While an application has been submitted to the Planning Commission from developer Rich Costanzo, his application will not be the focus of this meeting.  Councilman Shields and representatives from the City’s Law and Planning Departments will be present to answer questions.

From the BikePGH blog and newsletter…

In 2010, the City of Pittsburgh installed about 5 miles of bike lanes and sharrows, mostly in East End neighborhoods.  These lanes were a welcome addition to the emerging city-wide bike lane network, and showed that the City was serious when, upon receiving the “Bronze Bike-friendly Community” status, Mayor Ravenstahl proclaimed that there will be “25 miles of new bike lanes and sharrows in two years.”

We want to make sure this momentum continues, so we decided that we’d deliver to him a bunch of “Thank You” notes to demonstrate how much support Mayor Ravenstahl has for his bike initiative, and how bike lanes have positively impacted the lives of thousands of Pittsburghers.

We want you to write or draw fun, creative responses on our kinda boring form letter on how more bike lanes will change your life.  The idea is that hand-written letters are more effective than emails, form letters, and post cards, so write-away!

Click here for details on how you can help.

This post on The Publius Foundation’s blog talks about Mayor Ravenstahl’s efforts to work with students and looks into what happened with the Propel Pittsburgh Commission.  Looks like the commission hasn’t even been meeting.

Additionally — and not clearly posted anywhere at all — as of November, “The Propel Commission is not currently in session and is currently going through a structural transition,” Saunders said. Yet on the day when I received that email — Nov. 17 — city records show a meeting was to take place, same with Dec. 15.

read the entire post on The Publius Foundation’s blog –  Mayor Seeks to Reach Young People Through Defunct Commission.

After looking at Mike Doyle’s contributions – take a look at Jason Altmire’s contributions.
Mike Doyle has received $729,458 dollars in the past 2 years. Jason Altmire received over 3 times that amount.

Sustainable Pittsburgh in collaboration with Pittsburgh BRT Forum Collaborators

Monday, September 20; 8:00 am – 4:00 pm; Duquesne University – Power Center Ballroom, 1015 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA

To register send full contact information to: info@sustainablepittsburgh.org (SPACE IS LIMITED.)
http://www.sustainablepittsburgh.org/3ELinks/08_26_10%203E%20Links.html#article2

No fee to attend.

A new on-street BRT service is under consideration in Allegheny County to offer faster, more reliable, and easier-to-understand transit service. The initial focus is to link Downtown Pittsburgh with Oakland and other East End neighborhoods. As has been realized in other cities, “Rapid Bus” service improves transportation and is an effective catalyst for community revitalization. Implementation of BRT in Pittsburgh’s East End could result in similar benefits for the Forbes and Fifth Avenues Corridor. This forum, focused on Pittsburgh’s Downtown – Oakland – East End area, will feature:

• Planning, development, and transportation professionals with BRT experience along with stakeholders from the community.
• BRT insights from other cities including: Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Cleveland.
• Secretary Allen Biehler, PennDOT
• Breakout sessions will facilitate discussion of BRT benefits, challenges and community development issues.

Some additional blog posts about BRT…

• “Transit-Enlightened Cities” Showcase BRT’s Brilliance (thecityfix.com)
• With Light Rail Stalled, A Push for BRT in Tel Aviv (treehugger.com)
• BRT system for Dublin (politics.ie)
• UNEP: BRT Key to Sustainable Urban Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (thecityfix.com)
• Construction Begins on Amman BRT (treehugger.com)

Friday, August 27^th

Pittsburg, PA

Venue: Frick Park,  Beechwood Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15206

Directions at: http://www.pittsburghparks.org/frick-directions

Rain: In the event of rain, this event will be held on Saturday, August 28^th

7:00 PM: Doors Open

7:30 PM: Live Music

8:15 PM: Film Begins

9:30 PM: Q&A with Director Josh Fox and Local Organizations

There is no admission charge for this show. For more information, please visit:http://www.rooftopfilms.com/2010/schedule/57-gasland-pittsburgh-pa

The Film:

Gasland tells the story of what happened when a natural gas mining company offered Josh Fox and his upstate New York neighbors $100,000 each for the right to drill for gas on their land, and Fox thought he’d better examine what was going on before he signed away his property. This led him on a cross-country odyssey that uncovered a trail of secrets, lies and contamination.

