tom Scantling of Carnegie is living out a youthful dream of rebellion by growing out his white hair.

With that act of defiance in his hairdo — which he plans to donate to Locks of Love — also comes a dose of disillusionment.

Despite being retired, he still works to help pay his bills. And, while he said he doesn’t have many issues he cares about, he does try to vote when he can.

Scantling, 67, said he didn’t like former President Barack Obama or Democratic House leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi from California. So as he sees the airwaves flooded with ads that associate Lamb with Pelosi, he’s naturally suspicious.

“That pretty much did it for me,” Scantling said.

The ads were produced in spite of Lamb distancing himself from Pelosi and telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he would support new leadership in the House if he was elected. Republican-associated political groups have spent $4 million on anti-Lamb ads, according to The Washington Post. Polls have shown the contest between Lamb and Saccone as surprisingly close for a district Trump won by 20 points.

Scantling seems cognizant of the political sleight of hand at play in the ads, even if he still lets them affect his leanings.

“Unfortunately, I am influenced by the corrupt political ads,” he said.

Gerard Furey

After spending 38 years teaching primary school in the New York City suburbs, Gerard Furey moved back to his native Western Pennsylvania.

The 66-year-old, now living in Bethel Park, said he attended LaSalle University for his undergraduate degree and paid for it with steel mill wages. He was blunt about what he wants out of a candidate.

“I don’t want someone that says it’s good for me to get effed over,” Furey said.

Furey said he doesn’t want any taxpayer money going to a border wall or into politicians’ “get-out payoffs” for sexual harassment.

He also took issue with the the new tax plan passed by Congress in December, feeling it was a “gift to big business.”

Furey figured he would vote Democrat in the election.

Back at the Marianna bar, Vince Rudnick meandered over to his friend Keith, who preferred to not share his full name.

Keith said he worries about the elderly and the working poor, such as “neighbors who farmed all their life and don’t have a pot to piss in” now.

In this upcoming election, while Rudnick, elected as a township supervisor in 2013 to nearby Amwell as a Democrat, is leaning toward Saccone, his friend is undecided but leaning toward Lamb

Keith said he likes the idea of voting for the former Marine. But whatever his final choice is,  Keith was sure he will make the trek to the polls.

“You can’t bitch if you don’t vote,” he said with a laugh. “You can bitch after you vote.”

Stephen Caruso is a Pittsburgh-based journalist who covers government and politics at The PLS Reporter, an online news outlet focused on Pennsylvania state and local topics. He also freelances. Reach Stephen at stephencaruso23@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

John Hamilton contributed reporting to this story.

The post Who will fill Murphy’s seat in Trump’s D.C.? These District 18 voters will decide between Lamb and Saccone. appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

The pressure of the crowd at the Munhall Borough Council meeting on Wednesday evening appears to have altered the fate of a 7-acre parcel near The Waterfront.

The council was poised to make a decision on selling the land they had gained through eminent domain, with the promise of making it a park. But by the end of the two-and-a-half hour meeting, its members voted unanimously to table a motion to sell and move forward with seeking funds to transform the property into a public park.

Newly elected Munhall Mayor Rick Brennan was a leading voice in the borough planning a public park.

“We’re very pleased and looking forward to starting to find a niche for the property down there, and I hope council members will work with me,” Brennan said after the meeting.

Citizens engaged in a spirited back and forth with the borough’s elected officials, often referencing PublicSource’s reporting on the proposed sale.

The former mill town along the Monongahela originally acquired the land in December 2016, using eminent domain to take over the land from a struggling nonprofit. The eminent domain petition stated that the borough intended to use the land as a public park.

However, a private company known as Franjo Construction made an unsolicited offer to buy the land for $75,000 from Munhall in August 2017. Allegheny County assessors last estimated the land’s value at $275,000.

As the borough had not officially listed the land as for sale, it could not accept the offer. But in the fall, council voted to post legal notice that the land was up for sale. In December, the borough received one bid for $125,000 from a company called JLFL RE Holdings, LLC. Four of the six council members previously expressed the belief that the company was associated with Franjo because the new company matched the initials of the Franjo owners.

After a few minor matters at Wednesday’s meeting, Brennan opened discussion on the parcel — adjacent to The Waterfront development of retailers and restaurants — by explaining to council the work he’d done over the past month to apply for grants and find partners to transform the overgrown lot into a park.

Brennan told the crowd that the idea of selling the land and the council’s consideration of a bid below market value was “disappointing” and a waste of time.

Many in attendance agreed, saying they thought the sale was rushed if council was willing to accept a $125,000 bid. To counter, some in the crowd threw out numbers ranging from $250,000 into the millions as the price worth selling at.

Matt Flaherty was one such speaker. A real estate agent himself, he said he first learned about the sale through PublicSource’s reporting in January. Speaking to council, he said he was concerned that they weren’t being diligent in weighing how a public park could attract more attention to the borough.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Flaherty told council. “Nobody walking the streets of Munhall would go for that deal.”

The crowd then goaded members of council in favor of the sale to stand up and speak for themselves, at which point Councilman Jason Stein rose.

As Stein thanked the crowd for showing up, and commented that there was no such crowd for the original vote, he was cut off by sarcastic jeers from the crowd.

“I didn’t interrupt you,” he shot back.

Stein said he had concerns the property wasn’t as valuable as the crowd believed, considering the council only received the one bid.

“A property is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it,” he said.

