City Commission - Regular Meeting

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I call this May 26, 2026. Commission meeting in order. Will you join me in a flex here? It is the desire of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Could I have Major Brenda Pittman from Salvation Army Come up and lead us in prayer. Yes.

Let's pray. Gracious God, we thank you for this gift of this day and the privilege of serving this community. We ask for your blessing on the city commission, the city staff, and all who contribute to the life of our city. Guide our discussions and decisions that they may be used for the good of all people. In your name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Major. All right. Open it to public input. Is anyone out there who would like to speak on anything? Come forward and state your name and address. Seeing none, I close the public input and move to consent agenda. Are there any items to be removed from the consent agenda?

I'd like item B to be removed and discussed.

All right. Excluding item B, is there a motion to approve item A and item C? I move to approve.

Seconded.

Then move and second to approve Item A and Item C on the consent agenda, all in a roll call vote.

Brooks. Yes. Munsell. Yes. Perry. Yes. Siegfried.

Yes. Item B, approval of Traffic Advisory Board's request to make the intersections of 16th and Pine Street and 18th and Pine Street four-way stops and authorize the city staff to install the signs.

Is there a particular reason why we're doing this?

Um, yeah, 250 kind of talked to us a little bit about that at our next, or our last traffic advisory board meeting, and with some of the changes they're making to bus routes, and some of just the traffic, we've seen an increase of traffic on Pine, and so they felt like it was a, it was a request by some of the center to, and we've done that at some of the other elementary schools, went ahead and went to four-way stops like Lakeside we we went ahead and made all intersections four-way stopped around the school And so this one you don't have a 17th Street because it covers a two block radius So we went ahead and put those four ways that they requested put those go ahead and put four ways at both of those Both of those intersections and then you have the 20th school zone on Walnut Street, so

The reason why I had this pulled is I've watched the traffic there, and I wanted to make sure we had an open discussion about the need for this. There has been a lot of people from the center reach out and discuss the quick traffic that runs through there, people leaving and turning through the intersection without stopping. The main concern that I had was to make sure that we do as much as possible to let the public know that we were applying those new signs and creating the four ways there.

Oh, yeah, well, we put up a, converting intersections into four ways and those type of things are never a fun endeavor, but we'll typically, we'll sign it, we'll put out a press release as well, providing that you approve it tonight. And then we also go ahead and we usually typically put the little red flags on top of them so they get a little more attention in that. And then usually PD, when we do an intersection like that, Especially once school rolls back around and there's an increase, usually PD has a little more presence just to kind of remind everyone when those things happen.

That was my primary concern because they left school season with them not being there. They're going to come back to them and then there's going to be parents that aren't aware or not paying attention. So we just maximize as much as possible social media, everything we can to make sure people know what's going on. That's a good idea. Those are dangerous intersections. There's lots of kids running around there, so it's a very smart move. Motion to approve.

We've been moved to approve. Is there a second? Second. All right, we've been moved and seconded. All in favor of approving Item B, say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Special presentation. Downtown Advisory Board Annual Report. Representatives from the Downtown Advisory Board will present their annual report.

Good evening, Mayor, Commissioners. I would like to officially introduce Bethany Kendrick, our Community Development Specialist. I know you got a chance to see her and meet with her on her very first day when we did our budget report, but she is going to introduce our group tonight as she acts as the liaison for the Downtown Advisory Board in the city. So, Bethany, come on up. She's been here a month and doing a wonderful job, and then we will hear from our DAB members.

All right.

Thank you, Kim, and good evening. Mayor, commissioners, thanks for having us this evening. As Kim mentioned, I serve as the city's liaison with the Downtown Advisory Board, or as we call it, the DAB. We have a lot of acronyms. And I've had the pleasure of getting to know these great downtown community members over the last month or so, getting their feedback on a lot of initiatives and just different ways to improve our downtown area. As an introduction to our DAB board, this is a group that really represents kind of the heart of our downtown. They really bring kind of together the voices from property owners, residents, merchants. And we have seven members, including representatives from hospitality, retail, and the district itself. And they work together to review, guide, and advocate for the downtown community. The group meets about once per month and helps support events like 620 Day, Small Business Saturday, Tree Lighting Ceremony, Hispanic Music Festival, the list goes on and on. But tonight, some of the DAB members we have present are Skip Ulrich, if you want to give a wave, Skip, Trista Schuster, Darcy Schultz, and Tree Malkin. And let me introduce to you Trista, and she is our chair, along with Tree Malkin, she is our co-chair, and they will give you a short presentation.

Good evening. As Bethany said, I'm Trista Schuster, and I am at large. My special interest is as AVP of Lending at Kansas Teachers Community Credit Union, so we operate in the downtown heart.

And I'm True Malkin, financial advisor for Edward Jones. My office isn't in the downtown region, so I just represent at large, but I have a real love for downtown and hope one day to have my office there.

