Time For A New Beginning

City Council Testimony
April 2, 2013

The time has come for a new beginning for the community of Oakland.

Recently the city of Pittsburgh filed a lawsuit challenging the tax-exempt nonprofit status of UPMC. This same act of courage must be initiated against the University of Pittsburgh. This university has amassed billions of dollars in wealth, but no Pitt administrator has denied the fact that they give back to our community in direct funding the pitiful sum of less than two dollars of a student’s tuition fee.

Members of this council had the opportunity to be heroes for the people of Oakland when Pitt’s administrators came before you for approval of their Master Plan in hearings on May 6 and May 12, 2010. Instead of seizing the chance to protect your communities and constituents, you allowed yourselves to be victims of this dominating institution.

Councilman Peduto, when you chaired the committee for those hearings you were fully aware that your constituents in North Oakland did not want any Pitt dormitory expansion in that neighborhood, yet you allowed Pitt to expand its dormitories on South Bouquet Street in South Oakland. Incredibly, the May 12 hearing regarding a Master Plan, something that will impact our community for generations, lasted approximately one minute.

Councilman Kraus, you live in the South Side neighborhood but also represent South Oakland. Sadly, you did not attend either of those two crucial hearings to lend your voice to protect the community of South Oakland.

Councilman Lavelle, you represent West Oakland where the expansion of Pitt and UPMC near that neighborhood has resulted in housing units falling from approximately 1,700 to 200, and population declining from 5,300 to 1,800 in the last 30 years. You attended the hearings, but you asked no questions about how Pitt’s continuing expansion plans would impact our community.

Councilwoman Harris, you had a meeting with Chancellor Mark Nordenberg on the morning of the May 6 hearing, but the only concern you voiced at that hearing was wanting to know where on Pitt’s map were the Board of Education and Schenley High School.

I suggest that all of you obtain copies of those hearings and you will notice a glaring omission. While you were aligning yourself with Pitt’s administrators against our community, they in turn were deceiving and manipulating all of you by omitting the truth that there might be a massive 559-bed dormitory expansion on Fifth Avenue. That expansion is now nearing completion.

Our grassroots movement will continue, as will our efforts to not permit Pitt administrators to dictate how we in our community are going to live. We have once again called for the resignation of Chancellor Mark Nordenberg in messages yesterday and today in The Pitt News. Members of this council and the mayor will have to search their own consciences as to what actions they should take to create a new beginning for the community of Oakland

Carlino Giampolo

—

Update: On June 28, 2013 Chancellor Mark Nordenberg announced that he is retiring on August 1, 2014. It is our hope that the chancellor will move his retirement date forward to the present.