Sara Innamorato laid out a new administration priority yesterday, allocating $500,000 to a pilot program for subsidizing child care in one of her first big moves since taking office.

The new Allegheny County executive said the region faces an “urgent crisis” in child care while announcing the funds during a tour of the Shady Lane School daycare center in Point Breeze North.

Innamorato said thousands of local families may be unable to afford care for their children in the absence of government help, which could pull parents out of the workforce and hamper economic growth.

“Child care is such a priority of my administration,” Innamorato said. “…The work will not stop today.”

The $500,000 boosts an existing county program that subsidizes child care for families making twice to three times the federal poverty level who also meet work or education eligibility requirements. The program – Allegheny County Child Care Matters – began in April 2022 using $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA] funds allocated by the federal government to prop up day care services. 

So far, the program has subsidized care costs for 356 children. This week’s top-up will usher in 28 more who make up the current wait list, leaving some leftover funds for an unspecified number of additional children. The administration believes as many as 15,000 children may fall within the eligibility bracket.

Experts say high operational costs and staffing shortages prompted by low pay and high stress have strained the child care sector since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Pennsylvania now has nearly 600 fewer facilities than in 2020, with a net loss of 18 in Allegheny County.

The county established the Department of Children Initiatives [DCI] in 2021 to shore up an industry reeling from the pandemic and got to work distributing relief funds directly to care providers. Out of that later flowed the Child Care Matters program in conjunction with the Early Learning Resource Center.

While some child care professionals, such as Shady Lane Executive Director Lindsey Ramsey, say DCI has helped day care centers stay afloat, others in the industry are concerned the gaps remain wide and fear what may await when federal funds dry up.

DCI had spent less than a third of its $20 million ARPA-funded startup budget as of December, and must divvy out the remainder by the end of 2024 or return it to the federal government. 

Innamorato yesterday emphasized she appreciates the scale of the challenge and is committed to applying county resources to solutions.

“We are going to be meeting with businesses, nonprofits, our state and federal government and the foundation community to discuss a more unified and holistic approach to subsidized childcare for working families in Allegheny County and support the provider workforce,” she said.

“It is not just an issue for young families. It’s an economic issue for our whole county.” 

Correction: A previous version of this story mischaracterized the income qualifications for the Child Care Matters program.

Jamie Wiggan is Deputy Editor at Public Source. He can be reached at Jamie@publicsource.org.

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During this holiday season, around 900 people are known to be sleeping outside or in shelters in Allegheny County.

Housing and homelessness were ever-present concerns in the Pittsburgh region this year. But even as tents went up and shelters swung shut, new leadership came knocking on the doors of power with pledges of responsiveness and equity.

With COVID-driven funding expiring fast, though, the long-haul effects of the pandemic may be just beginning for the city, the Pittsburgh Public Schools and other local institutions.

In so many areas of life in our region — education, environment, equity, public health and safety — the gears of history continued to turn, and sometimes to grind, in 2023. PublicSource highlighted emerging trends and dug deep into the data, documentation and human-level impact.

Here are some of the stories we reported, many of which will echo into 2024 and beyond.

What happens after a camp is cleared?

The year 2022 closed with the City of Pittsburgh removing an encampment along Stockton Avenue on East Allegheny’s edge and sweeping aside with it a longstanding agreement.

The tents went down just as Allegheny County’s new Second Avenue Commons shelter prepared to accept displaced people while the Smithfield United Church of Christ’s basement doors creaked open.

If anybody thought those developments would noticeably blunt the effects of the housing crisis, they were quickly disabused of that notion.

The early days of Second Avenue Commons were marked by staffing problems and safety questions, while this autumn saw ramped-up evictions from its single room occupancy units. The Smithfield shelter, meanwhile, became a haven for hundreds but a bugaboo for Downtown businesses, until its June closure demonstrated just how tattered America’s safety net has become.

“I understand that it can’t exist indefinitely, but this haphazard closure is going to cause death and we need to hold people accountable for that.”

Aubrey Plesh, founder of Team PSBG, which operateD the shelter at the Smithfield United Church of Christ, Downtown

With cold weather’s return came a slow-motion rollout of the county’s and city’s plan for emergency shelter. The persistent presence of at least 200 people on the street, though, left leaders looking for… 

A path to long-term affordable housing

The affordable housing shortage has been well documented for at least a decade, though never so viscerally evident as it was in 2023. Yet one of the most versatile tools for addressing housing needs — the Housing Choice (Section 8) Voucher — had become rusty and blunt by the time PublicSource documented concerns of landlords, tenants and former Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh [HACP] insiders. That reporting spurred pledges of prompt improvements in customer service in the program, but the year ended with curbs on the portability of vouchers.

