Council Looks to Liberate $0.7 Mill

A budget fight between a few Pittsburgh City Council members and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl could boil down to semantics. Councilman Bill Peduto, who is also the Council Finance Committee Chairman, has introduced a bill that he thinks will free up for future capital projects about $700,000 locked in a G20 account. However, the mayor’s budget office says the money does not exist.

Peduto says the council encumbered $12.8 million to pay for the Pittsburgh G20 Summit in September of 2009 but it only spent $12.1 million. Peduto says that leftover money could be used elsewhere. His bill would close out the account and move the funds back into the capital budget. The move seems to stem from the administration’s reluctance to pay for some capital projects saying there is not enough money in the account.

“They are basically looking at over the past 15 years all the different projects that have come through. Some of them have already been completed and there are funds leftover,” says Peduto. “If you account for all of those, of course there is no money.” The administration has said that there is $66 million in capital projects waiting for money and just $28 million in the bank.

Peduto says it is time to start clearing the city’s books before it switches over to a new accounting system later this year.

The administration agrees with the idea of the bill but differs with Peduto when it comes to the impact the bill will have. The Budget and Finance Department says it is good book keeping to clear out old projects but it feels the action will not actually move any money.

Peduto says this is just the first of several bills like this that he will be introducing in the coming months. “We need to start getting things like this out and the G20 is a very easy one for people to understand because it was recent, it is over, it was an event that occurred and for the past couple of years now we have not been paying any bills yet we still have about $700,000 left in that account.”

The bill will come up for debate Wednesday.

Protesters to March and Rally Against War

Members of the Antiwar Committee of the Thomas Merton Center are hoping to see “several hundred” protesters turn out Saturday for a march and rally to protest US involvement in all wars. Committee Co-chair Pete Shell says this is the first major anti war march in the city since the Pittsburgh G20 Summit. The organization used to hold regular marches but Shell says they have recently been more focused on joining national events.

The event will begin with a rally at the corner of 47th and Butler Streets at noon Saturday with speeches and a performance by Mike Stout. From there they will march down Butler Street to Doughboy Square for a second rally. Shell says there is a reason why they chose to hold the event in Lawrenceville. “We really wanted to highlight the impact that wars have on the economy at home and the fact that we could really revitalize our economy if we did not have to spend dollars on wars and occupations abroad,” says Shell.

Shell says along with protesting war, the rallies will focus on “speaking out against Arabs and Muslims being scapegoated and harassed.”

Mediation Tried in G20 Lawsuits

Lawyers have agreed to try mediating a lawsuit in which 25 plaintiffs are seeking damages from the City of Pittsburgh for alleged rights violations during the G20 economic summit of September 2009.

Attorney Sara Rose of the American Civil Liberties Union says both her clients and the city want a settlement to resolve the case. She says a jury could only award monetary settlements, rather than change the City Code, because many law enforcement regulations during the summit were temporary.

Rose says state law requires both sides to choose between arbitration, mediation, or early neutral evaluation before the court case can begin. The ACLU lawyer says the mediation is tentatively scheduled for May.

City Responds to G20 Suit

The city of Pittsburgh has filed a response in court denying that police violated the civil rights of people when they made about 100 arrests at Schenley Plaza hours after the G20 Summit ended September 25th of last year.
25 plaintiffs are included in the lawsuit against the city claiming they were roughed up by police or wrongly arrested. In its response, the city says the arrests were made with probable cause and denies that people were prevented from dispersing. The court filing said if the plaintiffs were injured, it was "caused by their own willful, malicious and criminal conduct" or by their own negligence.

Pgh Tech Council Will Do Business in China

The Pittsburgh Technology Council plans to lead a business mission to China in May of 2011.

Technology Council President Audrey Russo says the group will probably be only about 15 people, so the Council can focus on forging relationships between specific businesses.

Russo says given the United States’ current investment levels in technology companies and China’s position in the world economy, now is a great time to visit the country on a business mission.

But Russo says China isn’t the only place of interest for the Technology Council...

"We've talked about India. We've been approached about doing business in South Africa. We get a lot of people with interests in the Middle East. We have the Middle East Institute here that has helped in establishing relationships in Amman, Abu Dhabi, places like that. This is really our first attempt to sort of get on the ground."