Stein added that the borough is not in the business of holding onto property, and that it would be better to turn over the land to a company that will pay taxes to the borough.

Talk of the money at play led one crowd member to ask Munhall Solicitor Greg Evashavik what the final gain for the borough would be from the proposed sale price of $125,000.

Evashavik responded that, minus tax liens Munhall would have to pay to the county and schools if it sold the land rather than keep it, the borough would gain about $42,000.

Many in the crowd appeared shocked at the projected profit. One joked aloud, “$40,000? I’ll give you that.”

Council President Robert Falce voiced his favor of holding onto the land to explore the possibilities of a park. As public comment wound down, an opinion emerged — why vote on the sale now?

“That’s up to a member of council to make a motion to table it,” Falce said.

Brennan made his final plea to council to keep the land.

After he finished, there were a few seconds of silence. Then Councilman J. “Putts” Petruzzi rose and motioned to table the bill to sell. Another member seconded it. The room exploded in applause.

Even though four members expressed support of the sale during the meeting, council ended up with a unanimous vote to table the sale.

Council also approved Brennan’s work to continue seeking grants and partners to fund a new park.

After the meeting, Stein said the crowd’s reaction caused him to change his vote.

“This crowd seemed fixated only on the money we’d get for the site,” Stein said. “That seemed shortsighted, but I didn’t feel like falling on my sword.”

He added that, going forward, he expected council and the mayor to cooperate on the project because “we’d be foolish not to.”

Correction (2/23/2018): A previous version of this story included an unclear characterization of Munhall Council President Robert Falce’s role in the vote regarding the 7-acre parcel. It has been clarified.

Stephen Caruso is a Pittsburgh-based journalist who covers government and politics at The PLS Reporter, an online news outlet focused on Pennsylvania state and local topics. He also freelances. Reach Stephen at stephencaruso23@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

The post Munhall council votes to advance plans for a public park instead of selling the Waterfront-adjacent parcel appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Adequate access is all DJ Stemmler, who uses a wheelchair, wanted from the new build-your-own sushi restaurant near her Oakland office.

One thing that Ting Yen, the restaurant owner, wanted was for Stemmler to stop writing online reviews saying his restaurant was inaccessible to people with disabilities.

As the two stared at each other from across a table at the 2013 inaugural meeting of Stemmler’s advocacy group, Accessible Oakland, it seemed for a moment that the gap wouldn’t be bridged.

“That saying, ‘If looks could kill,’ that’s really what it was,” said Stemmler, 56.

It seemed impossible to Yen that his restaurant, Sushi Fuku on Oakland Avenue, could still be inaccessible after the renovation he just put it through — complete with a lower counter, adjustable furniture on wheels and an accessible bathroom.

But what didn’t occur to him was that the single concrete step at the front entrance immediately sends a message to anyone in a wheelchair that this isn’t the place for them.

The Americans With Disabilities Act [ADA] passed nearly 30 years ago, requiring buildings to become accessible to people with disabilities, whether with automatic doors, grab bars or ramps, among other accommodations. Decades later, ADA compliance remains spotty, especially in many of the older buildings that fill Pittsburgh’s bustling business districts.

There appears to be a basic disconnect between policy and reality on the issue of accessibility. While building codes require updates in accessibility during any business renovation, it does not narrow in on the most obvious barrier — a step or steps to the front door.

To address the issue, the Pittsburgh city council approved the One Step program in summer 2011 to streamline the process for any Pittsburgh business to remove entryway steps. The city issued the first permits to participating businesses in fall 2015.

Pittsburgh ADA Coordinator Richard Meritzer said the program was meant to simplify the process and to reduce fees for building owners to add ramps, but not necessarily to make the process faster.

“One complaint we got from developers and architects was that most expensive part of the process was coming down to the city offices and paying for parking and waiting in line,” Meritzer said. By making a one-size-fits-all application, they could send in an application with a single email.

The program still results in delays and frustration for business and disability advocates. In two years of permitting, the program has moved 15 businesses through the permitting process and their steps have been removed; another 14 businesses are waiting, including Yen at Sushi Fuku.

Until he can install a permanent solution, Yen is using a temporary ramp to open up the restaurant to people with disabilities. It’s not ideal, but it was enough for Stemmler to become a regular there.

Building the ramps often means encroaching on sidewalks, which are city property, and requires extra permitting. And if the sidewalk is a little too narrow or a street light stands near the entrance, a well meaning property owner could bounce between the city and the state seeking approval.

Pittsburgh doesn’t write its own building codes. The codes are inherited from the state and don’t allow cities to make changes or prioritize certain fixes, like removing front steps, said Maura Kennedy, director of the city’s Permits, Licenses and Inspections department.

She added that the city is working on outreach and is doing as much as it legally can under Pennsylvania state law.

“We are very rigorous in administering it. We take that responsibility very seriously. I know the advocate community and many wish we could go further, but we are zealously playing the part that we can here,” Kennedy said. “The code is written, and if we don’t administer it to the standard, it would be inappropriate for us.”

‘Open’ for business?

Meritzer said the city plans to release a list of accessible Pittsburgh businesses to the public by the end of 2017.

“Over the past four years, we have utilized the Summer Youth Employment Program to field evaluate every business in business districts throughout the city to identify which ones have accessible entrances,” Meritzer wrote in an email. More than 900 businesses were surveyed.

