City Council Testimony

April 26, 2011

Last Friday, one injustice against our community of Oakland ended. It was known as SempleFest, a drunken party thrown by the students of the University of Pittsburgh. It was held every spring semester at Semple Street on the Friday before the week of final examinations.

In 2008, our grassroots movement initiated action to end that drunken revelry when we saw first-hand the destructiveness it caused, and learned that for years the pleas for help by the long-time residents to end that misguided activity were being totally ignored by the Pitt administration. We began our action to end SempleFest with either letters or phone calls to the mayor, city council, Oakland organizations and Pitt personnel, among others.

In 2008, there were 68 arrests of participants. We are pleased to announce that this year there were no participants and no police stationed on Semple Street. One injustice against our community has ended but there are more to end.

Two weeks ago I sent each of you a copy of the document entitled “Oakland Community – Bill of Rights”, and asked that you share your beliefs on each of the 10 points made. No one has done so. For those who have not seen this document, it is link 36 on the website oaklanddignity.com.*

I asked each of you to share your beliefs because you have greatly affected the lives of the people of Oakland. An example of this was when you voted unanimously last year to allow Pitt further expansion of its dormitories into the heart of our community.

The means to that end were even more egregious. Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg had a private meeting with the Council President prior to the start of the first hearing. At that hearing, there were no questions asked of the Pitt administrator as to how the expansion would affect our community. Four council members didn’t bother to attend. The second hearing lasted only 57 seconds. Our community requested that you provide us an honest and comprehensive Impact Statement. You gave to the University of Pittsburgh everything that it wanted while you ignored our important request.

We also asked Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to share with us his beliefs on this Bill of Rights document. As of yet, he has also not given us a response.

I use a scene in a movie to illustrate our community’s sentiments. In the movie Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman is playing poker; he has nothing, but bluffs his way to a winning hand. The comment made is “Sometimes nothing is a cool hand.”

In this case, nothing is not a cool hand. Our community deserves a response from all of you, including the mayor. Why do we deserve a response? It is because we exist. No other reason is necessary.

Carlino Giampolo