Call To Action

City Council Testimony, October 12, 2011

My Public Comments are directed to those viewers watching on television.

Pitt and UPMC own approximately 100 buildings in Oakland, an astonishing fact.

Last year the mayor and City Council gave Pitt nearly unlimited expansion rights in our community. This DVD of the May 6 hearing shows that the testifying Pitt administrator received no serious questions, and the second hearing of May 12 lasted roughly one minute. This legislation has had a devastating effect on our community.

Pitt has since completed or has under construction 717 dormitory beds in Oakland.

UPMC executives want to build a 12-story facility on the former Children’s Hospital site. I happened to be the only dissenting voice. I mention this for one important reason: a reporter who wrote a story about that meeting never mentioned that there was an opposing voice. Throughout Oakland’s history, many courageous men and women have spoken out about UPMC and Pitt’s expansion, and have far too often been ignored by the local media, UPMC and Pitt.

The greed at the University of Pittsburgh is matched only by its stinginess. The University has repeatedly denied our grassroots movement funding for an environmental program known as SOUL (South Oakland Urban Litter). The cost amounts to only $4 of a student’s tuition fee. We are now demanding for that funding to be given to our community, based not on entitlement, but rather on the right to live with dignity in a clean and healthy environment.

Please visit PittTrash.com, Link 5, for information on this program. Then, we ask that you call Chancellor Mark Nordenberg at 624-4200 to give our community your support for the funding of the SOUL program.

We also ask that you contact national media organizations such as The New York Times, CBS 60 Minutes, or others, to help put an end to the domination of our community by Pittsburgh’s two largest institutions.

You have often been told that if you have faith as a mustard seed you can move mountains. Let us strengthen our faith and move mountains, and let us together create a new future for the community of Oakland.

Carlino Giampolo