For now, the best estimate comes from age. According to Allegheny County property records, the average Pittsburgh building was built in 1940 — 50 years before the passage of the ADA. Looking at the survey results, Meritzer said East Liberty and South Side seemed comparatively accessible, while he was surprised by Oakland’s lack of accessibility.

According to landlord Peter Leventis, Yen’s building is at least 80 years old. During Yen’s renovation in 2012, he was only vaguely aware of the ADA. All he knew is he had to spend 20 percent of his budget on accessibility upgrades. The ADA prioritizes the removal of barriers to entry, but Pennsylvania state code doesn’t reinforce or require it.

Despite working with an architect, a contractor and passing a city inspection, Yen said nobody pointed out that the step outside is an ADA violation that could result in a federal complaint.

Peter Margittai, a Pittsburgh architect who handled Yen’s renovation, said it is not uncommon to see renovations that comply with code 100 percent, but do not satisfy ADA requirements.

Even if it seems unreasonable for a store to add an accessible bathroom behind an inaccessible step, Margittai said the change is made with the expectation that future renovations will eventually address the step with a ramp or chair lift.

“It doesn’t make sense, but there is logic behind it,” Margittai said. “In Pittsburgh, to do a project in a 100-year-old building is not unique. So it’s very likely that building will be around for another 100 years, and those occupants will do construction projects, and every time they will have to add 20 percent.”

It was only when Yen heard Stemmler’s concerns at the community meeting that he realized he needed to do something about the step.

“That’s when I realized this is a serious issue,” Yen said. “I told her, ‘It’s done.’”

The very next day, he went out and bought the temporary ramp. Since then, Yen’s place has become one of Stemmler’s favorite restaurants. Her usual is the Oakland Avenue Roll, with chicken and cucumber wrapped in seaweed and a sauce so good she says she could drink it. She visits the restaurant as often as possible, sometimes with friends.

But more than that, Stemmler says the way Yen responded helped her feel welcome.

“It’s home for me. There isn’t any other place in Oakland that feels that way to me,” she said.

‘Not perfect’

Yen applied to the One Step program in May. He said he put off considering the installation of a permanent ramp until he found a matching grant program through the Oakland Business Improvement District to help fund the ramp.

Just a few days ago, Yen received approval for the first part of the process, but he said he was also told his application was incomplete.

Architect Margittai, who volunteers with the One Step program, said he’s found the program mostly helps those who are unfamiliar with the permitting process. For the average person, handing in a form and waiting may seem more convenient. But as a professional, he feels he could have moved through the permitting process much more efficiently.

“If I was doing it myself, I could have it done it in a week or two,” he said. “I don’t think the One Step program is functioning as intended.”

Henry Schwartz, an Oakland property owner, is also trying to add a ramp to his property along Forbes Avenue inhabited by Noodle House, an Asian restaurant.

After renovations, Noodle House, like Sushi Fuku, opened without a ramp. Stemmler noticed and filed a complaint with the federal government — one of 15 complaints she has made to the U.S. Department of Justice regarding ADA compliance in Pittsburgh. Of those complaints, Stemmler estimates 10 have been for Oakland businesses.

When Schwartz was summoned to mediation, he immediately swore to fix the entrance.

That was two years ago. And even with the One Step program, which helped him acquire his permit after a year of waiting, the ramp still isn’t finished. Schwartz has bounced between the city’s permitting office and state appeals board twice regarding the ramp’s handrails and height.

Because of this experience, Schwartz says he’s often recommending temporary solutions to tenants of his other commercial properties to avoid the bureaucracy.

“I encourage our tenants to buy a portable ramp and place a sign in the window to call or ring a bell for access,” Schwartz wrote in an email.

Going forward Stemmler would like to see more permanent accessibility changes to Pittsburgh businesses. Until then, she appreciates any level of access.

“We deal with ‘not perfect’ every day of our lives,” Stemmler said of people with disabilities. “When you are born with a not-perfect body, you get used to working with not perfect.”

This story was fact-checked by J. Dale Shoemaker.

Stephen Caruso is a Pittsburgh-based journalist. He can be reached at stephencaruso23@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

The post Watch your step: How Pittsburgh businesses can satisfy accessibility rules and still not be open to people with disabilities appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

After months of community outrage and government opposition, an Oakland Gateway Ventures (OGV) representative said they are going to redraw their plan for South Oakland.

The announcement comes the day after nearly 100 Oakland residents gathered in a meeting hall Thursday night to get answers on OGV’s transformative plan to redevelop Bates Street. In a meeting announcement, the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation (OPDC) said the developer would be there, yet no OGV representative showed themselves until the end, providing little new information.

But in an interview with PublicSource Friday, an OGV principal member Bill Kane, who was not able to attend the Thursday meeting due to a scheduling conflict, said the development group was going to downsize the project’s scope to meet city and community demands — despite the fact that he believes the project as proposed would be an economic boon to Oakland.

“We’re going back to the drawing board,” Kane said of the project.

Residents and politicians spent the better part of an hour at the meeting, criticizing and expressing opposition to OGV’s $650 million plans. Preliminary designs included removing hillsides and razing homes in order to replace them with the state’s second largest parking garage and a hotel. OGV also proposed to straighten and widen the often jammed Bates Street that connects South Side with Oakland.

An analysis conducted by the OPDC with the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group this week said the project could cost nearly five times the estimated $650 million.