And so our annual report and this is the list of the rest of them myself tree Jeff Brooks at large blaze main for hospitality Darcy Schultz for downtown resident Stephanie Watts is a property owner and skip your rich as retail and our board responsibilities for the downtown advisory board or dab acts as a review body representing the interest of downtown property owners residents and merchants and Where is the downtown district? This is the downtown overlay district. Its north boundary is 14th Street, south is Euclid, east is Elm Street, and west is Pine Street, and those are the properties adjacent to that street. Highlights, we support the arts, whoops, district, and economic activity by partnering with Pit 150, Downtown Art Walk, 620 Day, the Hispanic Music Festival, Paint the Town Red, Farm to Table event, Small Business Saturday, and our Tree Lighting Ceremony. Lighting and Pedestrian Safety, the Downtown Lighting Review, we took part in that, the Light Pole Banner Designs, and the Third Street Traffic Lights. Our current projects falling under marketing is the Downtown Visitor Map with Explore Crawford County. The map will show parking and business directory. Our website landing page features the Downtown Walking Tour events and visitor map. One of our, probably our biggest, one of the biggest events is 620 Day. That's coming up next on June 20th. We started it in 2019. It's been held each year on June 20th, or 620. It's named in honor of our area code. We have a block party and sidewalk sale. 2025 attracted over 1,200 people. Small Business Saturday is another one of our large events. It was started back in 2016. It takes place the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We coordinate it with the Holiday Art Market and Pittsburgh Area Chamber. It draws over 5,000 people to Pittsburgh. The tree lighting ceremony takes place after the Small Business Saturday, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It started in 2023. We light the 20-foot Christmas tree that was funded by private donations. 1,200-plus people attended in 2025, and we added characters and performances you can see in some of the pictures up there. Additional events, Halloween window painting. We partner for the Holiday Window Display Contest and Downtown Connect. Our future goals are to promote downtown as a regional destination, continued support of Pittsburgh Art Council, solutions for bringing trees back to downtown, extended streetscape south to Euclid, a welcome arch design, and in addition to the banners, light pole music as well. We meet on the third Monday of every month from 1130 a.m. to 1 p.m. at a downtown business location. We invite everyone to get involved, join a meeting, help with events, or volunteer. Our upcoming events are the 620 day. It will be Saturday 620 from 6 to 9 p.m. There will be a free concert, food trucks, and fun for all ages. The 4th of July parade is July 4th at 8 a.m. Register by 6-19. Veterans, active military, kids, families, bikes, non-profits, or neighborhoods. The farm-to-table will be Monday, 7-27. Art Walk, Saturday, September 13th. And Small Business Saturday and Tree Lighting on Saturday, 11-28.

is all we have. Any questions?

I have a question. There is a number of downtown storefronts that are in disrepair. Could be looking better. Do we have any type of a program that we can go to the owners and say, hey, can you fix this up? Or can we help you find a way to fix this up?

Yes, I guess there is technically a way that was part of what our downtown connect was for, but you can't really force people to do things with their property. As much as we would like downtown and business storefronts to be better looking, because trust me, I agree, there are plenty of storefronts that could look a lot better, it's hard to connect with some of those business owners to do something about it. And no matter how hard we try, sometimes it seems to go opposite, and that's why we brought back the Downtown Connect, hoping to get some of those business owners that are kind of standoffish to the city and to the board in general to get involved and hopefully feel the passion and the momentum that downtown's having to maybe put a little effort in. But unfortunately, that's a question we've all had of how we can do that, but we can't really force people to do things with their property, unfortunately.

There used to be a... Not a question so much as a comment on the trees. I think there are... I think they're an eyesore. When I was on the fire department, we had starlings nesting in the trees. And somebody at the city had a good idea that that would be a job for the fire department to take a propane cannon and go out at certain times before it got dark and shoot the propane cannon off. And all that did was leave a lot of bird droppings, and all the birds moved to the next tree over. So I would like to see you mention Art Walk and things. I wonder if there's any interest in replacing the trees with a piece of art or something. That's just my thoughts. I think the trees...

Well, Chuck, we're going to have to disagree on the trees. You'll see me later about my passion for trees, but a few reasons why we want trees back. I agree that trees are a problem with birds, and I'm on another council for the city, the sustainability, and we're doing a lot of research on finding a tree that can work in the space that's not going to attract birds. which is a very hard thing to do. In my opinion, the trees aren't the bird problem. It's the property owners who have the bird motels upstairs. But again, we can't force them to do something about that. So we're trying to find an address and be creative. We've even looked at getting like a or an eagle nest or something that's going to scare away the other birds. We're doing a lot of research. Another reason we want the trees is because they provide shade. We spent a lot of money last year getting benches and it's kind of nice when it's hot to sit under a nice shade tree. It takes a lot of things to make it all work, which is why we haven't really got that much progress, but we're also wanting to use the trees to light up downtown. I don't know if you guys have walked downtown at night, but one of our main concerns for safety is lighting, and it's because our light poles are so high in the air. So we're working on some solutions, but one easy solution would be if there were trees consistently down Broadway, maybe like wrap them with lights, just give some lower-level lighting. But all of this, we have to take into consideration so many different things. So like I said, we're going to have to disagree on the trees.

Well, I appreciate your opinion. You haven't convinced me the other way.

The pigeon... You say that some of the buildings are bird motels. That's potentially dangerous because they carry various and sundry diseases, especially respiratory type diseases, and maybe that might be a ticket to say, hey, you've got to clean it up so you don't have a hotel or motel, whatever you want to call it up there. I'm serious.

I've talked to a guy recently who complained about the pigeon population, and he had been diagnosed with same thing that Doc is talking about. But the falcon, we need the falcon back to curtail the pigeon population. But I've heard from a lot of business owners who had the trees right in front of their business and in the mornings the stuff that was on the ground, they walk in their business with it and they were against the trees. Or finding some kind of netting that's invisible that will go around them that they can't be there roosting. But the bird thing is a big deal.

