The week in review
A BRIEF ROUNDUP OF THE LOCAL NEWS OF THE WEEK
Staff writer Julian Routh — and a whole pack of Democratic dignitaries — were on hand Wednesday when President Joe Biden appeared in Pittsburgh to pitch his administration’s “once in a generation investment” into the country’s crumbling infrastructure.
Speaking to a number of union workers in the workshop of Collier’s carpenters training center, Mr. Biden said his $2 trillion plan will rebuild and reinforce America’s structural backbone: Everything from fixing roads and bridges to providing incentives to those who care for seniors.
“Here’s the truth: We all will do better when we all do well,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s time to build our economy from the bottom up and from the middle out, not the top down.”
The plan faces a difficult path in Washington, and critics have lined up to slam the cost of the package, the length of time it will take to pay it off — which Mr. Biden says would be 15 years — and the priorities that the White House outlined.
But Mr. Biden countered by saying if we act now, the world will look back in 15 years and say “this was the moment that America won the future.”
Westinghouse property eligible for historic list
Most people take pride in their property and hope that it is appreciated by others.
A 10.2-acre property in North Point Breeze, that once belonged to George Westinghouse, electrical pioneer and inventor of the railroad air brake, is taking that appreciation to the next level: It’s now eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
Staff writer Marylynne Pitz reported that Westinghouse’s mansion, “Solitude,” once stood on the property, until is was demolished in 1919 and the land became a city park connecting the neighborhood with Homewood and Point Breeze.
A March 12 letter from Douglas C. McLearen, chief of the division of environmental review for the state Historic Preservation Office, indicated the park is eligible for listing on the National Register. He cited “its potential to yield important information about George Westinghouse and his significant contributions to national, state and local history.”
“This is a meaningful historic place with connections to George Westinghouse,” said Gavin White, community projects manager for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.
Pittsburgh’s Open Space, Parks and Recreation Plan, known as Open Space PGH, calls for developing a master plan so that Westinghouse Park can achieve its full potential. It aims to improve the park for users, strengthen community, improve environmental quality and reveal an important chapter in world history.
County corrects flaw in COVID-19 registry
Allegheny County said Friday it has made corrections to its new COVID-19 vaccination registry that had prevented people from scheduling second shots.
Email notifications that were sent out lacked a first dose appointment code that was necessary for people to sign up for their second doses.
In a news release, the county said following “testing and resolution of several issues, the Health Department has begun second dose appointment emails” with the code.
Meanwhile, those who want to schedule their first vaccine appointments can do so by visiting the county site at https://vax4.alleghenycounty.us/patient/s/.
According to the county, visitors have four options to choose from: schedule a first dose, schedule a second dose, reschedule an appointment and cancel an appointment.
By clicking on “schedule first dose,” visitors must answer four questions. Three are used to gauge whether they are eligible for vaccination before completing health screening questions. If the visitor is eligible for vaccination and appointments are available, the next step will be to select an appointment.
On April 19, “everyone will be eligible to make appointments for vaccination,” the county said.
School vaccination numbers encouraging
The effort to get Pennsylvania school employees vaccinated is ahead of schedule.
Staff writer Andrew Goldstein on Friday quoted Gov. Tom Wolf as saying the progress is an important step to safely reopening schools. The original target date for getting to this point was sometime in mid-April.
“We know that students, we know that teachers, parents, everybody wants to be back in the classroom — that’s where students can learn and laugh and grow,” Mr. Wolf said at a news conference at Luzerne Intermediate Unit 18. “Completing our special vaccination initiative is a really big step toward getting this back on track.”
More than 112,000 educators and support staff throughout Pennsylvania have been inoculated with the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine since midMarch.
Vaccine availability continues to expand
Pennsylvania is accelerating eligibility for COVID19 vaccinations by allowing up to a quarter-million police officers, firefighters, grocery store workers, and food and agriculture workers to register for the shots immediately.
Staff writer Kris B. Mamula reported Wednesday that every Pennsylvanian over the age of 16 will be eligible to sign up for shots by April 19. But health officials stressed that registration doesn’t mean the appointment will be immediate.
“It’s important to remember that eligibility does not guarantee an immediate vaccination appointment,” said Alison Beam, the acting Department of Health secretary. “We are very close to completing Phase 1a,” which includes health workers, people over age 65 and others with certain health problems, a group that totals more than 4 million people, or about a third of the state’s population.
Ms. Beam said the state is “very close” to finishing that cohort, allowing the state to make the vaccine more widely available.
On Monday, other first responders, manufacturing workers and others in Phase 1b are eligible to register followed by April 12 for people in the 1c group, which includes housing construction workers and finance workers and bank tellers.
Accelerating inoculation is made possible by an increase in vaccines through the federal government, Ms. Beam said.
Pitt reports troubling increase in cases
The University of Pittsburgh instructed its 29,000 main campus students to shelter in place starting Wednesday, two weeks earlier than planned, as an increase in positive cases of COVID-19 continues to threaten spring term’s final weeks and commencement season.
University officials said the school is moving to Elevated Risk after determining that the virus is now widespread in 13 of its residence halls.