Wanda Wilson, the OPDC executive director, said she would want to hear more details about OGV’s new plan before she could respond to the developer’s statement.

However, she added the OPDC is always happy to talk with developers who follow the city’s process and engage with the community, and that OPDC’s job was to be critical of proposed development.

Last night, she said the meeting was helpful in clearing matters up for residents of the centrally located and oft-redeveloped neighborhood.

“There’s a lot of misinformation and rumors going around about this development company,” Wilson said, referring to threats of eminent domain that had no government approval, as well as OGV’s claims of support from local government officials that had not endorsed the plan.

In fact, every member of the panel, from City Council President Bruce Kraus and State Sen. Jay Costa, to planners at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pittsburgh City Planning, expressed reservations, if not outright opposition, to OGV’s plan.

Kraus was especially incensed that the developers have used courtesy meetings — given by elected officials to developers to hear out their ideas — as signs of full approval. That, in addition to the lack of outreach and input of the community, represented bad faith from OGV, Kraus said.

Blithe Runsdorf, 72, is a Schenley Farms resident in North Oakland and an active resident member of OPDC. She’s lived in the neighborhood since 1980.

While the development wouldn’t affect Runsdorf’s home directly, she opposed the development on principle. She said it’s important that communities stand against new construction and direct any changes into the zoning process.

“You have to hold the developer’s feet to the fire [for them] to do their due diligence,” Runsdorf said.

Zoe Lardas, 56, lives with her husband on Parkview Avenue in South Oakland, just up the Boulevard of the Allies from a proposed hotel and all the traffic she expects it would bring. She worried that OGV’s development could ruin the character of the mostly residential neighborhood.

“The community has to stick together or it’s not a community,” Lardas said.

Kane told PublicSource on Friday that when the project was originally conceived, back in 2007 as a single building on Bates Street, then-Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s administration supported the plan. It’s only been under Mayor Bill Peduto’s administration that the project has encountered resistance from the city, he said.

Kane added that the plan only expanded from the single building into a $650 million project because of community input. He wouldn’t say where the input came from.

Kraus wouldn’t rule out construction to Bates in the future — in fact, the OPDC 2025 Master Plan includes modifications to the street to ease traffic flow — but he said he couldn’t imagine the proposed plan getting political approval let alone passing the zoning board.

“It is not that nobody wants to consider improvements to the Bates corridor, that is open, but [OGV’s] discussion is off the table as far as the city is concerned,” Kraus said.

Thursday night’s meeting took an awkward turn when Kraus — responding to a crowd outraged by the neglected condition of 12 OGV-owned rowhouses on Bates — stood up and announced that if an OGV member was present, they should show themselves. With that, Bill Bannow, a white-haired man, stood up to face the crowd of people who had spent the better part of an hour deriding OGV’s proposal.

Bannow, who manages real estate acquisition for OGV, said the developers didn’t need to speak at the meeting, as they had met with city planners in June and a few weeks ago in October for a follow-up, during which the city expressed reservations that mimicked those of many of the officials in attendance.

Afterward, Bannow refused to comment further on the project, claiming that OGV had said all they could to the city. On Friday, Kane said he’s not concerned about the project anymore and had investments lined up in other cities, such as Charlotte and Cleveland.

Kane said the group isn’t giving up entirely on the Bates Corridor, though. He said OGV is requesting another meeting with the department of city planning before diving into the redesign.

“We’re not going to do anymore false starts on this,” he said.

Stephen Caruso is a Pittsburgh-based journalist. He can be reached at stephencaruso23@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

The post After Oakland residents gather to express concerns, developer announces downsizing of controversial plan appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

More than 100 concerned residents of Beaver County attended a community meeting hosted by Royal Dutch Shell in the town of Beaver Tuesday night, hoping to get their questions answered about the potential environmental impact of the $6 billion cracker plant being built in their community. But some left with the feeling that their queries were unanswered.

The meeting, the third planned by Shell, was held in the College Square Elementary School and opened with an hourlong presentation by company employees. Beaver residents Debbie and Rick Pentz attended the meeting with their granddaughter Alayna, hoping for answers, but found the meeting to be less informative than anticipated.

Debbie Pentz had come prepared with a list of questions, including some inspired by PublicSource’s recent reporting on fenceline monitoring of pollutants entering the community. But Rick complained that the replies seemed scripted and superficial, and Debbie said she couldn’t hear what other attendees were asking or the answers. This was due, in part, to how Shell set up the meeting; instead of an open question-and-answer session, they funnelled the crowd to tables organized by topic to talk with Shell representatives.

“The reason we structured it like this was to give people a one-on-one opportunity to have their question answered,” said Joe Minnitte, an external relations advisor for Shell.

In the broader presentation, company representatives dropped references to the Steelers and local hospitality while discussing Shell’s community outreach and safety and environmental preparations for the petrochemical plant. Once operational, the plant will convert natural gas into plastics.

The plant is expected to produce hundreds of tons of potential hazardous pollutants into the atmosphere.

Despite the congenial presentation, most people in attendance remained worried about possible air pollution from the plant and much more.

What happens if there’s a major accident or explosion? Will citizens be compensated for property damage or medical problems? How many outsiders are moving in?

Juliann Petersen, a local healthcare worker who attended the meeting, was frustrated after Shell’s presentation.