Yes, ma'am. No, completely agree. So we're trying to find a solution to be able to provide the beauty and the shade and the oxygen that they provide, but also not infringe on the community in general. Because my car's been pooped on, I've been pooped on. We don't want that. So we're trying to look for a creative solution.

So the difference, when he mentioned the art, what's the deal about art, though?

Well, we're working with the Art Council to do some different things. Part of our budget that we use is for murals, but we're looking to expand that to different art in general. But I'm no artist. I don't know how to, what works and what doesn't work, so we're working with the Art Council and looking at some other... communities and ways they fund and what they do. We're also planning to sell things like t-shirts and such at our events to help raise money for art downtown in general. So not just murals, but structures and things like that.

Okay, so you're talking, are you talking about street art? Yeah, in place of the trees. I don't know. Like Topeka, you know, when we went to the... Yeah, Topeka had art. Topeka has it downtown when we went to a convention there.

Yeah, we've gone to that because of the issue with nuisance.

Yeah. So that's something we're looking at too, but we're no experts on art or structures or things like that, and there's a lot of, I'm sure, liability. So we are working towards having more art downtown, especially like structures more than just murals, because eventually you'll run out of wall space if the only art we have downtown is murals.

So does the Falcon fall under your department?

Well, something we've talked about here, and I've talked about on the sustainability.

We've had it before in the past, and then it kind of went away when the best was being redone.

Luckily, I serve on a lot of different things, so I know a lot about, you know, all of my different organizations put in some part, even like Pittsburgh Beautiful, people of that committee have talked to me about, you know, how we can collaborate to just beautify downtown.

The 4th of July parade. I heard DJ say backwards, why? Reason, Ben, is just curiosity more than anything. If you have a parade.

It's because there's a lot of events going on that day, and we don't want to take away from them. So since it's a Saturday, we have the farmer's market. And so if it starts the way it normally does, no one can get to the farmer's market because everyone's lined up right there. So if we line up the other way and go towards that, people can distribute to the farmer's market, to the park. Where does it start? It starts on second, right? First to seventh.

On the south end. Where are you talking about parking? parking for buses or people or anything? Where are you guys talking about? Because, you know, parades of the past, you're at Hutchfield and all the buses are kind of scattered. And if this is going to be a start of a big deal, especially since it's the 250th, where are you going to put everybody on that end?

So it will most likely just be this year because it's Pittsburgh's 150th, America's 250th, and it's on a Saturday, so it worked out great. But then that DCF parking lot, and then we will line up. We can run three across Broadway at that area, kind of down by the new Guadalajara location and the DCF building. But, yeah, we will send out all that. Everybody that's registered will send out that information for lineup because I know it is backwards and it's a little different for most everyone. But, again, we didn't want to take away from any other events. And we're excited to get more registers. We need more people registering.

Are you charging a fee for entries? Nope. Where are we at with registration right now?

Do you have a current?

Yeah, we have like nine to ten entries, but that's dozens of people registered.

It's like 10 entries, but there's like 25 people per entry. So a lot of vehicles, a lot of people walking. We hope to get more families, kids, little bikes, decorated, dogs, any active military, veterans, anybody that wants to come, antique cars, whatever. So free to enter, and it's 8 a.m. on 4th of July. We should be wrapped up before 9, and they can go to all the other events. So we hope to get more.

I think it's a good idea to do it the other direction. I think that's going to draw some people because they want to see what that looks like. So I think that will be.

And we'll push it just so people know where to line up and where to watch so they're not past 7th waiting on the parade and it's not there. So it will end at 7th and then turn off. But we'll help with that. Yeah.

Thank you. Hey, go back to the lighting you were talking about, the big lighting. Had you talked to Evergy about turning up the lighting downtown? No. Are they up as high as they'll go now?

Most of them are, right? Or all of them?

So the black decorative light poles that go down Broadway, there's 74 of those. Those are not Evergy. Those are ours. So because they're so tall, they're turned up as bright as they would get. And we'll bring it to working day so you guys can kind of see. But we did the prototype or the example of the banner lighting that will illuminate the sidewalk and illuminate more of the street. So it will brighten up downtown quite a bit once we work through that project as well. So we'll bring that to you as well.

Are you doing those on every pole or every other pole? Yeah.

The idea would be every pole, that 74, but, I mean, it's really bright. It's the one right in front of the Fox Theater, so you can kind of see the example of it, but I think it will brighten up quite a bit. We need it.

Are you able to change colors on the down lighting?

No, but I like that idea. I bet we could figure that out.

Well, Tulsa Market, if anybody's ever been to their new expanded, they've done a multimillion-dollar project there. The lighting, you could change colors on those down lighting.

So that was kind of neat. They probably can. The company that we started the process with, manufacturers of them, he worked with us to kind of design them. We did two example polls because the first one we didn't like very much. So I'm sure possibly that's something we can talk to him about putting in the final pricing structure. I also very selfishly would like him to figure out how to add music.

I was wondering, that was my next question.

Yes, so you probably remember me talking about that last year, but it's one of my big goals for Pittsburgh. I don't know if you've been downtown in Fort Scott. They're doing amazing things in their downtown, but they have music. And so if Fort Scott can do it, I don't know why we can't.

We used to have polka music.

Just a little something so it encourages. I walk a lot downtown. I'm not one person who gets back in my car and drives if I have to go downtown. I just walk and it's just nice when you go from storefront to storefront if you have some elevator music. I think it will encourage people to walk and not get back in their car every time they have to move.

I'm interested in the, you may mention about an arch, an entry arch, is there?