The PTC President says after the 2009 G20 Summit and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s October 2010 visit to China, Pittsburgh is beginning to capitalize on the global exposure it’s received.

G20 Suit Says Arrestees Were Bystanders, Not Protesters

Another lawsuit has been filed against the city of Pittsburgh in connection with arrests made during the G20 Summit September 24-25 last year. Two men, who at that time were students at the University of Pittsburgh, say they were bystanders and were wrongly swept up in arrests of protesters in the Schenley Plaza area of Oakland.
Army Second Lieutenant Ryan Kingston was a senior at Pitt and a military police trainee at the time. He and Nathan Poloni were both jailed for several hours on charges of failure to disperse as police responded to anti-G20 protests. The charges against Kingston and Poloni were later dropped. The city has not responded to this lawsuit, one of at least four filed by people arrested during the summit. However, this suit alleges the plaintiffs were swept up in a policy that suspended the rights of citizens just for being near some protests. Their attorney called the arrest action..."de facto martial law."

Mixed Verdict for G20 Protester from NYC

A G20 protester has been acquitted of aggravated assault but convicted on 2 lesser counts in connection with a clash with police September 24, 2009 in Pittsburgh.
An Allegheny County jury found 28 year old Allen Weber of New York City guilty of disorderly conduct and obstruction of highways. The jury was deadlocked on a charge of propulsion of a missile into an occupied vehicle.
Police say Weber refused an order to disperse during a protest in Oakland and an officer in a SWAT truck tossed a smoke grenade to get protesters to leave. Police say Weber picked up the grenade and threw it back at the officer.

Bike Thrower Gets Probation for G20 Charges

A Pittsburgh woman charged with throwing her bicycle at police during the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh in September 2009 will enter a program for first time offenders and have her record expunged if she meets the conditions of the program.
24 year old Lauren Wasson of Mount Washington was originally charged with aggravated assault. She was recorded on Pittsburgh TV news video throwing her bike. The charge was reduced to simple assault to allow her to enter the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition Program, which does not require her to plead guilty to any charges. However, she must serve 9 months probation without incident, complete community service and pay court costs.
Her attorney says Wasson was not a protester but was biking home when she was caught up by police who were rounding up G20 protesters in Oakland.

Powers Quits After Security Alert Bulletins Controversy

The head of Pennsylvania’s Office of Homeland Security office has stepped down, days after he defended the department’s controversial intelligence reports before a state Senate hearing.
Governor Ed Rendell had dismissed the intelligence documents as useless, after the bulletins listing information about political rallies and protests became public.
When Director James Powers appeared before the Senate Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security Committee, he said the reports had provided a valuable service for local governments and law enforcement agencies.
Rendell rejected calls that he fire Powers but he did accept his resignation....

"Jim is a good man who made a very significant mistake in judgment. And he has decided that the operation of his department is too important for his own personal desire to stay in the way of it."

Powers' last day on the job will be October 8th.
The public outcry was fast and furious, after news broke Powers’ office had been distributing information about protests to private companies and local law enforcement.
Rendell has canceled a state contract with the private security firm who gathered the data.
The targeted groups, including drilling opponents, gay rights activists and G20 protesters say their rights were violated.

Judge Rules Against CPRB

An Allegheny County judge has rejected a request by the Citizens Police Review Board to get information on police actions during the G20 Summit a year ago in Pittsburgh. Common Pleas Judge Stanton Wettick ruled that Pennsylvania law forbids Pittsburgh Police from turning over complete arrest reports to the review board.
The CPRB wants the documents to investigate allegations of police misconduct during the G20. Police officials had provided heavily redacted files to the review board but the board said that so much information was blacked out that it rendered the records useless.
Judge Wettick agreed with city attorneys who argued that Pennsylvania's Criminal History Record Information Act prohibited the full disclosure of certain records, except to other law enforcement agencies.