While the presentation was forthcoming on Shell’s efforts to plant trees and lay down mulch in a local playground, Petersen felt she didn’t get satisfactory responses when she asked about Shell’s air permit. The permit covers a swath of Western Pennsylvania, but she’s concerned about the hyperlocal effect on the borough of Beaver, particularly the health risks for the locals.

“It was a public relations meeting,” Petersen said. “My questions did not get answers.”

While the meeting was open to the public, no recording or photograpy were allowed.

A few attendees came to the event as members of the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Committee, including Terrie Baumgardner, an instructor at Penn State’s Beaver County campus. She joined the group in 2011, when it mostly opposed fracking. Now, the group has been focusing on the cracker plant.

“The cracker is going to justify fracking to Wall Street,” Baumgardner said. She fears the plant’s 1.6 million tons of plastic production, produced from unconventional gas wells in and around Western Pennsylvania, will encourage further investment in the petrochemical industry in the region — and further environmental degradation.

Jim Sewell, the cracker plant’s environmental director, spoke to the crowd during the presentation. Sewell said the plant is required by its DEP permit to utilize the best technology to achieve the strictest emissions standards.

While there are safeguards in place, like Shell’s leak detection and repair program, some environmentalists are arguing it’s not enough. Some environmentalists are pushing for real-time fenceline monitoring that is used at other industrial facilities across the country and provides information about the air quality passing from the plant’s property into the community.

Shell told PublicSource for a July story that it is open to considering the installation of fenceline monitoring at the plant, but the company hasn’t committed to it.

While some attendees were categorically opposed to the cracker, Robert Boles made clear he had no philosophical issues with the plant. Boles, an engineer, volunteer firefighter, and father of four, just had one request — that Shell take a baseline measurement of everything from air quality to light pollution to ambient noise. That way, if citizens complain to the company about anything from a funny smell to loud noises keeping them up at night, there would be some data for a fair comparison.

He brought up that concern to a Shell representative, but held back from asking if the company had a plan in case of a disastrous accident at the plant. With the size of the crowd vying for personal attention, he didn’t feel that asking would be worthwhile.

“It felt like [the meeting] was structured to avoid tough questions,” Boles said.

Stephen Caruso is a journalist based in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at stephen@publicsource.org. Follow him on twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

The post Beaver County residents get little assurance on concerns about Shell cracker plant appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Superintendent Patrick Graczyk didn’t sleep for 48 hours after he had received his school district’s lead testing results.

Graczyk, the superintendent of Allegheny Valley School District, had willingly tested his district’s buildings as part of a partnership with Green Building Alliance (GBA), a Western Pennsylvania-based nonprofit which advocates for environmentally friendly and safe places.

Graczyk’s insomnia came from tests detecting that a few classroom sinks and some hallway water fountains had water with dangerous lead levels above the EPA’s suggested action level of 20 parts per billion for school buildings.

While Graczyk agonized over what to do, with the help from GBA, the district came up with both a plan to inform the district’s residents of their lead problem and a solution. The district dismantled the poisonous water fountain and shut off the pipes to the classrooms.

Pennsylvania law does not require schools to test for lead and radon, and so, according to a recent report by PublicSource, many of the schools don’t. Both lead and radon are dangerous, especially for kids. Lead, a known neurotoxin can lead to developmental issues in children, while radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States after cigarette smoke.

“No one forced our hand to test the water quality in our school,” Graczyk said at a press conference held at the YWCA in Downtown Pittsburgh Thursday. “[And] guessing was not an option.”

Graczyk’s example, helped inspire GBA and Women for a Healthy Environment, a Pittsburgh nonprofit, to announce a new program, called the 1,000 Hours a Year project, to help Pittsburgh-area schools and pre-schools find and limit lead and radon exposure in their buildings.

What happened in Allegheny Valley is what Andrew Ellsworth, the vice president of health and learning at GBA, hopes will happen hundreds of times over in Allegheny County with the help of $400,000 grant from The Heinz Endowments.*

“We need to stand with our commitment to our children,” Ellsworth said.

Looking at radon and lead specifically, Ellsworth was adamant that the risks had no place in schools because the risks were “preventable” and “solvable.”

The 1,000 Hours a Year campaign — named after the 1,000 hours kids spend on average in school and child care places every year — sets a goal to both test for lead and radon and then remove their source by distributing up to $7,500 to qualified applicants.

Schools or concerned parents can find more information on the grants through the campaign’s website at 1000hoursayear.org. Speaking at the event, WHE’s executive director Michelle Naccarati-Chapkis said she expects grants to be available approximately one month after application.

Judging by the age of schools in Allegheny County and the geology of Pennsylvania, the incidence of both lead and radon levels could be high in the region. According to state statistics, an estimated 40 percent of Pennsylvania’s homes have radon exposure above the EPA’s recommended limit of 4 picocuries per liter. In Allegheny County, 43 percent of tested homes were above the limit.

As for lead, while lead paint was banned 39 years ago, and lead solder in pipes was banned 31 years ago, the nation’s schools buildings are on average 44 years old, according to statistic cited by Naccarati-Chapkis.

The funds will also be aimed specifically at low-income and underserved communities. Ellsworth said the program will evaluate that by looking at free school lunch and Women, Infants and Children nutrition program participation rates at applying schools.

Both Ellsworth and Naccarati-Chapkis said that the data gleaned from the tests won’t be made public on the campaign’s website. It won’t be a requirement for districts to reveal test results to parents either. But Naccarati-Chapkis said she will “highly recommend” transparency to participating groups.