Yes, that's another one of my big goals. So thanks for asking. It's very expensive. There's three businesses in Pittsburgh who can potentially produce it. The problem with that is not just the money, it's we're on a highway and it has to be massive. So we need an engineer. I would think it would be best, like by the middle school, across Broadway, but that we haven't really made, like, any real decision.

Because it has to be huge and structural. It'd be great. Everybody, I mean, yeah, there's a way to get it done.

It'd be awesome, but it's... Well, I noticed with the Pitt 150, you guys had tremendous turnout with local artists and artists from all over the place submitting options of t-shirts. I think that would be something interesting to do. if we got to the point where we could do an arch to have different things applied to it from local artists and local people to kind of give it some history and structure of the city.

Yep, definitely. Yeah, that's one of my big, big goals, but it's just very expensive.

Is it bigger than the trees?

No. No, it's not bigger than the trees, but it is big, and it's going to be expensive and a labor of love for a lot of people. My goal would have been for it to be done this year because nothing is better for our 150th birthday than a nice big old brick-based metal Welcome to Downtown Pittsburgh sign, but we have a lot of other things on our docket this year.

Very busy. I noticed that Galena had put up one of the structures from the school as their arch, and they've placed a gorilla from Pittsburgh State in there, and they're looking for some kind of feline to go in there too, I think. But that might be something to reach out to Galena and see if there's more of those arches that are available from that school to see if we could expand off of that to help create the overall structure. I don't know how far across those are.

It has to be huge. Think of the span of Broadway by the middle school and then it has to be tall enough for a semi plus to go under. It would be something that has to be first designed by an engineer and then made by a steel or metal manufacturer. I don't think it's something we can piece together, unfortunately.

Yeah, it might be something that we could add things to once it's up, though.

Yeah, once it's up and we can maybe add some art to it like that, but just the structure itself is going to be a labor.

I look forward to hearing more from you about it. I have a question, and Kim might be able to answer this. You have budgets built into your budget for like 620 day or PIT 150 and that. If you don't spend all the money, where does that money go? It goes back to the general.

We don't lose it.

I think Pitt 150 had like a $50,000 budget. You probably didn't spend 50 grand on Pitt 150, did you? It's not over yet. The year's not over. So it's for the whole year. Okay. I was kind of amazed at the lack of enthusiasm for the 100th birthday because I would have thought there would have been thousands of people out there at Pitt State and the drone would have been like, I guess I was just surprised that there wasn't more people. It was fun.

I agree. I was there with my baby, and I would have thought more people would have been there myself.

Unless it was because of the time during the workday.

I think maybe it's time and the weather a little bit, especially for older people. And then where it was, I talked to a few older people who I imagined would want to go, and they were just worried about how they would get over to the field. um you know so they were worried about parking and things and that discouraged them from coming so just some hurdles we try to work through sure another committee that i'm on the last question i have uh just participation with the downtown business owners with your meetings and with your efforts you have

Pretty good turnout? Everybody kind of gets involved, at least periodically?

So on our board meeting, we have a few people who come depending on what they have going on. But for the downtown connect, we had a really good turnout. Do you happen to remember how many people came to that? It was a good amount. It was at the pit and we used that whole side party room and it was pretty packed. And we had hors d'oeuvres and they were able to come up and do kind of like a minute at the mic and talk about what they had going on or if they had anything we could help them with, grievances, you know, that kind of thing. And we had a pretty good turnout and some people we weren't really... kind of expecting to show up. So I think that was really powerful to kind of get some of those disconnected businesses involved and excited about what we have going on.

In light of, you know, the city having to take over a building that's dilapidated, almost falling in. And again, it was over a series of several months. I think communication with all the business owners is super important at this point moving forward. So we don't have more of those issues and we can get more things accomplished moving forward. I'm glad to see and glad to hear that there's a lot of people involved in it. Because if there was a large group that really didn't want to be involved or whatnot, then how do we reach those people? How do we get that information out?

We also reach out when we do 620 Day and Small Business Saturday. We encourage people to shop downtown by having a little card that lists the sales and discounts and things that they're doing. They send out an email blast to the businesses who sell things downtown. That's just another way we try to get them involved and communicate. Even if it's just their normal specials, we just like to know what they're doing on that specific day just to encourage people to show up. Then we make gift baskets, if they bring their little cards and they shop at so many businesses, they're entered in to win one of the downtown swag bag basket things we put together. So we just try to encourage people to be downtown and shop downtown as much as possible.

Teresa, that map you had up earlier about the downtown, can you pull that back up? How did that map ever come about? Who determined how far east, west, north, and south off of On Broadway. It's like a cookie cutter.

It's Elm Street and Pine Street, and those parcels join those streets. So if you see them, they touch that street.

So any parcel that hits either one of those borders, whether it goes west or east, they just capture it. And that's why it has, the question is, you know, really why is it just way down one street?

But the parcels are split, so it's... We just talked about that at our last meeting because we had that same question.

So has there been any interest to blocking... that out to the actual city streets to encompass those other businesses to be a part of it?

It's not necessarily all the businesses. There's a lot of residential kind of through the Pine and Elm Street, so I wouldn't want my house to be in a, you know, zone differently.

No, but there's a lot of, you'd think the way it's set up that there's a lot of businesses that are just outside of it or why, you know, subtle.

I would love to expand downtown, but...

I guess I wondered who determined the map. It's probably been around long before us.