During the shelter-inplace period, students should only leave their rooms or apartments to attend classes, labs, or clinicals in person; pick up food; exercise safely; work when necessary; and shop for essentials and medical needs. Group work for classes and student activities are being held virtually.
Get your Connellsville questions answered
So you’re wondering what’s going on in Connellsville. Well, you’re in luck, as staff writer Bob Batz Jr. reported that the Connellsville Visitor Information Center opened Friday.
Travelers can get tips on everything from where the trout are biting to where to grab a bite to eat in the Laurel Highlands.
The center is a cooperative outreach by the city, Fayette County commissioners, Fayette County Chamber of Commerce, General Braddock Fish Club and GO Laurel Highlands, formerly known as the Laurel Highlands Visitors Bureau.
Just outside of Connellsville’s downtown at 100 Torrance Ave., the center is located in Yough River Park and along the popular Great
Allegheny Passage biking and hiking trail that connects Downtown Pittsburgh with Cumberland, Md., and beyond. Signs over the door point one way to Pittsburgh, 58 trail miles away, and the other to Washington, D.C., 280 trail miles away.
“This is the perfect location for a visitor center as it allows focus on the outdoor amenities in Connellsville and Fayette County,” Commissioner Scott Dunn said in a release. “So much happens there, from rafting, cycling, fishing, playground and pavilions, hiking and walking.”
The visitors center will be staffed from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays in April and May, then Tuesdays-Sundays in June, and daily in July and August.
Time to get out your Wooly Buggers
Naturally, we’re all interested in nature.
Staff writer John Hayes updated readers on Peters Creek, which has gone from being a toxic trough in the early 1900s to what it is today, an Allegheny County trout stream.
Decades in the making, one of Pennsylvania’s newest state-stocked trout waters opened for business Saturday morning, the start of the 2021 trout season.
The creek, which bisects Route 51 near Jefferson Hills, no longer spews metals from abandoned mine drainage and urban storm sewer runoff into the Monongahela River at Clairton. After years of work by many individuals, nonprofit groups and government agencies, Peters Creek is expected to attract anglers from throughout the Pittsburgh area.
“This is something we’ve been hoping for for a long time,” said Gary Smith, the state Fish and Boat Commission’s southwest region fisheries manager. “People in southern Allegheny County won’t have to travel far to find trout, and can easily take kids fishing.”
He noted Peters Creek Watershed Association and the Tri-Community Anglers Association “did really great work to get that creek cleaned up.” The government also helped.
County Council gets a second opinion
Members of the Allegheny County Council last month approved a bill ordering paid sick leave for workers in the county, only to see County Executive Rich Fitzgerald veto it.
Staff writer Hallie Lauer reported that the council had the chance to override the veto Tuesday evening, but they begged off in a vote that came up short of the required two-thirds majority.
The bill would have required county employers to give one hour of paid sick leave for every 35 hours workers clocked, with a cap of 40 hours per year.
It seems Mr. Fitzgerald was convincing when he argued that such a bill should be generated by members of the county’s Health Department, as opposed to elected politicians. It didn’t hurt that he had the county’s Law Department backing him.
“I am in full support of paid sick leave, unquestioned,” said Councilman DeWitt Walton, who voted against the bill. “This is simply a matter of process; no more, no less.”
The Health Department has agreed to take on the bill, with plans to discuss it at the next Board of Health meeting in May, Mr. Fitzgerald said during his quarterly address at the council meeting Tuesday.
Even road work runs into detours
Staff writer Ed Blazina reported that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation expects to start about 50 projects that will cost about $241 million in Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties this year.
But that leaves a lot of projects on the drawing board.
“Our construction program is taking a bit of a hit,” said Cheryl Moon-Sirianni, District 11 executive. “There are still going to be a lot of needs when we are done.”
Ms. Moon-Sirianni said the agency should be paving some roads every five to seven years, but some are 15 years or more behind schedule.
“That’s not the way we should do business,” Ms. Moon-Sirianni said. “We’re struggling.”
As a result, the district is taking interim steps to extend the life of some roads and bridges until the proper work can be done.
For example, on Constitution Boulevard between South Heights and Monaca in Beaver County, crews will use a process known as microsurfacing — adding about 2 inches of tar and chip material with epoxy — to save money, Ms. Moon-Sirianni said. The goal is to improve that road and several others like it temporarily for as long as five years until the agency has the money for full repaving.
Microsurfacing will cost $4 million to $5 million while full resurfacing would cost two or three times that amount.
History center still looking to the future
Staff writer Mark Belko noted that the Sen. John Heinz History Center has acquired another treasure in its bid to expand its Strip District footprint.
It recently paid $200,000 to secure a slender fourstory building at 1211 Penn Ave. that once housed a restaurant. The property is located directly behind the history center on Smallman Street.
The property is believed to be the eighth purchased in recent years by the history center as part of a strategy to acquire real estate behind it for eventual growth.
In a statement, history center President and CEO Andrew Masich said the expansion likely will include classrooms, galleries and a visitor orientation center. The museum also has been toying with the idea of adding a hotel at some point in the future.