City development officials, meanwhile, scrambled to preserve affordable units that might otherwise fall into disrepair or convert to market-rate status. A $50 million federal grant raised hopes for more and better Hill District homes.

County-level interests sought to bring to the boroughs some of the models that have taken root in the city. And after nearly a decade of inactivity, the Pittsburgh Land Bank slowly began the process of reclaiming abandoned city property, sidestepping legal obstacles that held up progress. 

While fears of gentrification have been most pronounced in Pittsburgh, housing market forces don’t stop at the city line. That’s why Sara Innamorato was quizzed about the issue during her successful run for county executive, which has everybody asking …

Will a fresh approach on Grant Street really change things?

In what will be the last Allegheny County election season to feature direct six-figure contributions to candidates, Democrat Innamorato barely overcame Republican Joe Rockey’s large fundraising edge. (Conversely, District Attorney Stephen Zappala ran as a Republican, and bested billionaire-backed Democrat Matt Dugan.)

Innamorato’s pledge to focus on the “struggle of everyday people” has a different feel from outgoing County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s recent emphases, which have tended toward consensus building with business, labor and multiple levels of government, plus stable property taxes.

Innamorato has said she’d like to address increasingly skewed assessments, but also wants to reduce a reassessment’s impact on those least able to afford tax hikes.

Innamorato also heard “alarm bells” in the county’s selection of nonprofit contractor Adelphoi to take over the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center. But she will become executive amid heightened attention to violent crime, which the county has sought to address with a $50 million effort to beef up prevention efforts.

That’s a lot on the plate of the likely most prominent member of what we’ll call … 

Southwestern Pennsylvania’s pandemic-forged leadership class

Innamorato follows political ally Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey to Grant Street, but also joins dozens of new leaders who replaced longtime executives in both the public and private realms.

Also reaching prominence this year were Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto (who promptly disappointed some accountability advocates) and University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel (whose statements on Israel and Gaza left some dissatisfied).

The three years of turnover at the top that followed the Great Resignation may be remembered as a pivot point for the Pittsburgh region, but it won’t likely herald an extended and unanimous chorus of Kumbaya. Exhibit one: Gainey and UPMC (now led by Leslie Davis) show no signs of reaching an accord on any obligations the healthcare giant may have to the city’s coffers.

And the city’s bank balance? It’s likely to get leaner, as federal American Rescue Plan Act funds run dry. 

Gainey won’t be the only local leader scrambling for funds because … 

Schools will likely be scraping by

The Pittsburgh Public Schools are expecting similar headwinds as relief funding dries up and costs mount.

To get through the next budget year, PPS needs to draw nearly $30 million from its depleting rainy day fund. But even then, glaring inequalities persist, with students in some schools feeling they’re being taught in a “playground” instead of a rigorous educational setting.

The district also faces challenges over disparate student outcomes, variable teaching quality and uneven costs maintaining a patchwork of buildings that far exceed the needs of a shrinking student pool.

Graduates of high schools in Pittsburgh and suburban districts may be wise to review university balance sheets before filling out applications as … 

Higher ed weathers storms of its own

Higher education fairs little better in a city that’s hinged its revival on an “eds and meds” economy. 

Many newer workforce entrants are questioning the value of a degree altogether. The Community College of Allegheny County lost about half of its student body between 2010 and 2022 – and even a steep drop since the 2020 pandemic doesn’t account for the whole picture, one of steady decline.

Alarm bells rang out from Chatham University’s sedate Squirrel Hill campus in summer, when faculty learned the university faced a $12 million budget hole. To close the gap, President Rhonda Philips laid off department staff, trimmed administration salaries and slashed faculty pension contributions.

Chatham faculty answered with an early unionizing effort they hope will strengthen their position as the administration seeks to patch its deficit. That push can be viewed as one of many efforts aimed at …

Leveling society’s playing field

Campus concerns early in the year were focused primarily on safety for LGBTQ students, and when Pitt’s response wasn’t satisfying, an effort to bring the issue before the Board of Trustees resulted in criminal charges and student conduct hearings. At Duquesne University, a bid to rename Lambda to the Queer Student Union stagnated amid ongoing tension between the school’s Catholic orientation and the growing push for LGBTQ inclusion.

Nearly every university is grappling with diversity in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in admissions.

That ruling was also seen as a potential warning shot for other programs meant to undo effects of discrimination, and lent some urgency to the Gainey administration’s pledge to refresh the data behind race-conscious programs. Equitable law enforcement remained a work in progress, too, as a mayor elected in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police didn’t immediately dent the racial skew of his own department’s activities, or make “driving while Black” a thing of the past.

Equity efforts increasingly overlap with the ongoing environmental and climate catastrophe, and nowhere is that more newsworthy than in …

A region still fueled by fossils

Pollution from coal, manufacturing and other fossil fuels continues to plague a region still trying to shrug off the nickname “Smoky City.”

