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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pittsburgh's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report Released

Michael Lamb, the city's City Controller, released 2009's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. He said despite the economic crisis, Pittsburgh ended the year with a surplus of $8.5 million dollars, and a fund balance of $61.4 million. In 2009 there was an increase in the collection of earned income tax and a decrease in the deed transfer tax.

"All in all, kind of a vanilla year, in a year that most cities across the country continue to end in the red, we ended in the black - and that's good news," said Lamb.

There was an increase of $24.3 million in spending because of the G-20 summit. Lamb said they expect to be reimbursed by the federal government this year.

Fringe benefits, such as health insurance, pension and worker's compensation in 2009 cost the city $74.8 million and is expected to go over $82 million in 2010.

Lamb also said there are problems - the first quarter of 2010 is 3 million short compared to last year, there is the continuing pension problem and despite the fact that there is a growth of jobs in the city, people keep moving out. Lamb says this hurts the city's bottom line.

CPRB Praises Judge Wettick's G20 Ruling

Elizabeth Pittinger, Executive Director of the CPRB, says Senior Common Pleas Judge Stanton Wettick's decision ordering the Bureau of Police to provide documents requested by the Citizen Police Review Board will enable the Board to do its job better. She says the May 1997 City Charter amendment establishing the CPRB charges it with looking at overall police policy as well as individual citizen complaints, but there's been a dispute about this with every administration.

Based on the information provided, the Board will issue a report on how police/citizen interaction was affected by law enforcement policies implemented during the G20, with the aim of being a useful planning tool for Pittsburgh or other cities hosting large national security events in the future.

The CPRB will continue investigating individual citizen complaints from the G20. Pittinger says most individual police officers, especially over the past 4 to 5 years, cooperate with CPRB investigations, though she believes the Fraternal Order of Police still advises members not to. She says the Board doesn't criticize any officer for exercising his or her 5th amendment rights, like any other citizen.

Judge Orders City To Release G20 Arrest Documents

Allegheny County Judge Stanton Wettick says Pittsburgh Police must turn over arrest reports and other documents related to the handling of protesters during the G20 Summit. The Citizen Police Review Board says it needs the documents to investigate claims of police misconduct. Police made nearly 200 arrests during the G20 meeting in September. Most of the complaints came from police clashes with protesters in Oakland and Lawrenceville. The city objected to handing over the documents to the CPRB saying they were protected by federal law because the summit was a "National Security Event." But Judge Wettick said if the city believes certain documents are privileged. it should prepare a log explaining why they should not be released.
City Solicitor Dan Regan says he is reviewing the judge's decision and he wouldn't say if the city will appeal the ruling.

Other Cities Visit Pittsburgh Thanks to G20

The Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce says it is hosting an unprecedented number of visits from other Chambers of Commerce in 2010. Chamber President Barbara McNees says it can be traced back to the exposure the city received during the G20 summit. McNees says, “No fewer than seven Chambers of Commerce from across the United States have scheduled benchmarking visits to Pittsburgh this year.” Among the cities visiting is Cincinnati OH and Baton Rouge LA. Advance teams from both of those cities are in town this week laying the groundwork for later visits. Delegations from Korea and Toronto Canada have also made trips as they prepare to host G20 events later this year. McNees says groups have often visited Pittsburgh in the past but they usually were exploring one aspect of the city such as brownfield redevelopment or cooperation with universities but now they want to look at the entire revitalization package. McNees says the heads of the chambers that are coming this year specifically mentioned the G20 as one of their reasons why Pittsburgh was selected. The Executive Directors of several of the chambers coming later this year were in town last summer for a Chamber of Commerce conference where they got their first look at the city. McNees says the G20 just sealed the deal. Also visiting this year will be: Kansas City MO, Nashville TN, Lexington and Louisville KY, Dubuque IA and Mobile AL. McNees says the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber is looking for other ways to capitalize on the publicity and interest generated by the G20 Pittsburgh Summit.

