SteelValley.Info

By Chris Ramirez
Tribune-Review

Getting across West Street is risky for Sue Etters and other patrons of a Homestead center for the blind.

A flashing yellow beacon near the Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh is supposed to warn drivers to slow down as they approach the building at West Street and East 18th Avenue.

But Etters and the center’s officials say drivers routinely ignore it, sometimes coming to within inches of running down visually impaired children and adults and their sighted guides.

[ Full story available at: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_656344.html ]

By Mary Niederberger
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The president of the Steel Valley school board and the district’s superintendent walked out of last night’s meeting as a resident was attempting to discuss a citizen coalition she is trying to form to work with the board and administration on district projects and programs.

The abrupt end came after a meeting during which the board, at the recommendation of Superintendent William Kinavey, eliminated three administrative positions and created another without much explanation.

After the board’s actions and during the citizen comments portion at the end of the meeting, resident Sharon Ford had used the three-minute time limit the board has imposed on public comments. She wanted to continue, but board President Joseph Ducar announced her time had expired and immediately gaveled the meeting to a close. Then, he and Dr. Kinavey abruptly walked out of the meeting.

The rest of the board, with the exception of school director Edward McCallister who was absent, remained and continued a discussion with Ms. Ford for approximately 20 more minutes. Several board members explained to Ms. Ford that it is common practice for public bodies to impose time limits on comments.

Ms. Ford has exceeded the time limit during previous addresses to the board and has tried to maintain that it is not legal for the school board to enforce the limit.

In the end, board members encouraged Ms. Ford to prepare and deliver a written report to board secretary Mark Cherpak to be included in the packets that they receive on the Fridays before board meetings. The hope is that would eliminate the need for long presentations by Ms. Ford.

[ Full story available at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09175/979489-100.stm ]

By Ken Fibbe
Tribune-Review

The Carnegie Library of Homestead was founded in 1896 by Andrew Carnegie. It's one of 2,500 Carnegie libraries constructed worldwide and the second one to be built in the United States. The building was designed by Pittsburgh architects Frank Alden and Alfred Harlow, and built by William Miller and Sons. Photo by: Keith Hodan/Tribune-Review

The Carnegie Library of Homestead receives “horrendous” support from government and is seeking more money to combat the effects of the recession on the library’s music hall and fitness center, board president Dan Lloyd said.

“We aren’t in dire straits, but we still need more money,” Lloyd said.

Marilyn Jenkins, executive director of the Allegheny County Library Association, said the four municipalities the library serves gave it about $25,000 last year, far less than the $5 per capita the state requires. Munhall, Homestead, West Homestead and Whitaker have a combined population of about 19,000 people.

The Regional Asset District, funded by an extra 1 percent on the county’s sales tax, supports 44 libraries in Allegheny County and gave $67,000 to the Homestead library last year. The library could get more RAD money by 2010 if the library association approves a funding formula that would lessen emphasis on municipal support, Executive Director David Donahoe said.

[ Full story available at: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_625426.html ]

By Karamagi Rujumba
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In a field of knee-high grass behind the hulking frame of what is left of Carrie Furnace — an expanse of blast furnaces that once produced as much as 1,200 tons of iron per day for the former Homestead Works of U.S. Steel mill — sits a rusted torpedo car.

The cylindrical container made of steel, together with hundreds more, was at one time an indispensable tool in the steel producing days of the Mon Valley. Back when massive steel factories still churned plumes of smoke over much of the region, torpedo cars didn’t sit rusting away.

They were used to treat and transport iron via a hot metal rail bridge that runs across half of the Carrie Furnace site in Rankin and Swissvale, over the Monongahela River, and into Homestead where it was made into steel.

That era is long gone, but Allegheny County, which in 2005 bought the 168-acre land parcel where the Carrie Furnace had operated for 102 years, is in the final stages of environmental cleanup and expects to start marketing the land for redevelopment this year.

[ Full article available at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09138/970906-56.stm ]

By David Green
Morning Edition

Betty Esper spent 36 years working at U.S. Steel's Homestead Works. The mill closed in the 1980s. A few years later, Esper began her second career as Homestead's mayor. Photo (c) David Green/NPR

Some of the hardest-hit communities in this recession are the towns and cities that have lost jobs in the automobile industry — or worse, saw an entire auto plant close.

It’s a predicament the steel towns around Pittsburgh know well. They had to search for new identities after the steel industry buckled in the 1980s.

During a recent visit to the Steel City, I sought out some of the people who brought Pittsburgh through its hardest times to see if there were any lessons to learn.

From Industrial Mill To Waterfront Shopping

In the Pittsburgh suburb of Homestead, I found longtime Mayor Betty Esper. She spent three decades working in U.S. Steel’s massive Homestead Works, a sprawling mill across the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh that shut down in 1986. She was elected mayor several years after the mill closed.

[ Full story available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102457292 ]