City Council

CITY OF MCKEESPORT REGULAR MEETING TUESDAY 7:00 P.M. JUNE 4, 2019 This Meeting of Council was called to order on the above-stated date at the above-stated time after the Pledge of Allegiance and Moment of Silence by President of Council Richard Dellapenna. Prayer was led by Reverend Jim Lewenberger from McKeesport Presbyterian. The following Members of Council were present: RC-1 PRESENT: JAMIE BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BRIAN EVANS, LUETHEL NESBIT, TIMOTHY BROWN, KEITH SOLES, RICHARD DELLAPENNA ABSENT: JIM BARRY APPROVAL OF MINUTES: MOTION: Mrs. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mr. Soles, “to approve the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of May 1, 2019.” RC-2 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, EVANS, NESBIT, BROWN, SOLES, DELLAPENNA (6) NAYS: NONE (0) COMMUNICATIONS: Secretary James reported that the City received both the Police and Fire Reports for the month of May 2019. MAYOR’S REPORT: President Dellapenna asked for the Mayor’s Report. Mayor Cherepko said thank you, Mr. President. A couple announcements and I will be brief, ten minutes tops, you got my word, you can put a timer on if you want, probably not even. A couple announcements I just want to make sure we get in there. June 22nd, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. out at Fire Station #2 will be a low cost vaccine clinic. [1] That’s at #2 Fire Hall, provided by Fixin and Wagon. So, if you need information for that we have information for that. Saturday, June 15th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. is going to be the Grand Opening of the Dog Park. That was through the CITF Grant that we received from Senator Brewster and his help a few years ago we are now ready to get that open. The trail part won’t be paved around it and the parking but we have millings down, grass is now growing in the park and we will be ready for a Grand Opening on June 15. This Friday as we talked earlier, Mark Rose will be at the amphitheater at Gergely Park so if you have a chance go down there and support our McKeesport Development Corporation. The sponsors for this are UPMC McKeesport, Pure Penn, and Mon Yough Chamber Foundation are all sponsors of these events that are going on. The first one was nice, it was nice to get a decent crowd down there. It’s a beautiful evening, probably a couple hundred people, maybe 200 people or so, and it ended up being a really nice evening. Something different, so enjoy the concerts somewhere else other than Renzie, which of course that will be coming up as well, which I have in front of me. June 16th will be the first day to kick off the Concert Series and we are very appreciative of everything the Lions Club does, all of their efforts. June 16 will be the Vogues and I will announce now, with the assistance of Councilwoman Jamie Brewster-Filotei, something we were working on for about a year, we felt that August 11, the Skyliners will be playing at Renzie Park. That is going to be the day that we pick to rename that part of Tulip Drive going from Eat-n-Park Boulevard up to Penn Oak, which is the Rose Garden, just that stretch that goes right by the Bandshell, we are going to look to, it’s not finalized, but Jimmy Beaumont Way or Jimmy Beaumont Boulevard, we are not sure which way but we are going to name that after Jimmy Beaumont who was obviously a star here from our own City of McKeesport. With his passing last year Jamie and I talked about this and she communicated with the families and we picked August 11 being that the Skyliners are playing in the Park. So, we appreciate your efforts Jamie. We are excited about that to acknowledge a local star. We always have these stars in McKeesport that often we take for granted but Jimmy was without question a star. [2] Some other things that are going on. The ARLE Grant, you may have saw we received the ARLE Grant for $344,000 that will upgrade all of the Versailles and Evans. It will put audible for we have some concerns with Coursin and Lysle Boulevard so that will help with a few people, I believe there’s one or two that use that regularly that are deaf so that will help them cross the road more safely as well and some other little traffic type things that we can get creative with, whether they are blinking signals, not the blinking signals like in the school zones but some other safety, whether it’s paint markings on the roads and things like that we are going to do throughout the City as well. So, we are very grateful for the support on that. I got to acknowledge Tom Rosso. Rosso really takes a lot of pride in these Grants. He really does. He puts an unbelievable amount of effort in getting these and following through with conversations. We follow through of course with Senator Brewster and Representative Austin Davis and our State officials to help support it. I think even Bill Kortz, even though he doesn’t represent McKeesport anymore usually sends a letter off on our behalf as well, but we were successful with this as we’ve been successful in the past as well, but Tom Rosso really does a tremendous job when it comes to these traffic signals. I mentioned some of the paving. We are excited to get a lot of the roads done this year. Steve is doing a great job with the men, preparing the roads and getting ready to, our goal is to just go out there and start asphalting maybe four or five at a time and then go prep a few and then go back. Of course, our contractors are out as well so our contractors are out paving. We also are going to look to put out another contract on some of the larger ones, including up by the hospital, maybe Fifth