Election Postscript: I’d Rather Have a Ballot in Front of Me than a Cholecystectomy

(Apologies to Dorothy Parker et al)

With all of the lead-up to the May 16 primary election, I was looking forward to working that morning and coming home afterward so that Leslie and I, as is our past practice, could walk across the street and vote together.

That course of action was compromised on Mother’s Day, with the evening arrival of upper abdominal pain that would not go away. After toughing it out overnight, the decision was made to proceed to the ER at AHN Wexford the following afternoon. After a brief physical and ultrasound, it was quickly determined that my gallbladder was inflamed and possibly infected. With that, I was admitted.

So when I should have been casting my vote in what has been one of the more interesting local primaries in several years, I was having a completely unexpected parting of ways with a minor, reportedly unnecessary organ. Things have since progressed steadily to the resumption of a new normal.

During my convalescence I managed to read a bit about the election results, and have tried to drill down into some areas that haven’t been explored by others. In a general sense, it seems as if some unexpected gains were made in some areas, while in others the battle lines have been fortified and/or clarified for another round come November. 

County Races

The successful race run by State Rep. Sara Innamorato for the Democratic nomination for County Executive is another example of successful campaign strategies by progressive factions of the county’s Democratic Party.

The more moderate “establishment” candidates such as John Weinstein and Michael Lamb, both with lengthy track records in municipal and county governance, assailed Ms. Innamorato for a lack of similar experience. This included attack ads, some directly from the candidates and some from others, which attempted to label Ms. Innamorato as a “socialist“.

In the wake of her victory, additional attention has turned toward Joe Rockey, her Republican opponent in November’s general election. Mr. Rockey has labeled himself a “centrist“,  presumably in hope of attracting more moderate Democrats and perhaps the tacit support of the Weinstein and Lamb camps.

Mr. Rockey also attempted to paint Ms. Innamorato as being from “the left wing” of the Democratic Party and beholden to a particular labor union for the bulk of her support.   Full disclosure – I am a member of that union. Mr. Rockey himself has received the endorsement of at least one union as well.

With all of this posturing and wrangling, what really interested me was Mr. Rockey’s physical resemblance to U.S. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah. 

Left – Joe Rockey (R), Candidate for County Executive — Right – US Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah)

From appearance to similarities in surname and political philosophy, if Mr. Rockey were seeking a Republican politician to emulate he could certainly do worse.

Republicans also factored into another election having repercussions that carry into November. The race for District Attorney will feature County Chief Public Defender Matt Dugan, who defeated long-time incumbent DA Stephen Zappala in the primary, against…Republican nominee Stephen Zappala. Get enough write-in votes and interesting things CAN happen…

Regardless of who wins, there are some serious elephants in the room that will need to be dealt with, beginning with the county jail, and as a consequence the conduct of the county’s criminal justice system. 

On a more local note, Sewickley Borough Councilor Todd Hamer won the Democratic nomination for the District 2 seat on Allegheny County Council. District 2 comprises all municipalities in the North Allegheny and Pine-Richland school districts, and all QV municipalities except Glen Osborne, Glenfield, and Haysville.

Mr. Hamer will face incumbent Suzanne Filiaggi (R-Franklin Park) in November.

Magisterial District Judge – The Franklin Park Factor

Along with the countywide emphasis on criminal justice, the Magisterial District Judge is that essential first component of the justice system that brings it to bear for most citizens.

For at least the last fifty years the District Court for the Quaker Valley area has been located in Leetsdale, and served over that time by only two judges – the late James E. Russo, and the current judge, Robert Ford.

Judge Ford is retiring this year. The primary race to elect his replacement was somewhat spirited, with a twist that had a decided effect on the outcome and may impact the court in other ways, depending on the outcome of the general election.

Magisterial District Court 05-3-02 serves not just the 11 Quaker Valley municipalities, but also the borough of Franklin Park. This is significant in that Franklin Park, as of the 2020 census, has about 1,000 more people and about 200 more registered voters than all of the QV municipalities combined – a significant political force in this race if properly leveraged.

