Posted on 08/02/2019 8:09:23 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
Mayor Bill Peduto is pushing back against Pittsburgh Cultural Trust concerns about a “declining level of public safety” Downtown, vowing that he won’t criminalize homelessness or mental health issues.
In a scathing rebuttal to a July 10 letter written by Cultural Trust CEO Kevin McMahon, Mr. Peduto said the city is working with Allegheny County and nonprofit agencies to address issues like homelessness Downtown and to get people into housing.
“But it doesn’t happen at the snap of a finger and we’re not going to attack this national epidemic by criminalizing the status of those that have the least,” he said. “If Mr. McMahon wishes us to round up the homeless, the addicted and those with mental health [issues] with police officers and thinks that that’s the way you solve the problem, well then, we’re just going to have to disagree.”
Mr. McMahon wrote his letter after a July 4 double shooting Downtown in the trust-owned Katz Plaza.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
The blue-bloods who are trying to draw people to Downtown Pittsburgh for the symphony, ballet, Broadway shows and art exhibits are running smack into the reality that our goofy Liberal Mayor has turned the place into San Francisco on the Allegheny.
Apparetly Peduto has told the cops to back off, and as a result being downtown is becoming almost intolerable.
Some highlights:
-He raised concerns not only about the shooting but about an increase over the last year in the Cultural District in the number of homeless people, aggressive panhandling, disorderly youth, open marijuana use, lewd acts in alleyways and a rise in the number of people who are publicly intoxicated or under the influence of controlled substances — all “unchecked by law enforcement.”
- Mr. Peduto blamed many of the problems on the failure of the federal government to provide funding to combat them.
- "I couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to his characterization of people who need help as criminals. To be certain, it’s nothing short of Trumpesque.” (Peduto quote)
- Mr. McMahon had said patrons and subscribers to the district’s entertainment venues have expressed concerns for their safety. In June, a trust employee was physically assaulted after leaving the organization’s offices on Liberty Avenue around 5 p.m. Several others have been harassed by youths, he has said.
- During walking tours, it is not uncommon, he said, to “encounter aggressive panhandlers or individuals who are clearly under the influence of alcohol or illegal substances, even in the morning.”
So it appears that the irresistible force of Liberalism is meeting the unmoveable object of Liberalism, head-on.
Can big piles of poop be far behind?
Ha! US cities are doomed. Progressives will progress themselves into extinction. Good. The sooner the better.
Yep, the piles of excrement could be next.
I couldn’t believe the first time I saw the map of San Francisco which shows where excrement can be found. I thought that map was some sort of satire. I was stunned to learn that was a real map, used as a guide for hazardous waste teams to know where to go for clean up duty.
By far the worse mayor the burgh has ever seen. Thank God Pittsburgh is mostly suburban. I won’t go into town on a bet.
They’re going to get themselves kil led out there-by disease of some kind more likely than not.
I am sure that most of the Cultural Trust members have been voting Democrat for a long time as well.
No prior Democrat Mayor would have pushed back so energetically against such obvious complaints.
What happened to the $890 BILLION in federal funds that Obozo fed to the Democrat cities and their unions in his laughable “Stimulus” bill in 2009? As Pres. Trump says, it was stolen or lost in corrupt and wasteful projects. The Democrat city leaders, their families and their cronies who made off with taxpayer funds should be arrested and tried for malfeasance.
I won’t go into town on a bet.
My son will be a sr at Pitt this year. Strongly advising him to stay out of downtown.
Pittsburgh has a great downtown with a first class symphony, ballet, Broadway shows, art exhibits, high end dining, River cruises, AAA Baseball in a MLB ballpark and NFL, among other things. If the police aren't allowed to chase out the riff-raff, then economic decline is inevitable.
Bums are criminals. Vagrancy and public drunkenness, and panhandling are crimes.
I grew up in Oakland and love Pittsburgh. I get back. A couple of times a year. Sad to hear of the situation downtown.
I attended a Pirate game in May. AAA in A MLB park is a great description. I remember when the Pirates won the World Series in both 1971 and 1979.
It’s not like Oakland is any better, if anything it’s worse.
Try going to the O late on a weekend night.
I dare you.
They all live/stay withing a block of campus. There’s no reason to leave that area.
The advice I gave all my kids was “Don’t go where you don’t belong.”
The O is across the street from the law school and on the same block as the towers dorms.
Peduto is a world class ring piece.
I have lived in, and near, Pittsburgh for 50+ years. I used to take the bus to work often 1990s-2006. Coming home, after waiting downtown after 5pm or later, it was creepy and weirdos and probably criminals would wander about. Used to be a great city, but has lost half her population since 1950. Once a major US city. Now, not.
You have always had some weirdos/panhandlers/criminal types downtown. But the police kept tabs and reacted to them.
In a fit of virtue-signaling Peduto has apparently ordered them to stand down, and the situation has gotten much, much worse. To the point where this guy from the Cultural Trust chose to make a big stink about it.
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