Merton Center Billed for Police During G20

The Thomas Merton Center of Pittsburgh says it will not pay a $6,346.44 bill from the city for police services during a protest march September 25 during the G20 Summit. Several thousand demonstrators took part in the march from Oakland to the City-County Building in downtown Pittsburgh and then on to the North Side.
Merton Center spokeswoman Melissa Minnich told DUQ that they received the bill from the city Friday itemizing the cost of the work done by police during the march which was organized by the center.
"This was unexpected, we had filled out the forms and were told that (paying for police during) the march and rally should not happen. We've been speaking to the ACLU because back in 2003, the ACLU represented groups that sued the city to overturn a parade ordinance that compelled payment for the same sort of thing....police services."

That suit led to new rules that exempt First Amendment Parades and rallies from charges for police services if the organizer cannot afford to pay. An ACLU spokesman says the march was a free speech action and the Merton Center can't afford to pay the invoice.

A spokesman for the city of Pittsburgh says they've received a notice from the ACLU that they are representing the Merton Center and the city is "reviewing the matter."

ACLU Expands Suit Over G20

The American Civil Liberties Union has expanded its civil rights lawsuit against the city of Pittsburgh, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Public Safety Director Michael Huss, Police Chief Nate Harper, Assistant Chief William Bochter and City Parks Assistant Director Michael Radley in connection with the G20 Summit.
ACLU Legal Director Vic Walczak says the suit alleges that city officials adopted a strategy to "harass, intimidate, discourage and ultimately prevent Three Rivers Climate Convergence and the Seeds of Peace Collective from exercising their constitutionally protected rights of free speech."
However, the environmental group was permitted to set up a camp in Schenley Park for the 3 days leading up to the G20 Summit. They were not allowed to be in the park on the first day of the summit because of its proximity to the site of the working dinner of the G20 leaders.
Walczak says since that the decision from the judge to allow the Schenley Park demonstration came just 5 days in advance, their efforts to organize and recruit people was severely limited.
Walczak says Seeds of Peace, a group that travels the country feeding demonstrators, were monitored and harassed from the day they arrived in Pittsburgh including having their bus impounded and 3 members detained briefly.
No federal officials have been named in the suit but according to Walczak "that's the $64,000 question, whether the 'feds' were lurking in the background." He says the lawsuit can always be amended in the future if they find evidence of wrongdoing by federal officials.
The suit seeks unspecified damages. There's no comment at this time from city of Pittsburgh officials.

Allegheny Institute Doubts G20's Economic Impact

The Allegheny Institute says it does not think as much money was left in Pittsburgh during the G20 as some have estimated. The conservative think tank has released a policy brief regarding VisitPittsburgh's claims of a $35 million economic benefit to the the Pittsburgh region as a result of the G20 economic summit. The Allegheny Institute claims that the projection is unreasonable. The group looked at two indicators of economic impact for the region. They looked at RAD (Regional Asset District) revenues and hotel tax revenues. According to the policy brief RAD revenues were down in September of 2009 as compared to 2008, but hotel tax revenues increased by $600,000 representing an additional $8.5 million in hotel spending. Allegheny Institute senior research associate Frank Gamrat says the picture is incomplete because they were only able to analyze two sources but he believes the $35 million impact projection is still unreasonable because of the difficulty in quantifying the actual impact to the region.

Visit Pittsburgh has released a written response saying in part; "The Allegheny Institute fails to note that most of the 33 delegations associated with the Pittsburgh Summit were exempt from paying any taxes. These delegations represented over 3,500 attendees. In addition, security forces were also exempt from paying taxes. Used as the cornerstone for the Allegheny Institute’s faulty analysis, tax collections in this case are not a meaningful measurement of direct spending relating to the Pittsburgh Summit." "VisitPittsburgh stands behinds our estimate of $35 million in direct spending as a result of the Pittsburgh Summit."