Click to enlarge.

Both the Republican and Democratic results appear to reflect the importance of this area to the eventual outcome, along with the quirky nature of one candidacy. 

Of the four candidates that sought party nominations, only one, Joseph Bellissimo, is from Franklin Park. Mr. Bellissimo is retired from a lengthy career in law enforcement at the federal level. He is also the only one of the four that did not cross-file for both party ballots, opting to seek only the Republican nomination.

While Glen Sovich made a strong showing in the QV communities, this was overshadowed by Mr. Bellissimo’s dominance in his own backyard. Of his 984 total votes, 780, or nearly 80 percent, came from Franklin Park voters, according to the Allegheny County Elections Division.

This dominance appears to have been essential to giving Mr. Bellissimo his 115-vote margin of victory over Mr. Sovich.

Democratic nominee Giuseppe Rosselli, the only attorney in the race, made a balanced showing across the district, with 46.7 percent of his 1575 total votes coming from Franklin Park. This helped him to a comfortable victory over Michael Lepore.

Mr. Rosselli prevailed in 7 of the 9 voting precincts in Franklin Park, possibly owing to a lot of time spent campaigning in the area, along with endorsements such as the one he received from the head of a prominent, family-owned borough business.

Still, one wonders what the outcome of the Democratic race may have been had Mr. Bellissimo cross-filed onto the Democratic ticket as well. This could make for a spirited race in the fall.

I am also including links to some of the information that was disseminated during the primary campaign, for the successful candidates here as well as other local races of note. This may be of interest should the nature and/or tone of the rhetoric from and between the candidates change substantially as the general election approaches.

Rosselli full page ad, Sewickley Herald, May 11, 2023

Leetsdale Candidate Forum, March 30, 2023 – via Sewickley Stream

QV School Board – We’re Just Warmin’ Up, and the Stakes are High

Bill Jasper postcard-style flyer mailed to Region 1 addresses in early June. Click to enlarge.

The primary results for the five seats on the Quaker Valley school board were settled along party lines, despite the ability of the candidates to cross-file for this particular office. The “losing” candidates in each race garnered enough votes from voters of the other party to allow speculation that the general election races in at least two regions will be close.

In Region 1, incumbent Gianni Floro received the Democratic nod over Republican William Jasper, who returned the favor by capturing the Republican nomination. Notable in the results is the showing of each candidate in the race that they lost, along with the total number of votes cast – both numbers being pretty close to one another.

Mr. Jasper has not let up since the primary, following up with a postcard mailer sent earlier this month and updating his already robust website with additional information, assertions, and allegations. His concerns about site safety, from secondary access roads to stable soils, bears attention.

While I believe it would be worthwhile to fact check the remainder of Mr. Jasper’s claims, I will reserve that significant task for a later time. I will say that at least one of the claims made on the above flyer has been called into question by those with subject-matter knowledge.

Gianni Floro ad, Herald, May 4, 2023

Gianni Floro ad, Herald, May 11, 2023

QVGOP ad, Herald, April 13, 2023 (All Regions)

Leetsdale Candidate Forum, March 30, 2023 – via Sewickley Stream (Region 1 Candidates only)

Region 2, which consists of just Sewickley Borough, had 4 cross-filed candidates. Incumbent Geoff Barnes and Republican Corinna Garcia-Skorpenske swapped the top two slots for the two respective tickets, all but guaranteeing them election to the two available seats come November.

There were also four candidates in Region 3, the district’s largest. These four chose to pair up, and split the Democratic and Republican nominations along those lines. Melissa (Missy) Walls and Jessica Webster will face John English and George (Bud) Smith for the two seats in November. Both incumbents in Region 3 chose not to seek re-election.

Noteworthy from these results is that Ms. Webster and Ms. Walls captured about one-third of the Republican votes, while Mr. English and Mr. Smith received 20 percent of the Democratic votes.  A factor in a potentially tight rematch? We’ll see…

Walls / Webster ad, Herald, May 4, 2023

Walls / Webster ad, Herald, May 11, 2023

QVGOP ad, Herald, May 11, 2023 (All Regions)

This upcoming general election for school board is also the closest thing to a referendum on the new high school that voters are likely to see, barring any action required under PA Act 34.

