September 30, 2019 |
By Chris Baumann | Posted in: Duquesne News, McKeesport and Region News
In August, members of the LaRosa Boys & Girls Club and Duquesne-West Mifflin Boys & Girls Club participated in a STEM summer camp led by McKeesport's Blueroof Technologies. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania are opening an after-school career preparation academy in October at the former McKeesport Daily News Building, Downtown. (Photo courtesy Boys and Girls Club of Western Pennsylvania, via Facebook.)
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania is opening a Workforce Development Academy called Career Works in the beginning of October in Downtown McKeesport.
Located in the Tube City Center for Business and Innovation --- the former Daily News Building at 409 Walnut St.--- the program will primarily focus on developing career opportunities for highschool students grades 9-12.
Students from any area school district are welcome to participate and applications are being accepted online. The program will meet from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. weekdays beginning Oct. 1 through June 1.
Career Works will offer academic development, soft skill development, career coaching, internship programs and many other valuable career-related resources, said Lisa Abel-Palmieri, president and chief executive officer of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania.
“Our organization has been offering career development for over a decade, but we want to serve a broader teen demographic,” she said. “We want to retain students past the K-8 level. In the past they have tended to lose interest in the organization due to a lack of programming for their age range.”
Read More
September 27, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(Tube City Almanac photo)
One of the last vestiges of the railroad tracks that once cut through the heart of Downtown is finally getting a makeover.
McKeesport City Council this month awarded a $24,500 contract to Kucich Construction Inc. to renovate the former Baltimore & Ohio Railroad crossing tower at the corner of Walnut Street and Sixth Avenue.
McKeesport-based Kucich was the lowest responsible bidder, city officials said.
Read More
September 27, 2019 |
By Richard Finch Jr. | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s visit this month to Twin Rivers Elementary gave McKeesport Area School District a chance to share its views on charter schools, Superintendent Mark Holtzman said.
During Wednesday’s school board meeting, Holtzman discussed the Sept. 4 joint news conference with Wolf.
“We were able to talk about some of the things that need to change when it comes to charter schools,” Holtzman said.
At the press conference, Wolf discussed charter school reform including what he called a “fee-for-service model,” that will charge charter schools to resolve payment disputes with local districts, enabling the Pennsylvania Department of Education to recoup costs they are currently incurring from charter schools.
Read More
September 27, 2019 |
By Richard Finch Jr. | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
A portion of the transcript provided by family members. (Photo via Facebook.)
The superintendent of McKeesport Area School District will meet with an Allegheny County judge who reportedly called the school system substandard.
According to family members, the fact that the child’s mother lived in McKeesport was the deciding factor in awarding custody to the child’s father.
At Wednesday’s board meeting, Superintendent Mark Holtzman Jr. confirmed Judge Kathryn Hens-Greco will tour the school district with him on Oct. 25.
Hens-Greco’s remarks were reportedly made Aug. 7 during a child custody hearing. What appears to be an official court transcript was posted on Facebook by the child’s mother and has been widely circulated.
Read More
September 20, 2019 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(UPDATED: This story was updated with new information Friday night.)
(Photo courtesy Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety, via Twitter)
Parts of the Mon-Yough area remain under a boil-water advisory after a massive water line broke Friday morning in Pittsburgh's South Hills.
Clairton, Dravosburg, Homestead, Jefferson Hills, Munhall, Pleasant Hills, West Homestead, West Mifflin and Whitaker are among the communities affected, said a spokesman for Pennsylvania American Water Co.
Water tankers were being delivered Friday night to 15 locations, including the Munhall Municipal Building, 1900 West St., and West Mifflin Municipal Building, 1020 Lebanon Road. Customers should bring their own water containers.
The company said that water pressure was returning to normal in the affected area, but the boil-water advisory would remain in effect until at least Sunday morning.
Pennsylvania American customers on the opposite side of the river in Elizabeth, Liberty and Glassport are not affected, and communities such as McKeesport and Port Vue that get their water from the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County also are not affected.
Read More
September 19, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
From left, Keith Murphy, McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko and Los Angeles-based educators Angelina Arrington and Darnell Bell following an anti-violence workshop with young people at Auberle in June. The workshop was funded in part by the state Commission on Crime and Delinquency in support of McKeesport's Gun Violence Reduction Project. (Submitted photo courtesy City of McKeesport)
For the second year in a row, McKeesport has been awarded funding from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to support programs to reduce gun violence.
The $133,000 grant to the McKeesport Alternative Policing Strategies Initiative and the McKeesport Gun Violence Reduction Program includes money earmarked toward policing as well as mentoring and community outreach to divert young people away from violent confrontations.