Yeah, I think it was before probably any of us. So I would love to expand it. The more people we can have pride in being downtown, I would enjoy. But also part of the grievance of downtown is that not all of our downtown is treated equal. So that's part of what we talked about, expanding our streetscape. All of our street stuff stops at four. and doesn't go first and doesn't go all the way down to first, right? Yeah, so we need like $2 million plus to expand the benches, the trash cans, and the light to actually just get all the way down Broadway, less than on the side, you know, going east to west.

How much?

Like $2 million was the quote. The electrical would have to go underground and right now it's above ground. So it was electrical infrastructure, it was traffic lights.

Sidewalks you have to dig into the new sidewalks that are already done and then go back and replace those Park benches trash cans and things like that of course and then also the decorative black light poles, so it was Probably about two years ago that we even got an estimate just to see so we knew what we could do To take that down a little further so well the lighting definitely is better going south in the downtown and

Yeah, so if we even expand more, then there will be more red-headed stepchild parts of the downtown.

What would it take to change this, Darren? What would it take to update this if it's so old? To extend it? To extend it. It's money.

Money. And you guys' vote of approval.

I mean, everything has to start... The thing you run into is, it's like the NCAA tournament. It used to be 64 teams, now it's 64 plus 12. There's always somebody on the outside. There's always another street that's just on the edge. And sometimes there's somebody that's in there in residential that doesn't want to be included. So a lot of thought by the planning committee, I think it was 10 years ago, that did the downtown study, came up with that. There's always just one more street. This year we're putting in a light at 3rd and Broadway with the bonds that y'all did. We're gradually extending, but when you talk about those black decorative lights and the power that goes with it and then the sidewalk, as you get closer to DCF, we can't even get... with our matching program beside the owner of that property to do the sidewalks there so it just comes down to cost and normally in a city it's the adjacent property owner always puts in some of it but I think in this case this was before I got here the city just came up with the money and blew out downtown and everybody talks about when they come here they love how long it is and how formal it is but it has to start and stop somewhere and right now there's just

That third and Broadway, I don't understand why that traffic signal was removed to begin with. But, yeah, that's dangerous right there.

That's a tough place to get onto Broadway. It will be. Yeah. All the foot traffic coming. We're going to fix it. But, yeah, two things real quick. So, Doc, your first question. We used to have a facade program that was part of the revolving loan fund that would help people clean up the front of their buildings. But it just became a sign. fund and we're not really talking about signs and that's kind of how we evolved into the 10 of your investment if you fix up the front of your building with the facade and the roof and all that so that's kind of been the evolution because if we just do have grants they traditionally are only enough to pay for signs and when people have to match that they don't have the money the second thing is the we won't we won't have an apartment we won't buy a falcon the idea was to put up a falcon's um And Jay knows the nomenclature. I don't know. But a place where they would roost. We were going to put one on the best. I think with all the historical things, that may be a problem. The idea is a predatorial bird that would have a roosting site where they would come into town, whether it's... I don't know what the tallest building is anymore. But that's the idea. And then they would make a nest there. And then they would take... Once a dozen or so pigeons get taken out by a falcon, they'll usually find somewhere else to go be pigeons. But... The birds are always going to be a problem. We're rural. We have water. We have a lot of feet around us. So last time I checked, Brent's not going to let us start popping them off at Saturday night. So we're going to have to find a way to continue to... The trees have always been a problem because the trees...

Throw them in.

Trees still standing there. If she was sitting down, I'd probably say something else.

Maybe that's why she liked trees.

If her name was Arch, we'd probably have a big Arch already.

Don't worry, I'll be back to talk about trees.

I'll be interested to find a tree that birds don't like.

It's about berries and branches. There are lots of things. We talked to a few different organizations about how to pick good trees that don't encourage them. It does, it's a lot. It took, we took like three meetings on the sustainability committee or council to talk about the trees.

Maybe that's, we just need to put the speakers and blare some five finger death punch or something to scare the birds off.

Well, you could do that and you could have, you know, a falcon scream. Then it'd be annoying. And an owl screech.

There's a lot of really random things we learned about of how people try to keep birds away. So I'm intrigued to figure out what we decide to do in the future.

Birds don't get scared. They're kind of like dogs. They'll learn. But you find something that will kill a few of them, and that will get their attention because they can definitely tell.

I would definitely like to hear from the business owners before we ever plant anything. just to make sure that they're in the grants.

Well, that's why we've got the board, and you guys are doing a great job, and I know you've probably talked longer than you wanted to, but this has been really informative.

The report, lots of good information. Thank you. Thanks for volunteering, you guys.

Feel free to come to any of our meetings. There they are.

All right. Consider the following. ordinance number g thirteen eighty eight consider approval of an ordinance number g thirteen eighty eight commanding section six dash five of the pittsburgh city code to allow the sale of sale of retail cereal malt beverage and alcohol liquor in the original package within the city between the hours of 6 a.m. and 5 a.m. beginning on June 11, 2026 and ending on July 19, 2026.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Commissioners. Back in April, the Kansas State Legislature looked to amend the existing Liquor Control and Drinking Establishment Act in relation to the upcoming World Cup soccer events. And from the dates as listed between June 11th and July 19th, they're going to allow retail cell and drinking establishments to be open 23 hours a day. The point being, though, is the commission has to adopt a similar resolution. The resolution is amended to the ordinance, and the police department reviewed it. We have no objections to either.

Any questions? Is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second? Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thanks. Item B, Ordinance Number G-1389, consider approval of Ordinance Number G-1389, amending Section 6-187 of the Pittsburgh City Code to allow the serving and mixing and consumption of alcohol liquor by drinking establishments and private clubs within the city between the hours of 6 a.m. and 5 a.m. between June 11, 2026 and ending July 19, 2026.