The five seats that are to be decided could constitute a majority of the board when it reorganizes this coming December. Depending upon the outcome, it could be a continued affirmation of the high school project as it is currently evolving, or present an existential threat to the entire project and a pivot toward consideration of options with the existing high school site.

The months ahead promise to be a tense and busy period leading up to November 7.  If the last school board election is any indication, the rhetoric and the amount of information presented will ramp up significantly – Mr. Jasper’s body of work may just be the tip of an ever-growing iceberg, with the future of the high school project being the proverbial Titanic if he and his cohort prevail. 

This is why I have created an additional page on this site that features much, if not all, of the print advertising regarding the primary election and the high school project. This will hopefully provide a civil baseline of where the candidates stood in May, should the tone of the election somehow become muddied in negative campaign strategies and ad hominem attacks.

There will hopefully be enough time to evaluate and report on what has already been put out there, and what will be forthcoming.

Leet Township Commissioner – High School Review, Divisiveness, Police Chief Controversy

It’s important to remember that while the future of the high school project is being indirectly mulled over by voters, the Leet Township Planning Commission is preparing to consider the district’s plans for the high school site. Sources have stated the latest estimate for that review process to commence is later in the summer, possibly in August. It’s quite conceivable that the process will extend beyond the November election.

How this will affect the upcoming Commissioner election is yet to be seen, but Planning Commission Vice Chair (and former Commissioner) Donna Adipietro was the leading vote-getter in the Democratic primary for three seats, followed by incumbent Martin McDaniel and Kristine Shelton.

Issues in Leet that I wrote about after the 2021 election continue to influence politics and relationships between government and citizens. These include divisiveness between residents that reside in the Fair Oaks neighborhood along Main Street and Ambridge Avenue and those in the newer, more affluent subdivisions located “on the hill” via Camp Meeting Road. These divisions are mimicked by the township’s two voting districts.  

Some of the campaign rhetoric resulted in several Commissioners trying to discredit statements made by Ms. Adipietro on Facebook. This occurred during their regular, public monthly meeting on May 8, and was verified by the township’s audio recording of the meeting, obtained by Ms. Adipietro via a Right to Know Law request. 

It would appear that this attempt to publicly castigate Ms. Adipietro had little effect on her primary showing.

It also appears as if the results of the Republican primary for Commissioner may indicate some dissatisfaction with the GOP camp as a whole. Both incumbent Carolyn Verszyla and Katherine Longwell were out-polled by write-in votes for the four Democratic candidates.

Of the 220 write-ins certified by the county elections division, Mr. McDaniel led with 77 Republican votes. He is slated to join Ms. Verszyla and Ms. Longwell on the Republican ballot in November.

Adding to the above controversies is the ongoing fallout concerning last year’s firing of Police Chief Michael Molinaro.

As meticulously reported by the Sewickley Herald beginning in April of last year, this controversy began with an investigation of the Chief that necessitated him being placed on paid administrative leave. One year ago last week Chief Molinaro filed a federal lawsuit over this action prior to being formally terminated (with no public notice) last July.

Review of the case docket and supporting documentation shows both sides trading assertions and rebuttals, a move toward mediation and evaluation of the dispute by a neutral party, and extensions of time to complete discovery.

In April, Chief Molinaro’s attorney filed a motion to withdraw from the case, citing in part “irreconcilable differences“.  In a May 18 letter to the court, Chief Molinaro requested termination of the suit, stating that he was in a dispute with his attorney over additional payments. He also alluded to a settlement offer from the township, and that his attorneys had stated they would not represent him further unless he accepted that settlement.

Chief Molinaro opted instead to focus on his right to appeal his firing before the township’s Civil Service Commission. Hearings related to that appeal were postponed indefinitely in September of last year.

