Letter to Pittsburgh City Council
President Bruce Kraus

May 6, 2019

I want to bring several issues to your attention.

1) For years, I asked for your support to have a concrete curb installed across the street from our family home in Panther Hollow, not only for aesthetic reasons but also to prevent hillside dirt from coming onto the street. You refused to give any support.

My mother, father, brother, and now my sister never experienced that basic amenity. Their dignity meant very little to you. You did not have the common decency of telling us why that improvement will never happen, and you now bear that shame.

Mayor Bill Peduto wants to build a roadway through our neighborhood to connect Hazelwood Green to the University of Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Could one of the plausible reasons for this inaction be retaliation from the mayor because of our community's strong opposition to the roadway? Is your loyalty to the mayor and the university worth bearing the shame and devaluing your own dignity?

The mayor kept the roadway project secret not only from our community, but also from you. You chose silence at that indignation. If you have no regard for your own dignity, then it is understandable that you cannot respect the dignity of the people of our community in matters involving the mayor and the university.

2) The concrete curbing issue is symbolic of the bigger picture of crookery in Pittsburgh politics. The roadway project was morally corrupt from its very inception, and very often, legal wrongdoings accompany moral corruption. Nothing good will emerge from this immoral roadway project. That project has already tarnished the reputations of the Pittsburgh foundations that own the Hazelwood Green site, as well as the director of DOMI, who came to the city as an innocent newcomer but has allowed herself and her family to become enmeshed in the dishonest world of Pittsburgh politics.

You chose not to attend the first meeting of this roadway project that occurred four months after the city applied for a $3 million grant from the state. At that meeting, Director of City Planning Ray Gastil said the roadway would traverse the university's parking lot in Panther Hollow. At the University of Pittsburgh's Institutional Master Plan community meeting last week on May 2 (which you also chose not to attend), I asked who at the university gave the city permission to use its parking lot for a roadway. Vice Chancellor Attorney Paul Supowitz replied that he could find no one at the university who had a conversation with the city about using the parking lot. Prior to this meeting, I had asked that question numerous times to university administrators but was stonewalled. I then asked you for support in simply getting an answer to this question. Once again, in matters relating to the mayor and the university, you refused to give any support.

Is it possible that Ray Gastil alone made the decision to use the parking lot in Panther Hollow for a roadway? Or did the mayor tell him that the university would eventually give support for using the parking lot, and thus once again act as if the feelings of our community are meaningless? Also, you are fully aware of the discrepancies in the city's grant application. Was the grant application, which was eventually denied, fraudulent? We don't know the answers to all of these questions because you, the mayor, others at the city, and the media are silent, and judicial organizations have not yet begun an investigation.

3) The University of Pittsburgh's Institutional Master Plan will be coming soon to city council for approval. No city council member has the knowledge and expertise to fully understand the vast impact of that plan on our community. Our community needs an in-depth Neighborhood Impact Study that will fully assess how our community will be affected by this massive plan. That study must be as comprehensive as the 75-page Brookings Institute study, and be done by an independent organization approved by the community. At the May 2 meeting, I asked OPDC's Wanda Wilson to contact you and others at city council with that desire.

(As you are aware, Oakland residents were completely ignored in the Brookings Institute study, which shamefully and inconceivably concluded Oakland was not being developed enough, and that it should be the center of an Innovation District. Even the president of Brookings Institute refused to answer three letters sent to him about the nature of that shameful study. However, that has not stopped the mayor, university administrators, and others from using that study to justify further destruction of our neighborhood with proposed developments.)

The important Neighborhood Impact Study for the Oakland community should be funded by city council. The money for that study is available. City council had no problem finding $10 million for the roadway project despite strong opposition from residents of Four Mile Run and Panther Hollow. Funding for the study could come from either there or other areas of the budget.

At the May 2 meeting, the university stated that it will "Better understand opportunities to address quality of life issues that enhance value to today's Oakland," and that it "respects the rich cultural heritage of this long-standing neighborhood." I gave the university an opportunity to put that sentiment into action by requesting that the university make a public announcement that it does not support a roadway from Hazelwood Green through Panther Hollow to the university. As you know, Panther Hollow is a cultural treasure to the city of Pittsburgh as one of its first Italian neighborhoods. We will soon see whether the university's sentiment is empty words, or they will have the courage and wisdom to make that announcement—something you have not been able to do.

4) You and other members of city council have a fiduciary duty to protect our community. However, in your 11 years in office, you and the other council members who have served since that time have never even attempted to propose a law to protect our community from the uncontrolled growth of the university that has decimated our community.

Breach of fiduciary duty, as you well know, can bring serious legal consequences.

Carlino Giampolo

Note: As of August 2019, University of Pittsburgh administrators have not made a public announcement that they do not support a roadway from Hazelwood Green, through Panther Hollow, to the university.