Fox serves as the film’s emotional divining rod, wandering and wavering throughout the US, picking up on tragic tales of people, animals and places contaminated beyond repair, pointing always toward the hazardous link between “clean” natural gas and dangerously polluted water. Explaining the problem, Fox says, “Let me start at the beginning: this is Dick Cheney.” In 2005, Cheney’s secretive Energy Commission designed a bill that was able to overturn parts of various decades-old environmental-protection legislation, allowing for a relatively new process of gas drilling, invented by Halliburton. Commonly referred to as “fracking,” in this new process, the mining companies inject a cornucopia of toxic chemicals deep into the ground and explode the rock beds. Companies across 38 states are doing this with almost no oversight or regulations, often operating within feet of homes, schools, streams, wells and aquifers. An EPA spokesmen describes the legislation as “Orwellian” and “Un-American.”

As Fox chases the companies’ operations across the country, he encounters cats and horses losing their hair in clumps, men and women with sudden painful illnesses, and houses where you can literally light the tap water on fire. Cowboys and roughnecks in the far west and deep south–certainly not your granola-eating tree-huggers–decry the situation with pathos, charm and a bit of mordant humor. The gas companies deny, deny, deny.

Fox is able to explain the process and the repercussions with an easy-going verve and a dire sense of urgency. With a swelling populist love for America, Fox gets the viewer to understand the problem and care deeply. Gasland begins as a personal query about Fox’s own land, morphs into a documentary as he encounters people with stories to tell, and ends as activist rallying cry exposing one of America’s most dangerous environmental secrets.

Rooftop Films, The Fledgling Fund, and International WOW Company are proud to help expose these horrifying stories–amazingly wide-spread and consistent wherever natural gas is drilled–in the hopes that this won’t be a secret for long.

Related articles:

• Daily Show Looks at Hydraulic Fracturing and the Film ‘Gasland’ (ecopolitology.org)
• Indie Film Revelations – ‘Gasland’ Natural Gas Documentary Shows Flaming Tap Water (VIDEO) (trendhunter.com)
• Ever See Flammable Tap Water?: Gasland Film Investigates Natural Gas Industry (sustainablog.org)
• Television Review | ‘Gasland’: Josh Fox’s Look at Natural Gas Drilling on HBO (nytimes.com)

The Sunlight Foundation is an organization and a campaign to use technology to bring more transparency to government. Last week the Sunlight Foundation kicked off their Public Equals Online campaign with a panel discussion at the Google Headquarters in Washington DC.

Panelists included:

• Jake Brewer, engagement director of the Sunlight Foundation
• Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor of the Washington Examiner
• Jose Antonio Vargas, Technology & Innovations Editor at the Huffington Post
• Ginny Hunt, Head of Google’s Public Sector Lab
• Ryan Hopkins, Public Square Project
• And a representative from the federal government

The Public Square Project is based in Pittsburgh.  From the website:

The Public Square Project seeks to empower citizens to make positive change in local government by building an online hub for information about government and public policy in the Pittsburgh region.

Be a Fan of the Public Square Project on Facebook here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Let the Sunshine in (googleblog.blogspot.com)
• Jake Brewer: Bringing Local Government into the 21st Century (huffingtonpost.com)
• Sunlight Foundation wants more government docs online (computerworld.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday – Congressman Jason Altmire stated that he would vote no on health care reform bill.

Today the Steelworkers responded to Representative Altmire’s decision at his office in Aliquippa.

Just before the close of business on the final day that petitions could be challenged, the Onorato campaign filed objections trying to block Joe Hoeffel from being on the ballot.

The Hoeffel campaign fired back in a statement from co-manager Lauren Townsend:

“We filed petitions with 7,632 signatures from 33 counties…”

[State law requires gubernatorial candidates to have at least 2,000 signatures in total and have at least 100 signatures from 10 counties.]