It's the same thing. The first one's for the drinking establishments. This one's for retail or vice versa. So the same thing. We have no objections to the police department.

Is there a motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Second.

And moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thank you. Thanks, Ben. Item C, Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Administration Plan. Consider staff recommendation to approve the 2026 Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Administrative Plan for the Pittsburgh Public Housing Authority.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Every year we have to review our admin plan, and so that is what we have done and made the necessary changes. So we're just bringing it to you for approval. I'll answer any questions that you may have. What changes? There's not a lot of major changes this year. A lot of it has to do with HOTMA, which is going to talk a lot about income changes on income and how we verify it, the type of what they need to report, the tenants need to report. There's changes of INSPIRE, our inspection process that was delayed to February 1st of 27. And they just kind of cleaned up a lot of the gray areas of it.

Is it something you cleaned up or somebody else told you guys?

So, no. So HUD comes down every year with changes. And then we have a company called Nan McKay that basically makes it so individuals can understand HUD. And so we pay for that and then we get those changes and then we have to implement those. And it comes from either federal regulations or a PHA policy.

So do they listen to you about what works and what doesn't work? No.

HUD does not listen to housing authorities.

Especially when you're there on the ground and you know what's happening. How many HUD entities do we have in town?

How many housing or how many tenants?

HUD housing.

Well, we call them Section 8 housing. We have about 315 active households right now.

Okay. So just because HUD doesn't change it even though you know that things would work. It can't be implemented city-wise as far as a policy?

There are some areas where we can put a PHA policy in. So we can make it. We cannot be – we can be stricter than HUD, but we can't be looser than HUD, if that makes sense. Like some of our HQS inspections for our inspector, we follow kind of the ordinances or the codes, like with hot water heaters, can't be in a bedroom, things like that. That's not part of our inspection process, so we have added that as a PHA policy. So we can be more strict, we just can't be loose.

Okay. It's kind of like home rule, like we set what we want. To a point.

We have a federal regulation that we have to go by, and then we can set certain PHA policies within that.

Right. If the state, for home rule, if the state passes something that applies to all the cities equally, then we can't get out of it. But if they have something that has the ability to opt out of it or applies different to Wichita than, say, Pittsburgh, then we can definitely pass an ordinance and do our own thing on that. So good point.

So the amount of residential homes that we have for this, changing this doesn't directly affect anybody that's currently housed other than the timelines or the qualifications essentially.

Right. No, it doesn't change anything. It's just how we operate. It's our policy. It's how we operate. So if we change anything for income, we just have to notify our tenants of what we're expecting, the way they can self-certify now. We used to not really let tenants self-certify, but now that's something that we can do. So just notifying them of what the changes can be. So it doesn't affect anything negatively.

I know you've covered this before, but I don't have that in front of me, the process of somebody applying for assistance and getting in placement. What's the time frame on that average usually for the city of Pittsburgh?

Well, right now our waiting list is about two years, so it's longer than average. So what they can do is they make an application. They do have to wait the waiting list. We update once their name comes off of the waiting list, and it's by time and date of assistance. We have no preferences on our waiting list. So we don't move anybody up any higher than... above anybody, if that makes sense. We do have three different programs that we have set a preference, but they already have assistance, so it's not somebody off the streets that we're moving in. Does that make sense?

That have been on the list for a while.

Well, so like we have our emergency housing vouchers and our stability vouchers, so they already have assistance with us. We can move them on to Section 8, so that way we can open one of those vouchers for somebody else. So they already have assistance, so it's not bringing somebody off the list or off the streets before anybody else, if that makes sense. So then once they are updated, then they receive a housing voucher for 90 days and then they find a unit within the city limits of Pittsburgh. We do an inspection and then we can start a contract with them.

Do we have – that's a very long time. Is there – I mean, what's the elements that cause it to be that long?

I mean, what – Federal funding. Federal funding and high rents, to be honest, right now.

Do we have a large number of people that apply and then end up not being qualified? No.

We have a large number of people that apply and then do not follow through.

So applications are submitted, they're waiting, they get pulled up, and then they just go?

We either can't reach them by mail. Federal regulation is we have to mail out their update packet. So if they don't update their address with us, We cannot reach them.

That's something they're responsible for, too. Yes. You shouldn't have to call them.

And we notify them when they first make an application. We notify them with their letter that says that this is our communication. If your address changes, please update it with us. We have also started to purge our waiting list, and that is in that as well.

And you said you're Pittsburgh only, not Girard or Frontenac?

We are city limits of Pittsburgh only.

So do Frontenac and Girard have HUD offices?

Girard has CCAP, and so they serve the 10 surrounding counties. Frontenac's housing authority is project-based, so kind of like they have their own assistance on their own complexes.

I know I asked you this once before. What is the agency that puts up a family in a motel room?

So that was a few years ago that did that. There are some agencies that if they are housed or going to be housed within like three days, they'll put them up in a hotel to get them from the streets into housing. That program, that was the Kansas Homeless Coalition, but that program failed and it does not work.

I have a family on my, well I'm retired now, but I have a family on my bus route for living in a motel room mother father and three small kids and they've been in there for three or four months so i just can't imagine uh them having to live like that uh you know we do have we we had our our emergency who does that i do not know any agencies that will put somebody up in a hotel for that long so they're either able to pay for it on their own

Which sounds...

