Last month, I asked Pittsburghers to share what they love about our great City through the Pittsburgh Valentines contest. The impressive number of heartfelt and sincere responses was inspiring, but not surprising.  As I have said time and again, Pittsburgh’s greatest asset is its people. Pittsburghers have made Pittsburgh all that it is.  From the more than 160 entries, we selected 11 reasons we felt to be outstanding and they can be viewed both on the City channel and City of Pittsburgh website.

When you take a look at all reasons to love Pittsburgh, remember that we must continue to stay positive and keep talking about all of the things that make us Pittsburgh proud. Whether it's our sports teams, our cultural district, or simply our friendly people, this is a place to go to school, go to work, raise your children, and retire.  Pittsburgh has it all.

As we continue to preserve our rich history and traditions, we are making changes to ensure that we continue to grow, attract and maintain residents and businesses, and also create the cleanest and safest city possible. I want to keep Pittsburgh a place that you are proud to call home, and we are taking proactive measures to ensure that you can.

Working with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, we have answered the call to re-establish proactive police presence in our neighborhoods. Last year, I pledged to reinvest in the Beat Cop program.  That program is now up and running.  Police Chief Nathan Harper has assigned four "beat cops" to each of the City's six police zones. Zone Commanders will assign the officers to business districts based on community need and crime data analysis. 

Public safety in our neighborhoods is not just about fighting crime. We must eliminate the blight and abandonment that encourage criminal activity. One of the primary causes of blight is the number of dilapidated homes in our communities. To fight this problem, I have doubled the 2008 demolition budget and set a goal of bringing down 600 structures this year.  In addition, I charged my staff with finding new ways to look at the old problems that stalled this effort. My administration held meetings with the City’s economic development and public safety departments, charging them with the arduous task of overhauling the City’s demolition process.

We found that the existing process was too reactive. In order to confront the problem and make real changes, we needed to be proactive.  With the all the departments involved working together, we created new methods to tackle hazardous, crime-ridden structures as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The City’s most dangerous structures will continue to be torn down as a first priority, which will sometimes still result in scattered demolition bids.  However, through the revised approach, the City’s public safety and economic development bureaus have added another layer for bids: geographical second-tier demo zones. In these zones, multiple demolitions in close proximity will be bid as one package. The result? City taxpayers will get more for their money.

In addition, with the new process, we will not simply be razing houses.  We will be aggressively greening the remaining vacant lots, so blight does not creep in again. The greened lots will be an asset to the community, creating visible opportunities for investment and economic development.

With spring fast approaching, it is the perfect time to clean up and green up the City.  I ask that you, too, seek opportunities to improve your neighborhood, to further enhance our efforts to proactively address blight and crime. Together, we can find ever more creative ways to continue to take pride in Pittsburgh.

For More Information on Initiatives Discussed in This Newsletter, log on to pghgov.com,
or call 412-255-2694