“Dan Onorato has good reason to be scared, and now he has turned desperate.  This is a cowardly act.”

Press was rough for team Onorato all across the state.  For example, NEPArtisan  said, “Dan Onorato has gone the low road.”

Throughout the campaign, Onorato has been attempting to paint the race as a fait accompli. If this is the case, why challenge someone who clearly had exceeded the signature requirements?

Maybe it has something to do with these polling results, touted by team Hoeffel a few days ago. They show that, in a general election matchup, in vote-rich Southeast PA (a region that a Democratic nominee MUST win big to have any hope of winning statewide), Hoeffel leads Corbett, while Onorato trails.

Things got even stranger later in the day when Onorato withdrew his challenge. Their explanation raises more questions than it answers. In a statement to Politics PA, team Onorato said–and try to stay with me here–that they filed the suit, because they thought that Hoeffel might challenge Williams’ petitions. In what universe is this how a serious candidate for governor makes decisions!?  For his part, Hoeffel called it a “lame-ass” excuse; a “cynical effort to play around with the Democratic process”, and it’s hard to disagree.

So what is really going on? Your guess is as good as mine, but I think these poll results (and what we can infer about Onorato’s internal polling) must have a lot to do with it. It’s not unusal that when campaigns of so-called front-runners start to spudder or slide, they begin to show signs of disorganization, bad political decision-making, and irrational behavior.

It is with that background on Roe v. Wade’s anniversary that the Hoeffel Campaign sent out a release announcing that Kate Michelman is endorsing Joe for governor and will head his Women for Hoeffel committee.  Michelman is the former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

The full text of Michelman’s endorsement letter is below the fold.

Dear Friends,

As a proud Pennsylvania woman, I want to use the occasion of this anniversary of Roe v. Wade to announce my support for Joe Hoeffel for Governor in 2010.

Roe v. Wade is the landmark Supreme Court decision recognizing a woman’s right to decide matters of pregnancy, childbearing and abortion – in privacy, safety and with dignity.  It is a time to reflect on and remember those who have sacrificed to fight for and protect that fundamental American right.  It is also a time to rededicate ourselves to continuing the fight for women’s lives, health and economic security.

At a time when many in the Democratic Party are retreating from the issues that matter to many of us, I am proud to endorse someone who can be counted on to stand up for what is right — no matter how the temporary political winds might be blowing.  That is especially true on reproductive rights.

Joe Hoeffel is a determined pro-choice leader who understands that the rights of women to make their own reproductive health decisions cannot be traded away. Joe Hoeffel has served Pennsylvania in the State House, in the US Congress, and as a County Commissioner. During my tenure as President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, I saw Joe fight hard for women. He spoke out against passage of Pennsylvania’s restrictive abortion law, he worked for equal pay for equal work, and he is the only candidate for Governor to speak out against the prohibition on abortion coverage in the Health Care Reform bill.

The willingness of National Democratic leaders to secure passage of health reform by prohibiting abortion coverage under private insurance plans represents a significant setback for women, potentially for generations to come.

Joe Hoeffel is the kind of leader who understands that health care legislation at the price of women’s health is regression, not reform.  He’s the kind of leader who can speak to the people of Pennsylvania about these choices in clear and compelling terms.  He is the kind of leader who knows that policies that invest in women — their health, education, skill training and job security — are an investment in the well-being of our nation.  At this moment, in our long journey for women’s liberty, equality and freedom of choice, for which we have fought for so long, Joe Hoeffel is the leader we need.

I hope you will join me today by signing up for Women for Joe Hoeffel.  (Supportive Men are welcome to join as well.)

You can also support the campaign by:

– Joining me at his Campaign Kickoff this Tuesday, January 26, in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, or Philadelphia.

– Making a contribution to the campaign.

It is vitally important that women be actively involved in choosing the Democratic candidate for Governor. Whether you can contribute your time or your money or both, your support will make an important difference.

Sincerely,

Kate Michelman