Referring to his experience in Allegheny Valley, Graczyk was originally fearful of parents’ reactions to the findings. But, with WHE and GBA’s help, the district informed the community of both the results and the district’s actions to fix the toxic faucets. In response to the transparency, the district’s families were supportive.

“Parents just want to know that their kids are safe,” Graczyk said.

Defeating that cycle of fear — from either a district nervous of upset parents or parents fearful for their children’s well-being — is what Ellsworth sees as the real goal of the whole program.

“[Testing for lead and radon] isn’t something to be afraid of,” Ellsworth said. “This is something to be taken care of.”

*The Heinz Endowments has provided funding to PublicSource.

Stephen Caruso is a PublicSource intern. He can be reached at stephen@publicsource.org. Follow him on twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

The post This new initiative will help Pittsburgh-area schools and pre-schools test for lead and radon appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

As a member of student government at Carlow University, Taylore Nacey is used to being made “very aware” of when people are unhappy.

But she realizes she can’t fix everything. One evening about a month ago, Nacey’s phone started ringing off the hook. Students were leaving frantic messages about President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 federal budget — and how it aims to cut the funding that got them to college.

“Hey, is this a real thing? Is this going to happen?” students questioned Nacey.

Described as a “budget blueprint to make America great again,” the proposal strips $3.9 billion from federal Pell Grants, which are debt-free federal assistance to needy students.

The budget also cuts a $732 million in Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, which is money given to schools by the federal government. The schools distribute this money to the most needy students who need aid beyond the Pell Grant.

The budget also promised to reduce federal work study “significantly” — but did not indicate how much it would slash. The program provide part-time jobs to students with financial need to help them pay for living expenses — like food or school supplies.

The proposed cuts would have a widespread impact on the Three Rivers region: 32,865 students at 28 institutions of higher education in the Pittsburgh area received $111 million in Pell Grants, according to the most recently available federal data from the 2014-15 school year. The federal government’s budget for 2018 is due Oct. 1.

“Almost everyone I know is on financial aid,” said Nacey, a 20-year-old sophomore psychology major at Carlow. According to data from the federal government, about half of Carlow’s undergraduates receive Pell Grants.

Nacey is, too. She receives $5,800 a year in Pell Grants — along with working 30 hours a week at retail store Hot Topic for a little more than minimum wage. Without the grant, “I would have to come up with $5,000 on my own.”

The cuts wouldn’t affect regular funding next year, but instead would take away from Pell’s reserves. The government pulls from the reserve fund when demand for Pell Grants is high. The Trump administration says the proposed cuts “leave the Pell program on sound footing for the next decade.”

But Jon Fansmith, director of government relations at the American Council on Education — a higher education association with nearly 1,800 members  — thinks the move is “shortsighted” and ignores “what we’ve seen over the last 10 years.”

Fansmith says demand for Pell Grants follows the economy. When the economy is bad, demand for grants increases. When the economy is good, the demand decreases. A booming economy means low-income families may have more money to spend on their children’s education.

So if the economy continues to improve, the cuts may matter less. But Fansmith is skeptical that the next decade will only be filled with new business and increasing pay checks.

Looking at the cuts, Natalie Wilson, Carlow University’s director of financial aid, said she feels there’s some irony in the proposal’s title as an “America First” budget.

“To be ‘America First’ economically and militarily, we have to have educated citizens who can participate in the economy and military at the level we need them to,” Wilson said.

Olivia Bennett is one of those Pell Grant recipients trying participate in the American dream. A business student at Carlow, she used to work at Comcast in customer service. But, after management passed over her for promotion after promotion, she traded IT for textbooks.

“I started school basically because I needed a better outcome for myself and my family,” said Bennett, a 38-year-old single mother of four. After graduation, she’s heading into a combined business and law (MBA-JD) program and hopes to become a civil rights attorney.

Bennett, a North Side resident, receives $5,000 a year in Pell Grants and pays for nearly all of the rest of her tuition with scholarships — except for a $300 loan.

That $5,000 is near the top of the range for Pell Grant recipients. The awards depend on whether you are a full-time or part-time student, if the applicant is a dependent or independent of their parents, and how much the applicant or his or her family makes.

Jamie Hightower-Poindexter, executive director of central financial aid at the Community College of Allegheny County, said she is concerned about how changes could affect students at different places in their lives . For instance, while a single mom’s need for the full amount may seem clear, any cut could mean less food on the table or being unable to buy a needed textbook.

“If other tiers of Pell are reduced, students would be impacted by having to secure student loans or tap into personal resources (if they have resources available) to supplement their tuition and cover living expenses,” Hightower-Poindexter wrote in an email.

According to government data, 40 percent of students at CCAC receive Pell Grants worth nearly $26 million spread across 8,600 students.

Sitting outside on CCAC’s main campus on the North Side, Robert King, a 34-year-old West Mifflin resident, is trying to decide if he should take the long bus ride home or go to panel on gun violence for extra credit.

The former mechanic is attending school to become a paralegal because he’s seen too many of his buddies get hurt. He wants work that challenges “more with the head, less of the body.”

He receives about half of his money for school from the state and federal government — including Pell Grants. But even with the assistance, he notes the minor expenses that add up, like that bus ride — he estimates he spends $100 on fare every month. The textbooks really add up, too.

Overall, King isn’t sure what his college experience would look like without aid.

“I would still be doing it, but it would be more of a hardship,” he said.