After Shell Chemical Appalachia opened its giant new petrochemical plant in Beaver County, a PublicSource investigation revealed a litany of malfunctions where, in many cases, the Department of Environmental Protection largely relied on Shell to assess its own missteps and the validity of public complaints.

In October, the Biden administration announced funding for two hydrogen hubs spanning stretches of Pennsylvania, although a proposal centered around Pittsburgh did not make the cut. Opinion is fiercely split on whether hydrogen has a role in the transition to clean energy or merely extends our fossil fuel dependence.

To some, natural gas extracted through fracking offers another pathway to weaning off coal and its carbon-heavy cousins. But families living less than 900 feet from a well pad in Washington County say their health and quality of life has suffered accordingly, while state legislation to keep drilling away from homes fell flat this summer.   

Climate change and air quality are daunting big-picture problems, and if you’re yearning to feel good about humanity, it might be advisable to look at …

Spirited neighborhoods rising to challenges

If the arc of history bends toward justice, the end of that rainbow can seem elusive — but perhaps it will end in the Hill District.

The neighborhood is still wary about developer promises after witnessing one of urban renewal’s most infamous injustices when the city razed the Lower Hill District and built the Civic Arena and parking lots. But leadership at the Bethel AME Church, victimized by the wrecking ball in 1957, believe they have a pact that will partly redress that tragedy with affordable housing.

Similarly, Wilkinsburg’s population losses created both a need for redevelopment and fear of gentrification. The apparent collapse of a push to merge the borough into Pittsburgh may invite civic leaders to build on the community’s strengths.

Pittsburgh’s growth depends on its embrace of diversity and its willingness to welcome newcomers, and nowhere was that more evident than in Beechview. The South Pittsburgh neighborhood hosts the biggest concentration of Latino residents in the region, and its business district — once crippled by disinvestment and fraud — features what may be the region’s most bilingual main street.

As PublicSource enters its 13th year of writing, photographing and otherwise pursuing stories for a better Pittsburgh, there’s plenty of room for improvement — in the region and the media. Also ample is the spirit of determination to solve problems, whether they’re as concrete as the shortage of affordable housing or as intangible as equity in education. We’ll continue to seek and share truth, whether it’s in the form of professionally reported investigations or community members’ essays. We hope you’ll continue with us on that journey, and thank you for your readership and support.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Jamie Wiggan is deputy editor at PublicSourceand can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

Fact-checked by the PublicSource staff.

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Updated (12/18/23): A bill signed last week by Gov. Josh Shapiro grants judges new authority to extend probation in cases of unpaid restitution, clashing with the ACLU’s interpretation of case law.

The new guidelines on probation sentencing came into force Dec. 14 amid a sweep of criminal reform bills as the legislature wrapped up for winter recess. Pennsylvania law now lists the failure to clear a total restitution balance as one of a handful of codified conditions delaying probation terminations. 

The law also requires the inclusion of restitution payment details in status reports filed prior to probation review conferences, at which defendants have a shot at getting their sentences lifted.

In cases in which a defendant has demonstrated a “good faith effort” to clear their debt, they can be moved on to “administrative probation” –  a new classification of sentencing laid out in the bill that prescribes court supervision with fewer conditions than standard probation.

A separate bill passed last week expanding the state’s expungement program – praised by some reformers – nonetheless mandates full payment of restitution for those seeking to clear their records.

Reported 10/12/2023:

Probation forever? Court ruling clarifies that unpaid restitution shouldn’t mean unending supervision

Nearly a decade after he was charged with pocketing $182,000 from a teachers union fund, Ed Maritz Jr. still lives with regret. 

Thanks to a recent court ruling and some sharp legal research, though, he no longer lives with probation.

For several years, Maritz had been writing himself checks from the Pine-Richland Education Association account without detection, until he finally turned himself in in 2014.

“There was a lot of personal turmoil in my life, and very poor decisions on my part.” he said. “It’s what I would describe as the perfect storm in that people trusted me and I took advantage of that.”

He pled guilty to multiple felonies in 2015, and was sentenced to a year’s house arrest, followed by five more years under probation. He was also ordered to pay back what he’d taken. He vowed to serve his time, find new work and try to put things right.

Then, when his probation was set to conclude in September 2021, Maritz received a letter summoning him to a violation hearing because he had an outstanding balance on his restitution. He says he was advised by the officers to accept a two-year probation extension to “give him more time to pay.” Seeing no alternatives, he signed the papers.

“I did that because I didn’t know any better and I was scared,” he said.

Maritz says that since 2015 he’s consistently made payments ranging from $50 to $300, depending on his means. Court records show he’s paid less than $5,000 toward his $182,386 restitution.