So they might be living there on their own.

They could be. They could be. They may not be able to afford rent, but they can afford that.

Okay. And Megan, are our federal dollars going up or down?

Our federal dollars are going down.

This program has a backlog because we're at the mercy of the money we have to fund it. They don't do anything hopscotching on the list. It's just who's next, and if they answer the call when it's their turn. But it's really just a matter of the federal funding drying up and the list is getting longer and longer. Yes.

So the need doesn't match the funding, obviously. Correct. So you said, made mention that the high rent's also a factor with this, too. So what's that look like, high end, low end, and median?

I mean, we have two bedrooms going for $1,000. We have three bedrooms going for $13,000. We have four bedrooms going for $15,000. So high rents. $1,500. $1,500. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. $1,500. Sorry. So if you imagine if there's a family that has no income in the household, because that's not a requirement, if I'm paying all of their rent and I'm paying $1,500 and I'm doing that for multiple, that takes away my money. That takes away money, and then that takes away funding for somebody else. So we have implemented things in our office to try to combat that. But I mean, we're doing the best that we can. But if landlords continue to raise their rents, that money goes to that. We're unable to house more. And just landlord participation, too. We need more landlord participation.

So do we do some type of a networking day or events that we can draw those people in to try to work through those issues or is it just a reach out?

Like for landlords, I can't tell them what they can rent and what they can't rent their units for.

Right. I'm saying, do you encourage them to come in and sit down and talk with you and your department over the possibilities of doing this or being a part of it? I know some, a lot don't because of the issues with the homes getting damaged or having issues.

We try. Yes, we do. We put a new landlord guidance manual together, so we try. This year we really haven't because I don't have the money to fund, so I mean, I can get new landlords, but I can't lease anybody up in their units, if that makes sense. So this year, that's not been our focus. Our focus this year has been trying to limit the zero-income participants that we have so we can maybe free up some funding to help individuals.

That's kind of what our focus is this year. Do you have a limit on what you would pay for rent?

We have a limit based on bedroom size, so we have a payment standard.

Do the people who are your housing, do they pay anything towards this at all?

If they have income, yes. We do not allow them to pay more than 30% of their income. But yes, so if there is income in the household, then they do pay a portion of their rent.

So when you have somebody on that, and just like you said, the funding is getting less and less, what happens is they stay on it. You don't... get them off of it, right?

Right. We maintain, we just can't add anybody new. Yeah, we can maintain our lists or our active tenants based on the amount of money that we have. We just can't add anybody new, which then the community suffers because then we can't house them that need them.

And a lot of the problems we have in the community around those two things, one is having a regular place that knowing where you're going to sleep and where your family's going to sleep. And the second one's just knowing where they're going to eat and where your family's going to eat. And if, and the gap is, is not getting smaller because the federal money is less and less. And obviously the need is just growing. So those are great questions. We, if we had, um, we don't have enough landlords, um, they're really willing to participate and we just don't have enough units, but nevertheless, we still don't have enough federal dollars anyway. So it's, it's a stretched program, but it's one of our biggest needs in Pittsburgh. I would think as far as a healthy quality of life for a family.

And even though we're not housing anybody right at the moment, my, my staff stays busy as we take phone calls, um, Our tenants do change, like if they change income, we have to verify that. We have to, I mean, so we stay busy even though we're not leasing anybody. We still have to keep our tenants at our house housed and stay with our federal regulations of what we're doing.

Once somebody goes off of it or gets kicked off, is there a time limit that they can't come back in? Or do they just stay off?

Depends on what they have done. then we can put that penalty in place. So.

What's the budget of your, this is kind of just side, what's your budget for the year, like?

1.6 million.

1.6, and then this is just a side money? For? Or this here is just, it's side, like, lack of a better word. You have a budget in your department

My budget is mostly the Federal House, Section 8.

I think I have like 100, I don't... Because I know during the year there's certain things that you end up getting, you apply for, and it comes in, and then it's there and it's gone, but I just wondered...

Majority of my funding is Section 8, and it's typically $1.6 million.

Our goal is to not put any general fund money into it, but usually it seems like we have to. But it's minimal compared.

It doesn't look like a department that anything could ever be cut out of. That's why I'm asking.

And it's reimbursed. So what we spend, HUD comes down. Yeah.

Are we seeing any information from the federal side on the reduction of funding and what they're looking at reducing it to? Is it just the we know it's coming scenario?

Just we know that it's coming. We know that there's talks of cuts, but I have not heard anything. They just now, I think it was like middle of May, they just now approved our 2026 budget. So I don't know what 2027 is going to look like. But we're in a position where I want to make it clear that no tenant is going to be terminated due to lack of funding. I mean, we have enough to maintain. We just can't add.

So on that list, say somebody is in a house and they get a job and they can afford. So then somebody on the list would move into that house if it's available?

No, they can, they can maintain, they can stay in that unit. Just the, the, the assistance is tied to a person, not the unit. So it's a housing choice voucher. So that person, so like say you, you want to move, you can move that. It's with you, not the house. Right. So that's why when a lot of people say that it's like a unit is HUD approved, nothing is necessarily HUD approved until we've inspected it again, because it doesn't stay with the unit. It stays with the person.

And even a person who's living in a house for a certain amount of time, say years, their income may come up and go down as long as they report to you. It just changes what you pay compared to what they pay. It can do this all the time.

Section 8 is a lifetime program as long as they income qualify. Yeah, so if somebody makes a change to their income, it just depends on how much we will pay versus they will pay.