Avenue in front of the hospital. UPMC is making significant investments into the hospital. We are fortunate to have a hospital here in town and we want to help them out as well as beautifying whatever we can, not just on the road improvements, I mean obviously there are a lot of houses on Evans that are being torn down as well, but we are looking to put out Fifth Avenue and Evans and a couple other streets maybe with a bid for this year, the bottom part of Marshall as well. We are having some water issues up there and we have to get that resolved first, but we are looking to get up there and get the lower part of Marshall down as well. They are up there, they are doing Grandview right now, they have part of Monongahela, and then they go down to Soles and Versailles, Union might be the bid we are doing this year, oh yea the lower part of Union. [3] We are also looking for the bid to do this year, Library, in front of the library, especially when they finish their new parking lot, that’s a bad stretch, part of Union there, Bailey Avenue is real bad from Cornell to Union. There’s a lot that need done and we are trying to strategize and prioritize in the most efficient manner that we can. So, we will come to Council with some of those that will be going out for bid. Finally, not finally for my report, but we did get the opportunity right after the last Council meeting to announce the development on RIDC, 50 plus jobs for the multi-modal facility of Rivers, I always forget the name, Rivers Materials. We are excited. It was a very, very long process I can tell you that much. It was at least a year and this administration worked trying to get that in. A.J. attended an unbelievable amount of meetings to continue to follow-up and make sure that we did everything that we need to get them down there. Not only are they coming in, I don’t know if we can release but they had some preliminary drawings of what that area could look like and it was beautiful. I’m talking the new buildings being built, architectural drawings, so at some point we want to release that, making sure that is still the route that they are going. There’s a couple other businesses we can’t discuss that may be coming in to piggy-back off of that as well. So, we are excited about those opportunities. On a development end, the building across the street from Natale’s, Jon Stark, yea he’s back there he’s in the audience today, Jon is an individual that has a lot of property in the City of McKeesport, a great business owner, whether it’s residential or whether it’s commercial, he’s the contractor that is going to be building the new building across from Natale’s. In addition to that we are under Sales Agreement, the Redevelopment Authority is with Jon, with the Peoples Building as well. So, we are looking to get the Peoples Building in his hands. He’s already working and already doing a lot of things that he was able to do before he, even before he actually took ownership to get the ball rolling. Closing I think is this month, sometime this month, but Jon we applaud your efforts. We cannot say enough, I can’t say enough how much I appreciate your commitment to the City, your vested interest in the City, and we continue to look forward to being a great partner with the City of McKeesport as we move our City forward. I don’t want to get repetitive, I told you ten minutes, we are about done. [4] Oh yea, this Friday, oh Saturday, there’s a Fishing Derby, from 8-12 at Lake Emily. So, if you can be down there and join our wonderful Recreation Department and all that they do for a lot of events in the City, and then there’s a Community Day for UPMC at the Palisades, right afterwards. That goes from 12-4 there’s going to be some activities for kids as well, health fair, so we are excited about that. Good Neighbor Day is June 13th so if you get a chance stop downtown on June 13 for Good Neighbor Day as well. A lot of the other things I could go on and on but I think most of us here, the Spray Park will be opened Saturday, it had to be a week late because we had some issues with it so we had to get some things fixed on the surface and it will be opened and operating on Saturday as well. A lot of good things happening. We told you 2019 is going to bring some exciting times for the City. For the second half we expect some announcements as well. Also, Tri-Wire is still looking for 60 employees. Anyone looking for employment please stop down at Tri-Wire. They are down across from Isbir Manor on Market Street. You can call my office and talk to Jennifer for a contact number as well if you need to get in touch with them. The last thing I want to talk about, I just want to touch on briefly, obviously I’m sure if you saw the media, we’ve had a couple unfortunate incidents over the last week. Anytime that there’s a death in this City through gun violence or whatever it may be you can’t put into words how I feel as Mayor when it happens, how quickly my demeanor changes, just as many of you that love and care for our City and believe in our City and believe that better days lie ahead. I will assure you that our Police are doing an unbelievable job trying to control the issues that they can control, continuing the efforts through intelligent policing, saturation patrols, the cameras are working well as we continue to add intersections, even the arrests that were made on Friday were made, to be totally honest with you, thanks to the camera system that we have at the Housing Authority. We were able to, our police were able to identify the suspects, three arrests were made at this point, right Chief, still three? Chief Alfer said as of yesterday. Mayor