Before his second probation sentence was set to end this September, Maritz received another letter warning of yet another violation proceeding in the works. This time he sought out other options.

“I didn’t feel there was a need for continued court supervised probation when I was demonstrating having a payment, one per month, every month for the past eight years.”

Maritz turned to the American Civil Liberties Union, where an attorney directed him to a ruling, Commonwealth v. Marshall, reached just days earlier in the state Superior Court. The ruling — the result of an appeal on a 2022 probation violation order in Allegheny County — found the defendant did not violate his probation for having an outstanding restitution balance because the court hadn’t proved he was in a position to pay it off faster.

Arriving at this conclusion, the ruling refers to longstanding case law that prohibits “indigent defendants from being sentenced to prison solely because they do not have enough money.” 

A preference for probation

Attorneys and advocates say the Marshall ruling simply reaffirms a longstanding legal principle that, for a variety of reasons, isn’t always followed – particularly in Allegheny County.

One such reason, according to Pittsburgh-based defense attorney Justin Romano, is a belief – widespread among courts – that releasing defendants from probation means releasing them from their debts.

“There’s a misconception that probation is the stick that you need to motivate defendants to pay restitution,” said Romano, a member of the Allegheny Lawyers Initiative for Justice. “In reality there’s a mechanism on the books.” Defendants can be held in contempt of court for failing to make good faith payments on what they owe without being on probation.

“Judges presiding over violation hearings need to understand you don’t need to keep someone on probation indefinitely to get them to pay,” Romano said.

Maritz, while glad to be off probation, says he still intends to clear his balance.

“I am responsible for what I did and I am responsible for putting it right,” he said.

Legal reformers in Pennsylvania have been pushing for years to end the practice of considering unpaid restitution and court fees as a probation violation. Andrew Christy, a Philadelphia-based attorney at the ACLU who was involved with the Marshall case, said Allegheny and Delaware Counties have – for reasons unclear –  stood out for frequently issuing restitution-based probation violations. 

Dolly Prabhu, a staff attorney at the Abolitionist Law Center in Pittsburgh, who recently co-authored a report on “Probation in Allegheny County,” said a team of volunteer court watchers under her supervision has regularly observed probation periods extended for unpaid restitution in the manner described by Maritz.

“We saw this all the time,” Prabhu said. “They make it sound like they’re doing the defendants a favor, because ‘we’re going to give you another five years to pay this off,’ almost like they’re giving them an extension of a homework assignment, when really they’re illegally extending their probation.”

Prabhu’s report notes that probation is “increasingly given as a default sentence rather than an alternative sentence.” It argues that instead of reducing jail sentences as a diversionary measure, probation places people on a “fast track to incarceration.”

While on probation, minor offenses can quickly land you in jail where they may otherwise be dismissed, she said.

Taking data recorded in May, the ALC report stated 40% of the county’s jail population were there on probation retainers – meaning they’d been sent there while awaiting a hearing on probation violation charges. It also noted the prevalence of poor people and people of color within the jail and probation systems. 

“It’s very paradoxical because the conditions of probation itself make it very difficult to get employed and make money,” Prabhu said

Court appointments and meetings with probation officers can interfere with work schedules, Christy said, sometimes jeopardizing employment.

“Keeping people on probation makes it harder for them to work and pay back what they owe,” he said.

Maritz noted simply disclosing his probation drove away some employers when he first sought new work after his sentence.

Is change coming?

While his felony record means he’ll likely never return to the field of education, Maritz has found employment in customer service and – as of last month – is no longer under court supervision.

He counts himself among the lucky ones.

“I’m very fortunate in terms of the nature of my crime, and the size of my restitution. The criminal justice system was fair to me.”

Joseph Asturi, a spokesperson representing the county’s probation department and its broader court system, said the Superior Court ruling was non-precedential and would have no material consequences for sentences related to unpaid restitution in Allegheny County.

“Probation does not detain defendants for failure to pay. Instead, the probation office presents cases to judges, who consider the information and arguments provided by attorneys and defendants, including those concerning whether the defendant made a good faith effort to pay or whether or not the failure to pay was willful,” Asturi wrote in an email to PublicSource. 

He added that restitution obligations remain in effect until they’re paid, and judges decide whether to keep defendants on probation — but they’re never “sentenced to jail for failure to pay.”

Christy said the ruling was non-precedential – meaning lower courts are not bound to it in future cases – because it does not reflect a change in precedent but instead “builds on decades of case law” going back to 1984.

The Marshall case “shouldn’t have been necessary,” he said. “But it does leave an open question of: Are courts going to be coming into compliance with this new and reiterated point from the Superior Court that you can’t punish people for being poor by keeping them on probation?”

