Cities, towns find shared interests

When officials from 25 local municipalities gathered last week, they had shared interests to discuss — sewers, public transportation, blight and emergency medical services.

Those attending represented 25 of 37 towns — Pittsburgh and its bordering municipalities — that make up the Congress of Neighboring Communities, or CONNECT.

“It is the city and the suburbs,” CONNECT founder David Miller said. “It’s not talking about what separates us, but what the common interests are.’’

“It’s people working together for the common good,’’ said Kathy Coder, a member of Bellevue council and chairwoman of the group.

The gathering was CONNECT’s sixth annual legislative congress, held at the Circuit Center on the South Side.

CONNECT, which started in 2009, is a program at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. The 37 member communities contain nearly 700,000 residents.

At the meeting, Forest Hills was voted the newest member, bringing the total to 37, and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto was named chairman, succeeding Ms. Coder.

“Pittsburgh has not been a full participant in the past, but that will change,” Mr. Peduto promised.

The presentations included one on CONNECT’s Sewer Reorganization Implementation Committee. The committee has been working with 3 Rivers Wet Weather in an effort to collaborate with the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority and its 83 customer municipalities to improve service capacity, expand Alcosan’s governance to better represent its customer municipalities, and promote sustainable approaches to waste and storm water management.

The group passed resolutions to move forward with the partnership between Alcosan and CONNECT to look for ways to upgrade the region’s sewer systems.

In the public transportation report, improvements to parkn-ride facilities, including upgraded bus shelters and signs, were some of the items suggested.

“Parking is an area of concern for many municipalities,” Carnegie Mayor Jack Kobistek said.

“We would like to see improved and expanded services,’’ he added.

The transportation report recommended appointing a

CONNECT representative to work with the Port Authority on quarterly ridership updates, route changes and more.

Mary Ellen Ramage, CONNECT secretary and borough manager for Etna, talked about how blight affects communities.

“Everyone’s been talking about it for years,” she said. “But many don’t have the capacity to do anything about it.’’

She introduced Megan Ott of the downtown law firm Goehring Rutter and Boehm, who was retained by CONNECT to deal with issues surrounding blight. Ms. Ott said she will help with demolitions of blighted properties, delinquent real estate taxes and code enforcement.

Dan Swayze of the Center for Emergency Medicine of Western Pennsylvania-talked about CONNECT’s community paramedic program, which provides nonemergency transportation to those who need it.

He said the program works with hospitals to find those who need the service the most. He said the average age of the program’s patients is 65 and most have at least three chronic illnesses.

In the past year, it has received 650 referrals from area hospitals and has worked with 17 emergency medical service providers.