Cherepko said there’s probably a couple more to come from this incident. In addition to having the cameras at the Housing we were able to get a description of the vehicle and get a license plate and pretty much follow that vehicle as it [5] navigated through McKeesport through our other system of the license plate readers, the virtual checkpoints we have in the City. These are situations that no matter what when it happens you can’t help but sit back and say ok what could we have done differently, what can we do to improve our efforts. We will continue to do that because we are far from perfect. I will share one story though. I was on scene at the one on Harrison and I thought this was an example, I wouldn’t say who the young lady was that I was speaking to, but it was a lady that I’ve known for a long time and have the most respect for, and we had a candid conversation and she was talking about the night before, which was the night that Sequon was most likely shot and killed in Tube Works Alley, not just a couple of blocks away from Harrison. That same night we happened to have saturation patrols out and this was the story that I was having. Through the saturation patrols, we had 2, 4 (Chief Alfer said 4), 4 guys out, extra police that night. So, my point is even when you up it to 4 extra men, women, can’t remember who was exactly on that detail, but our police officers were out that night and we still unfortunately had a death which we didn’t even discover until the next day when someone come across it. While they were out that night they were down, and this is what the lady was sharing with me, they were down Harrison Village at our Housing Authority and some of our officers were going through on foot, talking to people, they may have even had some kids, I call them all kids whether you are in your 20s or whether you are actually kids, and I think they were stopping, they were talking to them. Well the point I am getting to is the lady at the time mentioned to m you know she goes they were very respectful and looking back I really realize that now but I was a little bit upset at the time saying here we go, our police are coming through, our police are trying to be in my words “pro-active” because that is what we are trying to do, and through that it was the next day when we are standing there and shots were fired through the Housing Authority that she said but it all makes sense and I now see a different side of it. Whether it’s basic traffic stops or whether they end up getting consent to search a car or to search somebody, whatever the case may be, just keep in mind we are just trying to make our neighborhoods a safer place to live and I think that really, it was a little refreshing to hear somebody that within 24 hours she admitted that she was a little bit upset the night before and then she realized less than 24 hours later, this is the stuff you are trying to prevent and I say that because I don’t want anyone to think that our police are out there doing anything [6] other than trying to protect and serve our City. We have a police department in my mind that is second to none, we are very fortunate here. We are far from perfect, I don’t claim to be perfect and I am not saying we don’t have our issues, but what I will tell you is this, the complaints that come in, even when we are being proactive and we are out there with our saturation patrols and studies will show you that these help curb, these can help curb the crime, especially violent crimes, the complaints are so minimal. I think that says a lot about the men and women we have serving our police department and how respectful they are and try to be when encountering individuals on our streets and I think a lot of that goes to you know from the administration on down. Chief Alfer stepped in for Chief Washowitz and he is doing a tremendous job but I think it goes along way when we talk about community policing and we talk about our police officers living in town, our police officers wanting to be involved, and our police officers knowing a lot of the kids. I call them kids, they are not all kids. So, when I say that I am just, they are not actually kids, but to the Chief, I mean just keep doing what you are doing. He’s learned very quickly about 3 a.m. calls and me texting him to see if he is up as our former Chief did because you know we are working and we are doing everything we can. So, what I am just telling you is I don’t want anyone to think for one second that ah this is just another shooting or this is shots fired, or whatever the case may be because you hear this stuff on the street sometimes and people that really don’t understand what is going on and understand just how committed and dedicated our police officers, this administration and this Council, are. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have with this Council when something happens. You can see the look in their eyes as well. This is not something anyone wants. Just as many of you in this audience that are here and care about your City. You probably feel the same way. What I can tell you is our efforts are there. We are always looking to improve. We will continue to do the policing. We have to continue to provide other opportunities. We have to continue to provide the youth with as many life- learning experiences as possible. It’s hard to do because funding is cut at every level but you have a lot of organizations out there trying to do things. You know whether it’s the Boys & Girls Club or whether it’s with Mr. Brown’s group and some of his colleagues that have boys they are trying to mentor and try to reach out to these young men. There