A former educator with a doctorate, Maritz said his research abilities helped him build a case that persuaded the judge to release him. But, he pointed out, others facing similar situations may be less fortunate.

“I’ve seen people in the courts who say, ‘I’m literally going to be on probation my whole life paying this off,’” Prabhu said. “It’s unfortunate that even after this decision, some judges aren’t taking it seriously, or they simply aren’t aware, in the best case.”

Christy is optimistic about slow change in Allegheny County and he’s learned of cases in Delaware County in which the district attorney has dropped charges in response to the Marshall ruling.

“I do view what happened in Ed’s case as promising,” Christy said. “On the one hand it was troubling that the probation department [was] still trying to [extend his probation]. But on the other hand, the judge clearly was familiar with this decision and stuck with it.”

Correction:  The report citing the proportion of Allegheny County’s jail population held on probation was published by the Abolition Law Center. An earlier version of the story misattributed the author.

Jamie Wiggan is deputy editor at PublicSourceand can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Tanya Babbar.

The post Updated: New law bucks court ruling, may extend probation for those with court debt appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pittsburgh Public Schools may need to close schools to improve student outcomes and save costs, a developing strategic plan suggests.

Martha Greenway, an education strategy consultant who is steering the plan, last night told PPS board members under-enrolled schools are driving inequities and tying up resources that could otherwise boost education and other programming.

“None of the how [of school closings] has been predetermined, but the current configuration of schools is not allowing you to offer the programs and services in an equitable fashion,” said Greenway. “And that’s the problem to be solved.”

Greenway stressed the district would not approve any closures without public input, and the plan, as it stands, does not propose any specific recommendations.

Greenway said student input gathered during the process shows many are aware of the uneven experiences offered at the district’s schools. 

“They see the inequitable access to academic and non-academic programs, and the unequal financial investment in magnet schools, as things that get in the way of their success,” Greenway said.

The strategic plan, commissioned in April at a cost of $110,000, will continue to evolve in the coming months. The plan is intended to solve a range of longstanding issues at PPS, where Greenway noted test scores skew low, racial disparities are rampant, and many students report feeling unsafe in and around their school communities.

The next stage involves soliciting broader public input before locking in details on implementation – such as which, if any, schools should shutter – resulting in a plan that’s ready to mobilize in 2024.

The plan has so far sought input from a range of stakeholders – including student and parent focus groups – but Greenway said it won’t move forward without broader community buy-in.

“We will need to hear the voices of the entire community on our draft framework to get it right,” she said.

Consolidating schools is just one part of the strategy that also seeks to improve instruction and programming, cultivate a more inclusive culture, and strengthen ties between the district and the community.

Over the years, PPS has gone through four rounds of school closures, going from 93 to the 54 schools it has today. With that, the district has also consistently lost students. 

In the last five years, PPS enrollment has dropped by more than 3,000 students. By 2031, the state Department of Education predicts, the district will lose another 5,000 students. 

The last round of school closures happened in 2011 when the district closed seven school buildings and opened Langley as a K-8 school. 

In October, the district leadership and board resumed talks about another round of school closures, citing increasing instruction costs, overhead costs for aging building facilities, surplus capacity in their buildings and declining enrollment. 

During a public hearing on the 2024 budget earlier this week, parents expressed concerns school closures might arise as the district grapples with withering revenue streams. Defenders of one school with fewer than 200 students gave the board a sense of the reaction they may get to school closing proposals.

Annette Hall, a parent with two children at PPS Woolslair K-5, said her kids love their school and are “petrified” that it might get shut down.  

“Woolslair, in my opinion, is doing a great job at including everybody and getting a quality education,” said Sarah Zangle, a parent and vice-president of the Woolslair PTO. 

The district’s pending budget proposal projects an operating deficit of $29 million during 2023-2024. The district, which currently enrolls 18,380 students, is operating at 54% of its building utilization capacity and has an excess seating capacity of nearly 17,000 students.

As the district continues to lose students, pandemic relief funds expire and mandatory expenditures such as charter school and debt service payments rise, its financial difficulties will increase. 

In February 2021, the district proposed closing six school buildings — Morrow,  Fulton, Woolslair, Montessori, Miller and Manchester over two years, as reported by WESA. Nearly three years on, these schools remain open.

Linda Lane, the district superintendent when PPS closed schools in 2011, thinks it might be the right time to consider more closures. 

“When there’s been a significant enrollment decline, you have to look at it,” she said. “And when a building gets below a certain level of enrollment based on its size, it’s eating up resources that could be used for teachers and teaching and materials for kids that you prefer to spend it on.”

School closures might happen nationwide. More than a million students did not return to public schools after the pandemic, according to the Hechinger Report. However, closing school buildings has disproportionately affected Black and Brown students in the past and if PPS decides to close schools it might further exacerbate the inequities in the district. 