In a perfect world, you'd have a magic wand and everything would go. Exactly. I wish you did. I wish I did. Thank you for the job you do. Thank you. It's a tough one. Absolutely. And your staff. Yes. Heck of a staff.

Yeah, I do.

I think that department's always had a hell of a staff.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I will pass that along. I couldn't do what I do without them, so they make my job pretty easy.

Motion to approve. Second. Okay, then moved and seconded.

Thank you. All in favor say aye. Aye. I have the same sign. Motion carried. Thanks. Non-agenda reports on the school. I had something somebody was asking me about on the Washington School Community Development Block Grant project. Original completion date was 7-31-2025. delayed due to issues with construction bid process. Extension filed to 11-31-2025 to allow time for project completion. Project is complete, but the requirement for closeout is to be able to report on 51% LMI in the new building. Daycare recently opened. The provider is not taking enrollment for the new building until the historic building fills up. Estimated date for enrollment and reporting on the new building will be in the spring. We are required to submit a time extension request to Kansas Department of Commerce explaining why the project cannot be closed out upon completion date. The new completion date, close out date, will be on or before May 31st, 2026. So May 31st, they have to have for this grant, how does that work if the deadline is,

Yeah, so we checked on that. We have 90 days after the grant deadline to complete final task.

90 days past that 31st?

Yeah, to complete the final task. One of those final tasks for closeout is to verify the LMI. So we will have 90 days after May 31st to complete that task. The provider's confident that she should be able to do that. So I'm hoping that, again, isn't me. That's our daycare provider and her being able to report on the children utilizing that side of the building or that...

Do you know how many is enrolled in the Washington School?

I do not have that number current, so I don't want to speak to that, but I can ask Candy and report.

It's got to be filled before they even start enrolling in the new building, right? That's their plans.

So the new building will be Eden Primary, which is going to be treated as a different entity. Remember whenever Candy mentioned that has to be the nonprofit or the not-for-profit side, Eden Primary? So that will be a different group of children and different ages from what I understand. Again, I don't want to misspeak for Candy and Grow at Eden. And then the actual Washington school, the historic building, will be the Grow at Eden group, which is a for-profit child care.

So in 90 days, if they haven't met the qualification, what happens?

So they are enrolling for the Eden primary currently. So I just don't have a current number to report on because that's not my – I don't want to misspeak on that. But I can get you an update on that. So it can't be extended? No. It can. Yeah, it can if we need to. But they're saying 90 days after the May 31st to complete closing tasks. So we would still have 90 days to report on that LMI and be able to close it out. So we're hoping that that happens. If not, we will come back to you and request another extension as required by department. I don't think that's not happened in the past though, right? Right.

Yeah. Because as long as it's in play, which is then, there's no other CBDG grants that can be for this county, right? Is that how that works, or this city?

Yeah, so when that grant is closed out, CDBG, we would be able to apply for others. But they will work with us if there's another grant. Not all of them are required to close this one out to apply for another one. It just depends on which one we're using.

I thought that was that way in the past. It seemed like we had another one in the past that was that way. It kind of gridlocked it until they were done?

That's like a moderate income housing grant. It was? That's a different monster.

That's KHRC. It's another acronym, right? It's very similar, but it's a different one.

I didn't know if it was just based on what was happening in that city and how long it was being held.

So there's certain CDBG grants you cannot, if you still have one open, you can't apply for a new one. Yes, yes.

Go ahead. Well, they got an extension because of bid process and different construction stuff. So if they come back in 90 days and need another extension, I wonder what... The reason would be...

The only reason why it cannot close out right now is because we cannot report on LMI to have enough children in that building to income qualify. So until she's filled that building or is enrolling...

So once the school gets fully staffed, what I thought she said...

Fully staffed, yeah, she can...

It's got to see about... We don't know when that will happen.

The construction's all complete. Everything's done but being able to submit that report on the children that are using that building. So that's what we're waiting on.

It sounds like we can keep extending it, but there'd have to be some kind of reason for that. They'll let them keep extending it.

Yeah, they understand. So most of the time with the child care facility like this, it's one building. So this was unique because it was the historic building, and then it was another one. And with the CDBG grant, you have to have a nonprofit. So that's where it got different. It's just different than most. Most, it's one building, and everybody in there, 51% of them, can report and they close it out and there's no problem. So this is just a special circumstance with two buildings.

So you could come up with some numbers that's enrolled now and what the capacity is?

Yes, yes. So we just had a monitoring today from the Department of Commerce. They were here in town. They went and looked at the school. So they're fully aware. We're communicating very well with them. They know what the holdup is, I guess you could say. So I can get you an update on the numbers.

Sounds good. Sure. That was going to be my question. So the 90 days will put them generally in the same rotation of the school season for the community. It gives them time to get through the summer and build up their numbers. So will they need to come back and report to us or brief the commission? 90 days on that they've met the requirement and then there's is that part of it?

Yeah, so once once we can close out and report on that we can have the provider come and give an update And I think she'd be happy to do that You know the other thing I do want to advertise Publicize what whatever we need they do accept subsidies from DCF and things like that, so I don't know if everyone knows that but Washington School will take a and help support families where all children are able to enroll and go to that school. And it's open and operational and has plenty of staffing.

So you said families don't know that?

Well, I don't know. You know, that may be the lack of enrollment sometimes on that side, but I don't know. I'll get you some numbers on that and be able to help.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Anything else? Okay.

Is there another motion to... Adjourned. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. To adjourn, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, same time.