are a lot of different groups throughout the City and I kind of had a last second really community meeting, just a little community [7] meeting just probably half hour before I came in here and probably about 30 people. I didn’t realize it was even going to be. I thought we were going up there for something else and we went up to St. Paul Church, which is the church right next to where Sequon was found. So, we met up there and we talked about some things and we talked about how we can improve some things in that particular area but we also just talked in general and what I am saying to Council and to the community, to the pastors, to the reverends to anyone that wants to be involved, we are really looking to try to pull together and do some things together. I think there’s a lot of different groups doing things but we need to be out and we need to support one another’s events, activities, because it is more people involved to interact with the youth. So, it’s not something that we are not giving, I don’t want anyone to think that I could tell you for one I spent countless hours, countless beating my head about different things that could be done but I will end with this and I will say that I know a lot of times people have excuses and this includes the community. People say there’s nothing for our kids to do, there’s nothing around, what I can tell you as Mayor is we have a lot of programs that are struggling because they need participants. So, it’s easy to say there’s nothing for our kids to do and that would be an inaccurate statement. An accurate statement would be that it would be nice to have more things for our kids to do because you can never have enough but when you have all these groups, whether it’s the Boys & Girls Club or whether its Youth Cast here in the City but Youth Places and Brenda Sawyer and what they are doing down Crawford Village, they are there every night Monday through Friday from 5-8. There are days where she has 10 kids. You are talking about a funded program able to have kids gather, participate in activities, build friendships, build relationships, whatever. So, I think as a community leader we need to be interacting with some of these parents. If you know parents out there struggling, kids that are struggling, we need to start trying to pull them and get them involved as well because there are some things to do out there. Your baseball programs are struggling, some of your softball organizations. These are organizations that can’t even get enough players to fill teams anymore. So, when I say that, there are things that go on. We need to help facilitate and get these young men and women to these different types of events and organizations that will help impact these children. Remember one thing all it takes is building a relationship with one adult and in my mind if you save one life it’s worth it. So, when you provide these positive life-learning [8] experiences with these kids and you have a group, let’s just say hypothetically speaking all of us in this room are part of an activity, it might not be me that John Smith bonds with, it might not be Jeff, it might not be Tommy, it might be Keith, it might not be Jason, it might not be Tim, who knows, it might be Curt, and this is the one for whatever reason that this young man or young lady, whatever the case may be, bonds with and when they come across a crisis situation in their life that can be life or death they may just have the courage to go talk to him. They may go and he can make a phone call to maybe save that child’s life. That’s all it takes. It’s building relationships and if you can build those relationships, because when it comes time for them to make a life or death decision, and if they have the courage and they feel comfortable or their life is in danger and they can go get help you can save a life and they can go get help. But, it’s about these relationships. I know I rambled on a lot longer because I didn’t think I was going to go on this topic but this is just eating me alive and we’ve done a, we are doing what we can from a policing aspect but from a community aspect we need to see what else we can do because the structure at home on many of these kids and these educators up here and some of the others that have been around, some of these kids have no structure at home. Some of these kids the most stability they have is during school. Because I will tell you something else and I will commend the School District. Mr. Brown is up there and some of the teachers, Jamie teaches there and the administration on down, it’s like these same kids can be in school and you don’t have the issues. As soon as you hit the streets all of a sudden they have beefs with one another. I commend the School District for doing what they do there to keep the stuff out of schools . I can’t applaud you enough. We have to find a way as a community to continue that out onto the streets and with all this being said you need to know that whether you realize it or not, contrary to what many like to run with, you know, we can show over the last several years, you know we had our spikes in homicides two years ago and things like that I mean but barring that crime overall is still on the decline. We need to continue. These acts of violence are nonsense. It’s absolutely, it breaks your heart. I don’t want to get discouraged by it and I never end my Mayor’s report on negative things but it’s negative because it’s sad and then you have. Morgan and Adrian, in Pittsburgh, Angie, my heart goes out to them, you can’t even put into words. But, Chief keep doing what you are doing. To all of the administration from Steve to Jeff, to