Research from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University showed that school closures are generally targeted at low-achieving schools with a majority of Black and Hispanic students and less than half of those students displaced landed in better schools. 

Lane said community engagement and input will be crucial if PPS is planning to close schools. She added PPS should assess the impact of closures based on racial equity for students and staff and on schools located in low-income areas of the city. 

Greenway said decisions will ultimately rest with the community.

“We are not coming to this with an agenda to close any schools,” she said. “…Those are things that we need to hear from the community regarding.”

Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.

Jamie Wiggan is the deputy editor at PublicSource. He can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

The Fund for Investigative Journalism helped to fund this project.

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Colin Schreiber, 30, is raising a 1-year-old boy with his fiance on a partly vacant block in Coraopolis across the street from a noisy concrete plant. He recently gave up his job as a security guard at the airport because, he said, he would get home around 6 a.m. right as the machinery hummed to life, rattling his windows and denying him sleep.

Schreiber said the operators have no regard for nearby neighbors, which include the occupants of a low-income apartment complex and a senior high-rise. 

“I think they should have to pay the residents for the damage they’ve caused,” he said. 

Justin Bryan, 39, lives a few miles away in Moon. He’s a proud fifth-generation business operator who said he’s excited about investing in Coraopolis through the plant his family acquired there three years ago.

“We want to bring jobs back to the area and we really want to start reinvesting in the community,” he said.

“I’d love to be here as a good neighbor 70 years from now.”

The task of weighing these competing narratives may soon fall to a judge. In October Schreiber, with the help of Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services, issued a 60-day notice of intent to sue Bryan’s company. He’s presenting nuisance claims, alleging multiple environmental violations, seeking damages from the company and urging stronger oversight from county and state regulators.

The pending class action suit also claims dust generated by the facility exposes residents to “known hazardous substances” that increase their risk of disease and health problems.

The plant, Riverside Builders Supply, makes concrete by mixing sand, cement, gravel and water, before transporting it to contractors for use on job sites. The Bryan Materials Group recently took over the aging facility, and according to Justin Bryan, plans a series of updates and improvements. He says in a good year the plant will distribute about 3,000 truck loads but in leaner times it could be as few as 1,800.

According to the filing, trucks rolling out of the site frequently stir up clouds of dust that settle over cars and windows in the surrounding blocks. Washing out the equipment results in polluted water discharges entering the stormwater system, it alleges.

The facility submits semiannual discharge reports to the state Department of Environmental Protection, and the Allegheny County Health Department [ACHD] monitors its emissions, according to Bryan, who said it has not been warned of noncompliance or red flags.

“They’ve made suggestions … and that’s again the best management practice,” he said of ACHD, noting the county last entered the site for a spot inspection in November. “They’re great to work with.” 

Amie Downs, spokesperson for the Health Department, acknowledged an uptick in resident complaints involving the facility and said the department has taken appropriate action.

The advocacy group Allegheny County Clean Air Now [ACCAN] has compiled a document logging 59 nuisance incidents, between March 2022 and November 2023, that it says were recorded by residents or members of its organization. 

Downs said the county has logged 18 official complaints in that time. Some of those may include more than one incident. “All [complaints] have been responded to in a timely manner,” Downs said in an email. 

Coated in dust

Bob Kricos lives two doors down from Schreiber on Pennsylvania Avenue. In the eight years he’s lived there, his two children have become prone to fits of coughing and sneezing that he attributes to dust from the plant.

At first, he said, the issues weren’t that bad. The former owners ran a diminishing operation, and the site was far less active until Bryan took it over and ramped up production.

Recently, he said, things have become intolerable and he’s often driven out of bed before 6 a.m. His biggest concern remains the dust, though. 

“The plant creates a very fine dust that coats and clogs up everything outside and inside my house,” he wrote in a statement delivered to ACHD officials during a recent Board of Health meeting. “The cars, roads and houses are all coated in cement dust. … We clean daily and it looks like you didn’t clean the next day. There is a perpetual layer of cement dust on everything.”

In hopes of improving their indoor air quality, Kricos has set up five filters in different areas of his home. He’s made some himself by taping furnace filters around a box fan to form a sealed cube trapping unwanted particles. He also owns professional grade air cleaners supplied through a partnership between ACCAN and the Pittsburgh-based group ROCIS, for Reducing Outdoor Contaminants in Indoor Spaces.

Angelo Taranto, ACCAN’s secretary, said he has been engaging the community around Riverside since residents, including Schreiber, began reaching out with concerns last spring. 

Taranto has canvassed homes along Pennsylvania Avenue, including the low-income housing at Coraopolis Gardens and, farther along on 1st Avenue, senior living high-rise Coraopolis Towers. Most were familiar with the facility’s disruptions, he said, but few accepted free filters.

