Symbol of Domination
City Council Testimony – March 5, 2014
Seven years ago this month marked the beginning of our grassroots movement. On numerous occasions we have brought to your attention the domination that the University of Pittsburgh exercises over the community of Oakland. We have asked that you deviate from your compliant relationship with the University in order to assist the community in creating a new beginning.
We would like to talk again about the University’s domination. Instead of discussing its domination over the community, today is to discuss the University’s domination over this council and our city government. Although the domination is pervasive, today we will focus on the domination over one street in our community and how it is analogous to the University’s greater domination.
Joncaire Street leads from South Bouquet Street at the top down to Boundary Street at the bottom. It became famous in 1935 when Babe Ruth hit his final homerun over the right field roof at Forbes Field, and the ball landed on Joncaire Street. A young resident of Boundary Street, Henry “Wiggy” DeOrio, retrieved the ball and donated it to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. At that time, 98% of individuals who used the sidewalk on this street were longtime residents, and 2% were affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh. Today, because of the University’s never-ending expansion, these figures are reversed.
Along the hillside sidewalk, the University of Pittsburgh owns property from the top of Joncaire Street down to the third telephone pole. The city of Pittsburgh owns the remaining property, from the third telephone pole to the bottom of the street. The University also owns a parking lot at the bottom of the street with over 100 parking stalls. In addition, there is a similarly sized private parking lot nearby that accommodates mostly University of Pittsburgh students, faculty, and staff.
This sidewalk use makes it predominately a “University” sidewalk.
However, when it snows the University has chosen to clear the sidewalk only down to the third telephone pole. The University defiantly refuses to clean even one foot beyond its property line, even though it would take a University snow removal maintenance worker only a few minutes to continue down the sidewalk and complete the cleaning. This arrogant University decision is not only embarrassing to city leadership by forcing the city of Pittsburgh to remove snow from the remainder of the sidewalk, but it results in a waste of taxpayers’ money.
That action, symbolic of the University’s attitude toward the surrounding community, is more baffling because in the last seven years this city council has never passed legislation that conflicted with the desires of the University of Pittsburgh. It is time for a paradigm shift. For that to occur, the change must first begin within each one of you. In the near future, our community will again give you an opportunity to pass legislation that will be unsupported by Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and his administration. This will be in the form of a proposed University Impact Aid law whereby universities would be required to provide financial assistance to the communities their presence impacts.
The benevolence of longtime resident Henry DeOrio is a sharp contrast to the self-centered actions of University administrators. Years ago, I asked Councilman Bruce Kraus, “Why doesn’t the University of Pittsburgh do more for the community of Oakland?” His response was, “You can’t force people to care.” While that may be true, what this council can do is pass legislation indicating that the days of University domination over the community of Oakland and the city of Pittsburgh government are coming to an end.
Carlino Giampolo
OaklandDignity.com |