He would have to work longer hours and drop some credits to afford school.

That’s the result Wilson, back at Carlow, fears from cuts to the grants. Momentum is key to finishing a degree, she said, especially for non-traditional learners like King.

“The more students slow down, the more likely they are to drop out,” Wilson said.

The students and administrators  need not worry yet. Trump’s budget doesn’t have a lot of traction in Congress. In Washington, D.C., Fansmith himself doesn’t think the proposed cuts nor Trump’s overall budget will go through “wholesale,” but he is concerned by the priority shift it shows.

By taking money “set out for the purpose of helping students” and transferring it for short-term gain, Fansmith says he fears “generational damage.”

That could end up being the case for Bennett — whose daughter, Raquel Betters, is attending Slippery Rock University in in Butler County and also receives a Pell Grant.

Bennett said without the grants, her own and her daughter’s college education would be “non-existent.” And without the education?

“I would probably be very directionless,” she said.

This story is supported in part by a 100 Days of U.S. award from The Sprout Fund.

Stephen Caruso is a PublicSource intern. He can be reached at stephen@publicsource.org. Follow him on twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

The post How Trump’s proposed budget could affect thousands of Pittsburgh-area students who receive Pell Grants appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Andrea Barber’s son Camerin has always been “hyper,” as she puts it.

From his first day of grade school, it seemed like Camerin, who is now 10, could never concentrate on what the teacher said. At first, Barber explained it away as childhood exuberance. But after he finished the first grade, Barber, 31, had a revelation about her oldest son:

“He couldn’t read anything, he couldn’t write at all.”

That year, Camerin was diagnosed with a learning disability and dyslexia.

Four years later, Camerin is in the third grade but is reading at a first-grade level.

Barber had thought her son’s condition may be genetic. But over the past year, as the rising lead levels in Pittsburgh’s water became more known to the public, Barber has suspicions about the root of Camerin’s condition.

She remembers making his formula with tap water. She didn’t know that infants on formula get 40 to 60 percent of their lead exposure from tap water.

Testing children for lead exposure is not required in Allegheny County. The Allegheny County Health Department has proposed universal lead testing for children, but currently, children on Medicaid are the only youth required to be tested. Still, few children on Medicaid are tested.

The fact is, Barber will likely never know if Camerin’s condition is the product of bad genetic luck or a preventable toxicity in the environment. Either way, she’d have the same responsibilities. So looking forward, she wants to make sure other young, possibly single mothers like her, see the risks lead can pose to their kids — and heed the warnings.

“I’ve seen a lot of stuff about lead but it never really triggered anything within me,” Barber said. “It’s kind of like one of those things that you don’t pay attention to until it happens to you. I wish more young moms, when they see stuff like that, look into it more and not just expect our city officials to take care of the problem.”

Camerin is Barber’s oldest. He has two brothers: Corey, 7, and Cody, 3. As her kids were growing up, Barber and her family were mobile, moving between apartments, duplexes and homes in Stanton Heights, Penn Hills and Wilkinsburg.

She’s not sure if any of the homes from before Camerin’s diagnosis had lead. But her gut and the condition of those homes tell her they may have. The experience at her last home in Larimer feeds into her hunch.

In 2014, Barber started renting an old house, built before 1978, in Larimer.

Because of its age, the landlord should have told Barber there was a risk for lead paint. But she says they never gave her the federally required notice of the risks of lead.

By 2015, Barber had some concerns about carbon monoxide from a home test kit she bought. So, Allegheny County Health Department inspectors visited her home. And when they did, they also checked for lead paint. The test was positive.

“There was lead everywhere, even on the outside of the house,” Barber sad.

She got her boys tested, and none showed elevated lead levels. Lead in blood decreases by half after a month or two. Caring for three boys leaves her little time to dwell on it, but the discovery opened up her eyes to the possibility that lead from paint or water could have had an effect on Camerin.

As the volunteer vice president at East Liberty Family Support — where she teaches families about healthy eating and lifestyles — Barber didn’t think of lead as a topic that felt important amid the “motion of life.”

“I’m working three jobs. I got to pay the bills. I gotta catch up on my sleep. I gotta feed the kids. I gotta break up fights. I gotta go to school,” Barber said.

So the threat of this one tiny element didn’t seem pressing.

Despite those nagging doubts that lead caused her son’s condition, she says she is not going to beat herself up or point fingers.

“I’ve never had the energy to try and investigate that,” Barber said. “I’ve just had the energy to try and fix what was wrong with him and try and move forward from it.”

Her first move was making sure Camerin repeated the first grade. Looking ahead, she knew her son needed those early lessons to sink in to prevent him from getting caught in a cycle of misunderstanding.

“He wouldn’t have understood the work, and he would have been upset…and he would express that through his behavior and acting out,” Barber said.

Then, she slowly started to eliminate every source of lead she possibly could. Barber and her kids moved from Larimer about a year and a half ago. Their new home is outside of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority’s coverage area. Regardless, a NSF-certified filter from the Women for a Healthy Environment initiative sits on her faucet to filter out lead.
These days, Barber always carries water bottles with her when out with her kids.

When either Camerin or his brothers run to a water fountain, she’ll pull them back and reach into her bag for a water bottle.

“Of course they run to them every time,” Barber said. “But I try to tell them, ‘We’re going to try and stop drinking from water fountains.’”