Taranto said the cleaners offer immediate help, while efforts for firmer oversight and regulation could take years.

The cleaners work by filtering out particles of any variety or origin that could impact human health, said Linda Wigington, team leader at ROCIS.

“Particles from any number of sources can really aggravate acute conditions as well as chronic conditions,” Wigington added.

“The unique situation in Coraopolis with the concrete plant is that they’re just so close to it.”

Kricos said his children’s symptoms have eased since installing the equipment.

“It doesn’t solve the problem but it’s a lot better,” he said. “My kids were coughing and sneezing constantly before we got this.”

Tracking the trucks

Schreiber, Krikos and Taranto have submitted complaints to the Health Department, often including photographs showing swirling dust clouds or other alleged infractions. They say the department responded by installing 5 mph speed limit signs around the site and also requiring a fugitive emission management plan. But Taranto said Riverside’s six-page plan outline lacks the teeth of a federal Title V permit, which is required of high-pollution facilities.

Downs confirmed the fugitive emissions plan resulted from the Health Department’s recent engagement with the facility, adding that concrete batch plants are generally exempt from permitting requirements if they’re fitted with a particulate matter filter. She declined to confirm whether Riverside employs such a filter.

Bryan said he employs a sprinkler system and street cleaners across the yard to reduce dust and encourages his employees to consider the neighbors while going about the inevitably disruptive work of concrete production.

“That’s what I preach to my guys. … It’s just, ‘Let’s be, you know, generally respectful,’” he said.

ACCAN is gearing up to launch a web page dedicated to documenting the facility. Using technology developed by CMU’s CREATE Lab, the site will present air quality data along with camera footage using a monitor and camera installed on Kricos’ property. 

ACCAN also intends to publish copies of complaints submitted to ACHD – along with any responses – in a blog format. Since 2021, the group has maintained a similar page documenting alleged violations at a metal scrapping plant a few miles upstream on Neville Island. That plant, owned by Metalico, is the subject of an ongoing class action lawsuit alleging its emissions and noisy operations make it a public nuisance culpable of negligence. 

Planting a better future

Before he was hit with a notice to sue in early October, Bryan said, he had no direct contact with Schreiber or other angered residents. If they’d called or even sought him out on site, things may have turned out differently, he added.

“I wish they would have come talk to me,” Bryan said. “We want to integrate in the community.”

Randon Willard, executive director of the Coraopolis Community Development Corporation, said he couldn’t speak to the environmental concerns but noted that Riverside has given generous donations to the corporation’s food pantry and snack pack programs.

“They have been very invested,” Willard said of Riverside. “I know Justin personally and he wants to see the Coraopolis community thrive and grow.”

When the company took over Riverside in 2020, the aging plant had more or less run its course, Bryan said. They kept on the three employees that came with the sale and have since built the workforce back to a complement of 26. 

Bryan said he’s already working on a series of updates and modifications he expects will head off neighbor concerns, however the suit shakes out. 

Subject to borough approval, the rickety equipment will be outfitted with sleek and efficient retrofits. More importantly for the likes of Schreiber and Kricos, Bryan plans to enclose it within a building that would trap much of the dust and noise. And the narrow wedge of grass that separates the plant from the public street will be walled and landscaped.

“We want to be here,” Bryan said. “This is a good spot for us. We want to really spend some money and reconfigure a lot of that to modernize it.”

Bryan said he sympathizes with their concerns but notes the plant – founded in the 1960s – has been there far longer than most of the residents.

“If I had a home and somebody or the borough rezoned across the street and put up a concrete plant that would be difficult,” he said. “Except this has always been here.”

Schreiber and Kricos both said they’ve considered moving but are limited on options. Both say their children’s health and futures drive on their opposition to the plant.

“I just want to live peacefully and raise my kids in a safe environment,” Kricos told ACHD.

Jamie Wiggan is deputy editor at PublicSource. He can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.

The post Residents sue as Coraopolis concrete plant ‘coats and clogs up everything’ appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pittsburgh Bureau of Police activity dropped, by several key measures, during the first year of Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration, but the historic skewing of arrests and other such actions toward Black males did not budge.

The bureau in recent days released its annual statistical report, an 85-page chronicle of activity by a force that has steadily waned from around 1,000 officers in 2019 to fewer than 800 today. Among the findings, the report shows a sizable drop in overall arrests, traffic stops and park-and-walks between 2021 and last year.

A police spokesperson said this is consistent with national trends since the onset of the pandemic in 2020 but the underlying causes are unclear.

“It’s difficult to pinpoint any one thing that may have resulted in decreased numbers in these areas,” Cara Cruz, the department’s public information officer, wrote in an email.