ACLU Sues Pittsburgh for G20 Arrests

The city of Pittsburgh, Police Chief Nate Harper and a number of police officers are being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for arrests that took place September 25, 2009, on the last day of the G20 Summit. ACLU Pennsylvania Legal Director Vic Walczak announced the federal suit at Schenely Plaza in Oakland, the site of the protest and subsequent arrests. According to the brief, police declared the peaceful demonstration unlawful and issued an order to disperse. But Walczak says police then prevented protesters from leaving the area, "when they tried to leave there was nowhere to go...one term used by someone that we thought was descriptive is they were 'ping pongs,'" bouncing from one side of the plaza to another trying to get out but prevented from doing so by lines of officers in riot gear. The lawsuit lists 25 plaintiffs, including Carnegie Mellon University student Casey Brander, who says she was arrested on the lawn near the Cathedral of Learning after attempting to leave the area. She says she was detained for 19 hours and says many people were physically abused. But even without physical abuse, she says it was mentally exhausting, "especially when you're constantly being taunted. Right from my arrest when I was getting frisked on the lawn, an officer told me I was going to be his girlfriend, officers were calling us hot and calling us derogatory names...I was pretty traumatized by it." Other plaintiffs who attended today's announcement talked about being denied medication, being pepper sprayed without provocation and being pelted with pepper balls. All of the criminal charges against the plaintiffs were withdrawn or dismissed. The ACLU alleges violation of the First Amendment right to assembly, retaliatory arrests and a violation of the Fourth Amendment protections against false arrest as well as the use of excessive force.

Pgh Business Org. Reviews Year After G20

The Allegheny Conference on Community Development is celebrating the one-year anniversary of Pittsburgh’s G20 conference by declaring it “Imagine Pittsburgh Week.”

Allegheny Conference CEO Dennis Yablonsky says Pittsburgh has seen more conventions and business projects than usual in the year following the G20 summit. Yablonsky says from an economic standpoint, he isn’t aware of any negative results of hosting the G20.

He says thanks to the notoriety generated by the summit, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has been invited to Shanghai.

“To visit and speak to the mayor [of Shanghai]’s business advisory council about Pittsburgh’s transformation. So, we’re going to be accompanying him to Shanghai, doing a number of private meetings with businesses, and then also going over to Seoul which is going to be the site of the next G20 and spending a few days there. So we’re going to continue to build on this to try to generate more notoriety and more job creation projects for the region.”

Yablonsky says another indicator of the G20’s success is the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s tour of Europe this year. While the visit usually generates about 3 business project leads, this year it garnered ten.

Fallout from "Threat" Reports

Legislators on both sides of the aisle are demanding hearings into why the Rendell Administration paid for intelligence reports about peaceful protests.
Governor Ed Rendell says his chief of staff and the head of the state police are looking into how Pennsylvania can improve its homeland security intelligence gathering, but Republicans and Democrats want the General Assembly to investigate the issue, too.
Both Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, and the head of the House Governmental Affairs Committee have requested copies of every intelligence report the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response provided to the state Office of Homeland Security. The Institute listed as potential threats gay rights groups, drilling opponents and G20 protesters.

Vic Walczak, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, says by targeting political groups as potential threats, the state hurt their credibility, in addition to infringing on their rights.

"Damage done. Are you going to continue your contributions and your support, or are you immediately going to be suspicious. And if you do that with funders, if you do that with allies, if you do that with adversaries, you are doing incalculable harm."

A Senate committee has scheduled the first hearing into the reports for later this month.

City Finds New Way to Delay CPRB Request

Despite saying that it would turn over all the requested documents, the City of Pittsburgh has once again argued that it cannot give the Citizen Police Review Board what it wants. The board has asked for arrest reports and other documents related to police staffing and assignments during the G20 Summit in September of 2009. The board says it needs the documents to do its job. The city has argued alternately in the past that the data would put national security at risk, that it would jeopardize its efforts to defend itself against litigation, and that the board is not entitled to the documents without a specific citizen complaint being filed. It turned over heavily redacted documents in May and last month said all documents would be forthcoming. Yesterday, the city went before Judge R. Stanton Wettick and argued that it could not hand over the documents due to state laws prohibiting the CPRB from seeing the information. CPRB attorney Hugh McGough says the city does not fall under the Criminal History Record Information Act because it operates under a home rule charter. In fact, he notes that the city’s solicitor under Mayor Tom Murphy specifically laid out tight privacy rules and procedures that should be used in freely handing over the documents. In past investigations the city has made the non-redacted document available to the CPRB without question. Judge Wettick has not set a time line for making a ruling on the city’s latest argument, but McGough points out that the judge took ten days to rule in the last instance.