In her home, she has a wall covered in words and letters, where she plays games with Camerin to make sure learning doesn’t end at 3 p.m.

The two also frequent the library together, where Barber is trying her best to make sure her son reads as much as he can. Last summer, they went through 44 books — some starring superheroes, others Pete the Cat.

Barber’s concerns about her boys and health also translate to a small business she runs. She manages health-conscious vending machines, that include SunChips, nuts and granola bars to hungry Pittsburghers. Barber plans to hand over the business — My Three Sons Vending — to her children when they are older.

It’s enough that, despite the challenges Camerin faces, she can still smile when she thinks of the coming years.

“I’m making a bright future for him,” Barber said.

Stephen Caruso is a PublicSource intern. He can be reached at stephen@publicsource.org. Follow him on twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

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Paul O’Hanlon is a public-transit super user. The 63-year-old Squirrel Hill resident takes the Allegheny County Port Authority’s buses seven days a week. And he is an active member of the Committee for Accessible Transportation (or CAT) — a Pittsburgh community group that advocates for access to the city’s transit system for people with disabilities and low mobility.

Pittsburgh’s proposed Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT, is what was on CAT’s agenda Wednesday evening. The BRT is a combined plan between the city, county and the Port Authority to connect Downtown with Oakland by taking a traffic lane on Forbes or Fifth avenues away from private vehicles to create a dedicated lane for new electric buses.

The Port Authority estimates the plan would cut buses’ travel times from Oakland to Downtown by eight minutes in normal traffic and 15 minutes in rush hour traffic.

What may seem like a convenience to some spells trouble for O’Hanlon.

“I have enormous concerns about the process,” O’Hanlon said, citing the price of additional transfers and potential service reductions on local routes.

After a brief presentation by city and Port Authority representatives on Wednesday at the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children in Oakland, around a dozen Pittsburgh residents took two hours to question and comment on the proposed changes.

The Port Authority has also put together plans to extend the lanes to the East Busway, and add branches to Highland Park and Squirrel Hill without dedicated lanes, depending on the public response over the next week.

One major concern for the attendees, especially O’Hanlon, was the need for transfers. Under the plan, non-BRT bus routes like the 61 and 71 series would stop in eastern Oakland, and travelers would have to transfer to a BRT route there.

Considering the inconvenience of a transfer, and the possible additional cost — transfers currently cost an additional dollar — O’Hanlon thought the bus switching could be a deal breaker.

“It’s the transfer that’s going to kill it,” he said.

While switching buses is going to be the new reality for sure, Amy Silberman, a Port Authority analyst speaking at the event, said the transfer fee is still under discussion.

The attendees, many who use wheelchairs or other walking assistance, were also concerned that the bus lanes in Oakland would disrupt access to the curb for paratransit — Port Authority vans specifically designed to carry passengers with disabilities. O’Hanlon contends that would be a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act by “creating an obstacle” to access.

Under the current plan, instead of offering access to any spot on the curb, the city would add and enforce paratransit-only drop-off spaces around every block to not disrupt the flow of bus traffic.

Some attendees, like Alisa Grishman, who was calmly knitting throughout the meeting, criticized the plan for what she saw as wishful thinking. She referenced her deceased grandmother when commenting on the plan’s suggestion for paratransit stops every block.

“She would not be able to even walk three houses away,” Grishman said.

Since the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, public transit systems have been required to ensure equal access to their buses, trains and stations by adding ramps, straps and handles to their facilities and vehicles.

After the event, Port Authority spokesman Jim Ritchie said he was confident that BRT upgrades could be changed to meet the ADA’s standard.

“We’ve recognized for a long time these very specific concerns exist for people with disabilities that we have to take a very close look at,” Ritchie said.

Besides the separate bus lanes, the plan would include cutting in half the number of bus stops along the Downtown-Oakland corridor, from one every one-sixth of a mile to one every one-third of a mile. The existing stops, however, would be have more amenities — including shelters, ticket machines and low-level platforms with ramps for access.

The proposed cuts in bus stops drew the ire of some attendees, who thought frequent stops created better accessibility. The potential cuts to local service on the 71 and 61 series were specifically mentioned. They also didn’t like some proposed route changes, such as moving the 69 bus to the Boulevard of the Allies.

Many questioned why the changes were necessary at all, when certain aspects — such as lax enforcement of parking near bus stops — already made commuting as a disabled American a hassle.

Analyst Silberman said changes are needed because the authority “does not think its service to and through Oakland is up to snuff.”

The period for public comment on BRT will end on April 11, after which the Port Authority, county and city will use the existing input to decide upon the right route for the system. After that,the authority would start to consider many of the CAT members’ concerns over the summer in design workshops.

“All of the details are a little further down the road,” Ritchie said.

Jeff Parker has been an active participant since CAT was founded in 1992 to improve paratransit and accessibility on the Port Authority.

He’s proud of the history of cooperation between CAT and the Port Authority, and feels they’ve overcome quite a few hurdles, by encouraging bus use among people with disabilities with the addition of ramps, among other changes.

But looking at the new BRT plan, he’s worried about the “competition for the curb” it will create  with the authority’s existing accessibility services.

“BRT and paratransit are like oil and water,” Parker said.

Stephen Caruso is an intern for PublicSource. He can be reached at stephen@publicsource.org. Follow him on twitter @StephenJ_Caruso.

The post Will bus rapid transit in Pittsburgh be accessible? These riders are concerned. appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.