Last night, in a multipurpose room at the Homewood-Brushton YWCA, Councilman Ricky V. Burgess told about 80 of his constituents that he plans to start getting in trouble.
But that did not come up until he reached the third item on the list of items titled "Update of progress made at Pittsburgh City Council" on the agenda.
The first item was the HOPE Fund, the fund administered by the POISE Foundation into which the Councilman has dumped his discretionary funds, in order to, according to another handout, "provide transparency in the grant making function of the Councilman's office." He didn't say much about it, beyond the fact that the first round of awardees would soon be announced.
The second item was the Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime, which he "is now fully operational," with the appointment of Jay A. Gilmer
as the program coordinator. Despite the questions raised by some as to
its likely effectiveness, Councilman Burgess said, "I absolutely
guarantee it. It will reduce homicides."
"The question is, can we sustain it?" he said.
The
councilman linked the reduction of crime not just to public safety, but
to the economic development that is so often called for and undeniably
needed in Homewood, saying that both the closure of the KFC at Homewood
and Frankstown Avenues, and the decision by Family Dollar not to locate
in Homewood Plaza, the new retail building next to the former KFC site,
resulted from the incidence of homocide.
"Until you slow down the homicide rate....you will not get economic development."
The third item was the Urban East End Planning and Development Collaborative. Rather than going into great detail about the Collaborative (there was
a handout made available to attendees), he spoke more generally about
the approach he intends to take going forward.
Since the beginning of his term in January of last year, he said, he has spent most of his time Downtown, building relationships and writing legislation. Now, he said, he is going to start spending most of his time in the community, and when he is Downtown, he will advocate more strongly for the community.
Because Homewood is so beaten down, he said, its turnaround will require a more-than-fair share of City resources.
"We can't get what everybody else gets. We need more....we want an extra measure of resources."
Not only does our neighborhood need more than many other neighborhoods do, a history of neglect means that "We deserve more."
So, he said, he plans to start asking for more. And he expects that to cause trouble. He expects to receive pushback - from people in other neighborhoods, from colleagues on Council, from all sorts of folks.
When that happens, he said, "I need you, the people, to say, 'Rev.'s right.'
What do you think? Does Homewood both need and deserve a disproportionate share of City resources going forward? Why or why not?
More on last night's meeting later. Want to weigh in with the Councilman himself? Then join us for an online chat Wednesday, Sept. 2, at noon.
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Posted
Aug 27 2009, 01:56 PM
by
Elwin Green