Council Okays Police Review Board Nominees

After a more than 2 month battle between Pittsburgh Council and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl over the the Citizen Police Review Board (CPRB), the mayor won out with council confirming his 7 appointees. On June 18, the mayor re-appointed 2 members to the CPRB and named 5 new members. This action came the same day as board members were in Common Pleas Court asking a judge to force the city to turn over police records of arrests and policy planning regarding the G20 Summit. The board wanted the information to prepare for investigations into police misconduct during the summit.
The Ravenstahl Administration denied that the appointments were done in retaliation or to thwart the board's actions.
This led to debate over the mayor's nominees, the timing of the announcement and even the language in the city code regarding appointments to the board. Councilman Doug Shields says the code including procedures to replace a board member who resigned or died but did not clarify the process for appointing a replacement for a member whose term had expired. All six of the current members' terms have expired.
In the end, council passed a bill clarifying the nominating process and then approved the same 7 people the mayor had nominated earlier including 2 re-appointments: Richard Carrington and Deborah Walker; and 5 new members: Eugene Downing, Donna Kramer, Dianna O'Brien Martini, Leshonda Roberts and Deborah Whitfield.
It's uncertain if those 7 will be installed prior to the next court hearing over the police documents August 26.

Shields Wants to Table Mayor's Choices for CPRB

Pittsburgh Councilman Doug Shields says it's not a political battle between Council and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl "it's an obligation of council to amend the city code and offer a clear, consistent way to have appointees come before council and to replace members as they cycle off the board."
Shields is referring to the dispute between council and the mayor over the 7 nominations Ravenstahl made to the Citizen Police Review Board (CPRB) on June 18--the same day the administration was in court fighting efforts by the board to get access to police records regarding the G20 Summit. The mayor has denied allegations he was trying to thwart the board but said the 60 day timetable for acting on suggested nominations by council was nearing an end.
Ravenstahl nominated 5 new members and re-appointed 2 current ones. But Shields is asking council to table those nominations because the process of appointing members "is as clear as mud." Shields wants council to clarify the language in the city code before they act on any nominations to the CPRB. Shields says the code specified how the original board was to be constructed and the process to fill a vacancy when a member resigns, but he says there is no specific language on how to appoint successors to members whose terms expire. Currently, they remain until they are replaced, even a year or two later.
Shields says the problem is the mayor treated the appointments as if there were 7 vacancies and there was officially only one.
Shields says he doesn't want the CPRB's integrity challenged "so it can do its work and not worry about if a member was legitimately appointed or not."
Shields plans to introduce his bill Tuesday to clear up the nominating process. He says if council passes it, the mayor would be free to nominate the same 7 people as he did June 18.

CPRB and City Spar Over Redacted Documents

The Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board (CPRB) and the city will be back in court in August to make oral arguments as to why the heavily redacted documents given to the CPRB by the city do or do not meet a judge’s order to hand over materials needed to investigate police officers' actions during the G20 summit in September. At a contempt of court hearing today, CPRB lawyer Ward McGough argued that so much information was lined through that the documents are unusable. Paul Krepps, the attorney for the city, says if the information was not redacted the city could be in violation of privacy laws. The city also argued that releasing the data could in some cases jeopardize future operations. Along with arrest, incident, summons, subject resistance, and investigative reports, the board asked for operational documents such as the manual given to visiting officers and the insurance policy taken out by the city to cover the time around the G20. CPRB Executive Director Elizabeth Pittinger says because the information in the documents has been "blacked out" the board is unable to do its job. Pittinger notes that in other cases being investigated by the CPRB the city has handed over the documents without any redaction. The judge has given the city and the CPRB until August 26th to prepare for oral arguments. Between now and then there are several deadlines including a date to submit written arguments.

It has also been learned that the Pittsburgh City Council and the Mayor are submitting new names to fill the Citizen Police Review Board. The council and the mayor choose the seven-member board. All of the current members of the board are serving under expired terms. Some of them have been serving in that capacity for two years according to Pittinger. When asked to react to the submission of seven new names Pittinger said, “I think you would have to look upon it as a retaliatory act.”

Pittsburgh Mayoral spokesperson Joanna Doven says the approval of the board nominees on the same day as the court hearing was coincidental and in no way a retaliation. Doven says the 4 names from the council were submitted to the mayor 58 days ago and he had 60 days to review them and sign off on the nominations. Doven was also quick to point out that of the three nominations made by the mayor two are current CPRB members.