From the vantage of officers, staffing shortages appear to be a factor.

“You’re losing numbers so you can’t do as much proactive policing,” said Robert Swartzwelder, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police lodge representing the bureau rank-and-file. “It’s probably significantly correlated … You see the number of police officers dropping at the same rate as you’re seeing that activity dropping.”

Read more: Gainey supporters frustrated as mayor, chief resist consultant’s suggested police reforms

Anthony Coghill, a city councilor who chairs the public safety committee, said he had not yet reviewed the report but reiterated Swartzwelder’s concerns about the impact of reduced staffing.

“That’s disturbing to me,” he said. “It’s alarming.”

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the reduced activity tracked closely to declining officer counts. The 2022 report did not include updated information on the force’s numbers and demographics. It included outdated numbers that were identical to those in the 2021 report. Cruz said the bureau was working to correct that error.

During his successful 2021 mayoral campaign, Gainey said high arrest rates of Black Pittsburghers reflected a failure to implement community-oriented policing, adding that there was "a serious issue with overpolicing in our neighborhoods, and the numbers don’t lie."

During his first year in office, Black men continued to comprise nearly half of those arrested by the bureau, and nearly three-fourths of those who were stopped and frisked.

In May, Gainey appointed Larry Scirotto to lead the department, following a year-long process to name a successor to former chief Scott Schubert. In announcing his appointment, Scirotto, who identifies as biracial, vowed to restructure the department around violent crime intervention, officer wellness, and community police partnerships.

Cruz pointed out that Scirotto was not leading the bureau during 2022 – the year of the most recent data – but noted, “The statistical data serves as a guideline for where the Bureau can improve and focus efforts to ensure that fair and equitable policing is the primary objective moving forward.” 

A spokesperson for Gainey said the administration is aware of “lasting issues” over policing in the Black community and is “continuing to evaluate the systems.” 

“One change that has happened is the hiring of a new police chief that understands the need for community building,” said Olga George, Gainey’s press secretary. “Dealing with this issue must start at a place of mutual trust and respect to change those disparities.”

Swartzwelder said it’s difficult, with the data available, to conclusively determine whether police actions reflect "a problem" involving racial bias.

“The metric that’s not being studied is, where is the call volume being generated?" the union leader said. “Who is calling the police? ... Where’s the volume of ShotSpotter alerts coming from?” If calls and gunshot alerts are disproportionately coming from neighborhoods with given demographics, police interactions are likely to reflect that, he said.

If not? “Is it a serious outlier? Well, maybe you do have a problem.”

 Scirotto has made similar arguments when asked whether traffic stop data reflected bias.

The annual report indicates that use of force by city officers, which surged in 2020 but fell in 2021, remained roughly unchanged last year.

Earlier this year, the union and the city agreed on a contract that created a first-in-Pittsburgh-history disciplinary matrix governing punishments for policy infractions. It will oversee officer violations going forward. 

Disciplinary actions last year were lower than in recent years, but terminations were up. That appears to be driven largely by Gainey's response to the October 2021 death of Jim Rogers, 54, who was shocked repeatedly with a Taser in Bloomfield. The city terminated five officers over the incident.

“Certainly, since Chief Scirotto began his tenure mid-way through 2023, he has been very clear about his expectations and directives for officers to treat every interaction, every call, as an opportunity to build positive relationships in the community,” said Cruz.

People across the political spectrum have criticized Gainey’s handling of the police department during his first two years in office.

Progressives who helped elect him have grown frustrated at a lack of progress on police reform after his 2021 primary election campaign focused in no small part on changing the bureau. They’ve criticized his decision to ignore a consultant’s recommendation to shrink the force’s patrol units significantly.

Meanwhile Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala — the Republican nominee for that post — and unsuccessful county executive candidate John Weinstein have said that Gainey is not supportive enough of the police and is making it too hard for them to counteract crime.

Swartzwelder said the available data doesn't definitively show whether city officers are "dialing it back."

In response to news that the city was dropping its budgeted officer count from 900 to 850, and did not expect to reach 900 officers again until 2027, he said the city will have to decide what it wants from the force. With current staffing levels, he said, the city is "running these officers into the ground."

He added that the union last month filed a grievance after the city barred several classifications of officers from taking time off during a series of large public events running from The Pittsburgh Great Race in September through First Night Pittsburgh on New Years Eve. Under its contract, the city can bar off days for emergencies.

"These are not emergency events," Swartzwelder said. "They're all for fun. And you don't have the personnel for fun."

Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor, and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Jamie Wiggan is PublicSource’s deputy editor, and can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

Charlie Wolfson contributed.

The post Arrests, stops, searches all dropped in Pittsburgh as officers dwindled, new police data says appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.