June 28, 2019 |
By Richard Finch Jr. | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Above: Major Bryan Carson has been hired by McKeesport Area School District to teach the Air Force Junior ROTC program for 10 months, beginning July 1. His appointment was approved by the school board Wednesday. (Richard Finch Jr. photo, special to Tube City Almanac)
McKeesport Area School Board voted this week to approve a $69.1 million budget that includes a 0.68-mill property tax increase.
At their meeting Wednesday, school directors voted 6-2 to approve the spending plan for the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
School directors David Donato and James Brown voted against the budget, and school director Mindy Sturgess was absent. Donato and Sturgess were absent during the 7-0 vote on the preliminary budget on May 22.
The tax increase takes the district's millage from 19.48 mills to 20.16 mills, and represents a $68 increase on a house assessed at $100,000. It's the second year in a row that McKeesport Area School District has raised its property tax rate.
Francis Weiss, a former MASD employee, told school directors the property tax increase is a burden for herself and other seniors living on a fixed income.
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June 24, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
UPMC McKeesport hospital (Tube City Almanac file photo)
Local officials and health care advocates are praising a deal that will give Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield customers access to UPMC hospitals and facilities for the next 10 years.
The agreement, brokered by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Gov. Tom Wolf, was announced Monday --- just a week before a consent decree between the two health giants was scheduled to expire.
Not all of the details were public, but a spokesperson for Shapiro said the deal --- reportedly the longest ever signed between UPMC and a health insurance company --- will cover all UPMC facilities.
State Sen. Jim Brewster of McKeesport called the agreement “excellent and welcomed news” that will relieve “tension and anxiety” for people with Highmark health insurance.
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June 17, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
UPDATED with comments from Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.
The Allegheny County Health Department has given U.S. Steel 24 hours to develop a plan to reduce its emissions at the Clairton Plant.
If the company doesn't present that plan --- and then get pollution levels from the facility under permitted limits within 20 days --- the county will order U.S. Steel to shut down its coke ovens or face fines of $25,000 per violation, per day.
An emergency order signed by Jayme Graham, manager of the county's air quality program, was issued Monday (June 17) after a fire at the Clairton Plant damaged equipment that removes sulfur dioxide from the plant's emissions.
The order questions the effectiveness of U.S. Steel's emergency strategies to reduce emissions following an earlier fire on Dec. 24 that damaged the same pollution-control equipment.
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June 17, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
U.S. Steel's Clairton Plant in a 2010 photo by Patrick Cain. (Via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0)
For the second time in six months, a fire has knocked out emissions-control equipment at U.S. Steel's Clairton Plant.
A company spokesman said that a small electrical fire was detected early Monday morning (June 17) in a circuit-breaker panel that delivers power to the byproducts facility at the plant. There were no injuries "and the fire was quickly extinguished," the company said in a prepared statement.
But the blaze knocked out processing equipment that removes sulfur dioxide emissions, the company said.
There are no specific precautions recommended for the public at this time, said Ryan Scarpino, a spokesman for the Allegheny County Health Department.
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June 06, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(Tube City Almanac file photo)
McKeesport's historic People's Bank Building will likely have a new owner by the end of the month.
The mostly vacant 80,000-square-foot structure was transferred to the Redevelopment Authority of the City of McKeesport for $1 and is now under agreement to be sold to a new owner, said A.J. Tedesco, the city's community development director.
The buyer is Jonathan Stark, owner of Legion Arms and Compulsive Paintball, who also is developing a new commercial building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Market Street at the one-time site of the Memorial Theater.
"We have a lot of work to do," Stark said. "Lots and lots and lots of work to do."
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June 06, 2019 |
By Griffin Gordon | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
* CORRECTION: This story was corrected after publication.
With the presidential election of 2020 looming, Allegheny County officials are testing new kinds of voting machines.
The board of elections will hold a public meeting from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday (June 7) in the Gold Room of the Allegheny County Courthouse, downtown Pittsburgh, to discuss the options and hear from three experts regarding election security.
On Wednesday at CCAC South Campus in West Mifflin, residents got a chance to try different kinds of voting technology for themselves. The machines being demonstrated could be broken down into three basic methods: entirely paper ballots, entirely automated ballots, and hybrid ballots that combine paper and electronic systems.
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June 06, 2019 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Pittsburgh's public television station and the Carnegie Library of McKeesport are teaming up to open the state's second "Wash and Learn" laundromat library at Olympia Shopping Center.
A celebration will be held from 10 a.m. to 12 noon Friday (June 7) at the Olympia Coin Laundry in Versailles, said Colleen Rauschenberg Denne, executive director of the library. The event is open to the public.
In cooperation with WQED Multimedia, the Allegheny County Library Association, and the international charity Libraries Without Borders, the McKeesport library is installing bookshelves and wi-fi hotspots at the laundromat.
The library hopes that customers of the laundry “will be introduced to some of the resources the library has to offer and become regular library users," Denne said.
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June 05, 2019 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Conflict of Interest Note: The author has a conflict of interest. He is on the McKees Point Development Group. See previous coverage of this issue and the note at the end of this story.
An architect's rendering depicts the former Penn-McKee Hotel as part of a shopping and entertainment district attached to McKeesport's waterfront. (Nina Chase/Merritt Chase Architects via Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh)
(PDF reader required)
Up to $141 million in tourism money that could be spent in McKeesport is leaving the area, and at least part of that could be captured along the city's riverfront if the right attractions were in place.
That's according to a study of the area around the Penn-McKee Hotel that was done for city officials by the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh.
The report concludes that reusing the long-vacant hotel is "costly" but feasible, and recommends that funds be raised to mitigate environmental problems, prevent the building from further deterioration, and make it more presentable to investors.
The study was released Tuesday night during the regularly scheduled city council meeting and is available for viewing at the mayor's office.
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May 30, 2019 |
By Richard Finch Jr. | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Faced with mothers complaining their daughters were being bullied in a cheerleading program and that discipline handed out is unduly harsh, McKeesport Area school board members have agreed to take a look at policies and rules governing all athletic programs in the district.
None of the cheerleading coaches were at May's school board meeting, but plenty of complaints were lodged by mothers who said their daughters had suffered from what they called bullying.
One mother, Amanda Webb, said she had a problem with the way her ninth-grade daughter was dismissed from the squad by a fellow student.
Webb said her daughter practiced with the squad all summer and “they just threw her away.”
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May 28, 2019 |
By Richard Finch Jr. | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
McKeesport Area School District residents face a possible increase in property taxes next year.
At last week's meeting, the school board approved a preliminary 2019-20 budget of $69.1 million.
The millage rate is currently 19.48 and would increase 0.68 mills to 20.16. A property assessed at $50,000 would see its taxes increase by about $34 per year.
In other business, school directors congratulated Colin Lyons for coming in second place in the discus throwing competition category at the WPIAL AAA Championships on May 16. Lyons threw for 146-feet-5-inches, School Director Ivan Hampton reported on behalf of the athletic committee.
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