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.
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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.
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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."
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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...
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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September 04, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf visited McKeesport on Wednesday to announce new rules for charter schools. (Pennsylvania Office of the Governor photo)
In a visit Wednesday to McKeesport, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf discussed his plan for the state Department of Education to impose new fees and rules for charter schools.
The "fee-for-service" model, he said, is an attempt to recoup costs on behalf of the state, while the new rules are designed to hold charter schools to the same right-to-know and ethical standards as public school districts.
In a speech at Twin Rivers Elementary School, Wolf said the Education Department also will take steps to establish higher performance standards for online-only, or "cyber," charter schools, which have been criticized for what critics claim are high costs and low standards of student achievement.
“While there are high-quality charter schools, some of them, especially some cyber-charter schools, are underperforming,” Wolf said Wednesday. “The state and school districts need more tools to hold charters accountable and increase educational quality.”
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September 03, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Even with nearly three weeks of summer to go, LuEthel Nesbit of ACTION-Housing says local residents should be getting ready for winter now. Temperatures briefly hit 85 degrees in Downtown McKeesport last week, but more pleasant weather is in store this week for the Mon-Yough area. (Tube City Almanac photo)
Most Mon-Yough residents are probably still savoring the last tastes of summer and hoping for a few remaining barbecues or dips in the swimming pool.
But even though fall is still nearly three weeks away, Lu Ethel Nesbit of ACTION-Housing's weatherization program says now is the time for local residents to get ready for colder temperatures.
Nesbit, who also serves as a McKeesport city councilwoman, has been working in weatherization since 1983, originally with the Steel Valley OIC. She's currently the administrator of ACTION's McKeesport weatherization office, which serves much of the Mon Valley.
"We operate all year-round and we take applications year-round," Nesbit says. "We would prefer that they apply in the summer, so that they don’t have their doors open in the dead of winter, when they’re freezing."
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August 30, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Michael Abraitis III, president of the board of directors of Carnegie Library of McKeesport, cuts a ribbon being held by White Oak Mayor Ina Jean Marton to officially open the facility’s new parking lot Aug. 9. Looking on are state Sen. James Brewster, state Rep. Austin Davis, McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko and other library board members. (Vickie Babyak photo, special to Tube City Almanac)
Just a few hours after Carnegie Library of McKeesport cut the ribbon to its new parking lot, all 30 spaces were filled.
“We were all so excited,” said Colleen Rauschenberg Denne, library director, with a laugh.
The $256,000 project answered a long-standing need at the facility in the city’s Seventh Ward, which opened in 1900 with the help of a grant from steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
McKeesport’s library was the 12th of nearly 1,700 Carnegie libraries constructed in the United States during his lifetime.
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