Police Review Board to Pursue Charges Against Harper

The Ravenstahl Administration and Pittsburgh City Council remain at odds with the Citizen Police Review Board (CPRB) over the board's attempt to force Police Chief Nate Harper to surrender police documents regarding the G20 summit last fall.

The board wants the papers to complete an investigation into the police department’s handling of the September 2009 summit. 188 people were arrested and according to the CPRB at least a dozen people filed complaints against police.
City Council this week passed a resolution urging the review board to "align" its pursuit of documents with the legal process of pending lawsuits.

City Council and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl say releasing the documents could put lawsuits involving the G20 Summit in jeopardy.

But CPRB Executive Director Beth Pittinger says that’s irrelevant – Harper is bound by a Common Pleas Court order to relinquish the documents. She says the city shouldn’t worry about the information leaking anyway:

“Their disclosure to us is not disclosed to the public. We’re bound to confidentiality in the ordinance with a long-standing agreement with the city regarding confidentiality. It’s not their place to decide what, and when, and where we get information.”

Pittinger says the CPRB will continue its attempt to find Harper in contempt of court. She says that would probably put daily fines of about $600 on the city until the documents are released to the board.

CPRB has a court date for that action on Friday.

G20 Bike Assault Case Delayed

Trial has been postponed for a woman accused of assaulting a police officer during the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh last September. Police say 22 year old Lauren Wasson can be seen on news video throwing her bicycle at a riot officer during a protest. She was then tackled and arrested and charged with aggravated assault. Wasson counters that police repeatedly shoved her as she was trying to leave but others were blocking her path. Her trial is now set for July 21.

VisitPittsburgh: 2009 Good Despite Rough Economy

VisitPittsburgh says 2009 was a good year despite the down economy but the nagging problem of not having enough hotel rooms continues. Before its annual meeting downtown this morning, President Joe Mc Grath noted how VisitPittsburgh took advantage of the region being in the spotlight several times in 2009 to spread the word about the city’s tourism and convention opportunities. He says the year began with a Steelers Super Bowl win, followed by the Penguins Stanley Cup victory and a bass fishing tournament and then wrapped up with the hosting of the G20 Pittsburgh Summit to end the year with a bang. Mc Grath says the G20 Summit has directly resulted in at least 5 conventions booking in the city already.

In 2009 Pittsburgh ranked second in the nation in “revenue per available room” and 8th in hotel room occupancy rates. Mc Grath says those numbers are both good and bad. He says it is good that visitors are coming to the region for business and leisure travel but it is bad because it points to the need for more rooms. VisitPittsburgh is in the process of trying to land a large 2015 convention and had to talk to eight different hotels to pull together the 1,200 rooms needed to host the gathering. Mc Grath says in the past they would have needed only three hotels but strong demand means hotels can’t commit the space to the conventions.

Mc Grath says convention traffic faired well in 2009. The annual report shows, “In 2009, VisitPittsburgh’s Convention Sales Department booked 434 meetings and conventions for 2009 and beyond, including 47 conventions accounting for 191 usage days at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.” Mc Grath says Pittsburgh has been helped by the recent scrutinity of convention locations. Several news stories have ridiculed events for going to “resort” locations and Mc Grath says Pittsburgh does not suffer from that reputation.

Mc Grath says the slow economy also helped the region’s recreational tourism numbers. He says people were taking vacations but rather than heading to Europe or the Caribbean they were staying closer to home and many of them were coming to Pittsburgh. The report shows visitor traffic from targeted zip codes where VisitPittsburgh advertised was up 11%, while spending from those visitors rose 13% in 2009. Mc Grath says they will be focusing their tourism advertising on Cleveland this year and VisitPittsburgh has formed a partnership with a similar group in Cleveland. In addition, the June launch of a direct flight between Pittsburgh and Paris seems to be helping fill a few hotel rooms.

Budget issues continued to be a problem for VisitPittsburgh. Mc Grath called it a “tremendous challenge.” The annual report says nearly all grant revenue came in below VisitPittsburgh’s budgeted levels and state funding cuts hit hard. In 2009, state funding declined to less than $750,000, as compared to $2.3 million in 2008.