everyone that is working, thank you, just keep doing what [9] you are doing. To Council I know Council you beat yourselves up too because I know there are times I’ve had conversations with Council and they say man we’ve got to do something we’ve got to do something. Well you know because you take it personal as well, but just know there’s a lot of great things going on in the City and the violence we will continue to work on to curb this addiction of crime and violence and we will do it through policing but it’s going to take a lot more than policing efforts as well. With that being said, don’t forget next month our meeting is on Tuesday as well. To get it away we made both Summer meetings on Tuesday, especially to get it further away from the Fourth of July Holiday. Mr. President, that ends my Report. President Dellapenna said thank you Mr. Mayor. CITIZENS IN THE AUDIENCE: None NEW BUSINESS: President Dellapenna asked Secretary James for New Business. RESOLUTION NO. 19-025 – BILL #30 (INTRODUCED BY MR. SOLES) – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, APPROVING A REVERSE SUBDIVISION REQUEST FROM TAMMY & CARNELL JOHNSON TO COMBINE TWO LOTS INTO ONE. THE PROPERTY EXISTS IN A R-4 ZONING DISTRICT. MOTION: Mr. Brown moved, seconded by Mrs. Nesbit “to approve Bill #30.” President Dellapenna asked for questions or comments and there were none. RC-3 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, EVANS, NESBIT, BROWN, SOLES, DELLAPENNA (6) NAYS: NONE (0) RESOLUTION NO. 2019-26 – BILL #31 (INTRODUCED BY MR. EVANS) – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, APPROVING A REVERSE SUBDIVISION REQUEST FROM PATTIE & RUSSELL A. WILLIAMS TO COMBINE TWO LOTS INTO ONE. THE PROPERTY EXISTS IN A R-1 ZONING DISTRICT. [10] MOTION: Mr. Soles moved, seconded by Mr. Brown “to approve Bill #31.” President Dellapenna asked for questions or comments and there were none. RC-4 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, EVANS, NESBIT, BROWN, SOLES, DELLAPENNA (6) NAYS: NONE (0) RESOLUTION NO. 2019-027 – BILL #32 (INTRODUCED BY MR. BROWN) – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING ITS APPROPRIATE OFFICERS AND OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE A SPECIAL WARRANTY DEED AND TO DELIVER SAME FOR THE DONATION AND CONVEYANCE OF REAL ESTATE AT 612 ATLANTIC AVENUE, MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PA, AND DESIGNATED IN THE DEED REGISTRY OFFICE OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY AS BLOCK/LOT NUMBER 308-J-99 FROM THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, PARTY OF THE FIRST PARTY, TO THE REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, PARTY OF THE SECOND PART, FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF ONE DOLLAR AND OTHER GOOD AND VALUABLE CONSIDERATION INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE PROMOTION OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT; AND RATIFYING AND CONFIRMING ALL PRIOR ACTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, AND ITS OFFICIALS, OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES, WITH REGARD TO SAID DONATION AND CONVEYANCE AND ACCEPTANCE OF SAME. MOTION: Mr. Evans moved, seconded by Mrs. Nesbit “to approve Bill #32.” President Dellapenna asked for questions or comments or discussion and there was none. RC-5 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, EVANS, NESBIT, BROWN, SOLES, DELLAPENNA (6) NAYS: NONE (0) [11] ORDINANCE NO. 2019-006 – BILL #33 (INTRODUCED BY MRS. BREWSTER- FILOTEI) – AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, REQUIRING THE PAYMENT OF ANY AND ALL FEES AND TAXES CURRENTLY OUTSTANDING FOR MORE THAN NINETY (90) DAYS PRIOR TO THE ISSUANCE OF ANY BUILDING PERMITS OR OCCUPANCY CERTIFICATES ON ANY PARCEL IN THE CITY, AND FORBIDDING THE ISSUANCE OF ANY SUCH PERMITS OR CERTIFICATES TO ANY ENTITY OR PERSON WHO HAS OUTSTANDING CODE VIOLATIONS OR ANY DELINQUENT FEES OR TAXES IN EXCESS OF NINETY (90) DAYS ON ANY PARCEL IN THE CITY. MOTION: Mrs. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mr. Evans “to approve Bill #33.” President Dellapenna asked for questions or comments or discussion and there was none. RC-6 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, EVANS, NESBIT, BROWN, SOLES, DELLAPENNA (6) NAYS: NONE (0) President Dellapenna asked for a Motion to Amend the Agenda and add Bill 34. MOTION: Mr. Soles moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei “to amend the Agenda and add Bill #34.” RC-7 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, EVANS, NESBIT, BROWN, SOLES, DELLAPENNA (6) NAYS: NONE (0) RESOLUTION NO. 2019-028 – BILL #34 (INTRODUCED BY MRS. NESBIT) – RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, APPROVING AND AUTHORIZING THE FILING OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2019 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN FOR FUNDING KNOWN AS B-19-MC-42-0106 UNDER TITLE 1 OF THE HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 1974 (PUBLIC LAW 93-383) AS AMENDED. MOTION: Mr. Soles moved, seconded by Mr. Brown “to approve Bill #34.” President Dellapenna asked for questions or comments or discussion and there was none. [12] RC-8 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, EVANS, NESBIT, BROWN, SOLES, DELLAPENNA (6) NAYS: NONE (0) ADJOURNMENT: President of Council Dellapenna said that concludes the Council meeting for Tuesday, June 4th, I’d like to thank everyone for coming and good night. The meeting then adjourned at 7:35 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Annette James City Clerk and Clerk of Council APPROVED: Richard Dellapenna President of Council das [13]