SteelValley.Info

By Ken Fibbe
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 ]

By Patrick Cloonan
Daily News Staff Writer

Somebody is targeting an historic West Mifflin cemetery.

Twice in as many months West Mifflin police have been called to investigate overturned headstones at Lebanon Church Cemetery.

It was random vandalism, though usually the culprit or culprits pushed over multiple headstones in a given row.

“Some of the older headstones were pushed over and broken,” cemetery manager Lori Hornfeck said Monday. “Some of the newer ones were just pushed over.”

In all, some 40 have been overturned. The latest incident was reported to borough police Friday.

[ Full story available at: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20276961&BRD=1282&PAG=461&dept_id=182121&rfi=6 ]

By Moriah Balingit
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Munhall Police Chief Patrick Campbell said he was sickened when one of his officers, Michael Curtin, was charged last year with soliciting teenage girls online for sex and offering them money to allow him to suck their toes.

So he said he was disappointed when Mr. Curtin, who was fired by the borough a year ago when allegations arose, received only five years probation under a plea agreement when he was sentenced two weeks ago. The probation terms forbid Mr. Curtin from using computers or texting on his cell phone.

He said earlier this week that he planned to write a letter to the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office expressing his disagreement with the way the case was handled.

“With the severity of what the charges were and the fact that he was placed in a position of trust and authority in this town, I think it would be appropriate to see some jail time out of that,” he said.

[ Full story available at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09057/951716-55.stm ]