The money will partially pay for an additional patrol vehicle as well as license-plate recognition, or LPR, equipment, McKeesport police Chief Adam Alfer said in a prepared statement.
"From a law-enforcement perspective, this grant allows McKeesport police to increase patrols by adding an additional vehicle to nightly saturation patrols," he said. "It also allows us to continue adding LPR camera systems to intersections throughout the City of McKeesport, which aids in solving crimes not only here, but across Allegheny County."
Read More
September 09, 2019 |
By Chris Baumann | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
* CORRECTIONS: This article was corrected after publication. - Editor
Paul Fields portrays McKeesport's first African-American police officer, George W. Simmons, during the 2016 Living History Tour. (Submitted photo courtesy McKeesport Regional History & Heritage Center)
If you go...
|
|
Fifth-Annual Living History Tour
Where: McKeesport & Versailles Cemetery
When: 12 to 4 p.m. Sept. 21 and 22
Encore: 6 p.m. Sept. 26 at McKeesport Regional History & Heritage Center
Tickets: $10 in advance; $12 at the event
More information: (412) 678-1832 or mckeesportheritage.org
|
The more that Bob MacPherson learned about George H. Lysle, the more he realized he was the ideal person to portray the legendary McKeesport mayor.
“First of all, I’m Scotch-Irish, my background is the same as his,” MacPherson said. “But I also learned that my great-grandfather, George Victor Parkins*, was a contemporary of Mayor Lysle. They were here during the same time and its safe to say they had a lot of interaction. He and Lysle were probably very close.”
The McKeesport Regional History and Heritage Center is hosting its fifth-annual Living History Tour from 12 to 4 p.m. Sept. 21 and 22 at McKeesport and Versailles Cemetery.
For those unable to attend the weekend performances, or who may not be able to walk on the tour, there will be an additional performance at the Heritage Center at 6 p.m. Sept. 26.
Read More
September 09, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(Illustration by Desmone Architects, courtesy River Materials Inc.)
A barge and railcar loading facility now under construction near the McKeesport-Duquesne Bridge will transform the appearance of the RIDC Industrial Park, McKeesport officials said.
At Wednesday's meeting, McKeesport city council by 6-0 vote approved a request from River Materials Inc. of Forest Hills to combine four separate parcels of land into one parcel.
River Materials is planning to use about 18 to 19 acres of the former U.S. Steel National Works site for warehousing, processing and recycling, as well as truck, barge and railroad loading and unloading services for power plants and other industrial customers.
Cliff Wise, president and chief executive officer of River Materials, also owns General Trade Corp., Gulf Materials LLC, Gulf Trading and Transport LLC and Specialty Steel Products.
Read More
September 09, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Owners of several landmark businesses in the 900 and 1000 blocks of Fifth Avenue in McKeesport are asking for the city's help to address what they called deteriorating conditions on the street. (Tube City Almanac photo)
McKeesport officials are working on a plan that would provide $450,000 per year for six years to remove blight and stabilize the Downtown business district.
But owners of several longtime Fifth Avenue businesses --- including the landmark Minerva Bakery --- said their patience is wearing thin.
"It's wonderful that we're able to create new businesses, but we need to take care of the oldest businesses," said Denise Letterman, whose father, Murray Siegel, 95, owns Tube City Novelty Co.
At Wednesday's city council meeting, Mayor Michael Cherepko said the city has applied to the state Department of Community & Economic Development to create a neighborhood partnership program, or NPP, to address a high rate of vacant and abandoned buildings along Lysle Boulevard and Fifth Avenue.
Read More
September 05, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Penn State Greater Allegheny Chancellor Jacqueline Edmondson, state Sen. Jim Brewster, Penn State University President Eric Barron and McKeesport Mayor Mike Cherepko during Wednesday's ribbon-cutting at the Mon Valley LaunchBox, located at the former YWCA on Ninth Avenue. (Submitted photo courtesy state Sen. Jim Brewster)
There was a ribbon-cutting Wednesday for Penn State's "Mon Valley LaunchBox," even though it's not really a physical place, said Aaron Whigham, manager of strategic initiatives for the university's Greater Allegheny Campus.
It's more of an idea, an initiative and a spirit of collaboration between the campus and the McKeesport area, he said Wednesday.
"We have made a concerted effort to actually become more intentional in our efforts in the community," said Whigham, who coordinates the Mon Valley LaunchBox along with Eric Ewell, Greater Allegheny's director of continuing education.
"This has been a collective effort," Whigham said. "We're not looking to be a savior, but we are looking to provide resources to make the area that we're in stronger."
Read More