In the wake of his declining a settlement offer and dropping the lawsuit, those hearings are set to begin tomorrow, with several future dates already planned in the coming weeks.

Chief Molinaro asserts in part that his termination is politically motivated, and that the reinstatement of an officer he claims to have terminated for cause also has political underpinnings.

In his letter to the court he refers to himself as the “Tentative Police Chief of Leet Twp. (Civil service hearing pending)”, which leads one to believe that reinstatement is his ultimate goal, and could also help to explain why Interim Chief Brian Jameson has yet to be formally given the job.

Based upon public court documents, along with evidence that has been made public record, these hearings could prove quite interesting. The information currently available includes several pieces of evidence obtained via a Right to Know request, after they were ordered released by the state Office of Open Records in response to an appeal filed in January by reporter Jennifer Borrasso of KDKA-TV.

These records include complaints about an officer’s conduct received from the township Manager and others, documentation of that officer’s actions that resulted in supplemental discipline, and written objections to that officer’s reinstatement from not only the Manager, but the police bargaining unit, consisting of all full-time Leet police officers.

Regardless of the outcome of the hearing, the cost to the township of defending the lawsuit could itself prove to be additional fodder for the November elections – even more so if Chief Molinaro prevails.

Even if he had accepted a settlement, the cost to the township for the Commissioners interfering where they likely should not have cannot be ignored.

Too Important to Miss Another

This election stands to potentially change the path of government in many areas within Allegheny County, the Quaker Valley, and beyond. The issues behind choosing which of our neighbors serve as elected officials will have far-lasting effects on the continued viability of governments large and very small, and on our education system as well.

I hope to be able to dig deeper into some of these issues over the next few months. In the meantime, there are other issues to explore, and a personal mandate to get healthier, lest other body parts have any ideas about rebellion.

Within that context I’m certainly glad we Pennsylvanians have the ability to vote by mail.

Have a safe and pleasant summer ahead.

In Praise of Libraries – New Pathways vs. Old Attitudes

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know that my family is rather enamored of our local library. The Sewickley Public Library is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year – my wife has held a library card there for 50 of those years.

It was Leslie who came up with an idea that recognizes not only the Sewickley library, but the entire Allegheny County Library System. While searching the system-wide catalog for a particular DVD, she located one at the Coraopolis Memorial Library, which neither of us had ever been to. Instead of just requesting it through Sewickley, she wanted to see what other area libraries were like. We visited there in the beginning of March.

Thus began a plan to start visiting libraries around the area, with multiple purposes in mind – to experience the facility as well as communities with which we may be unfamiliar, enjoy some much-needed time together, and perhaps grab a bite along the way.

CLP Anniversary bobblehead.

The following week our journey took us to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (CLP) branch in Brookline, which paid a dividend over and above the nice lunch at nearby Pitaland.

Seems that the CLP is in the midst of a multi-year 125th anniversary celebration. As part of the festivities, they initiated the CLP Passport program to encourage visitors at all of the library’s locations across the city. So off we went.

Over the course of several days last month we traversed different sections of the city, found the libraries in that area, and investigated both their capabilities and surroundings.

Most of the library buildings are older with recent renovations. The most impressive of these older, smaller buildings are those built around the turn of the 20th century and designed by venerated Pittsburgh architects Alden and Harlow. These buildings all have 21st Century upgrades, and are impressive in both their design and modern-day functionality. Of particular note is the Mount Washington branch –

CLP Homewood branch (Alden and Harlow, 1910), renovated 2003, with CLP passport in foreground –yelp.com

CLP Carrick branch, built 2018. Behind the stacks to the right is a long ramp to the second level, a continuation of the ramp on the left.

There are also newer library buildings that are equal measures impressive in design and function – the Carrick, Hill District and Hazelwood locations are welcome, inviting spaces with abundant natural light, as well as well-organized, accessible stacks and public spaces.

Leslie and I completed our journey to all 19 branches earlier this month, and picked up some pretty cool-looking t-shirts for our efforts.

CLP West End Branch (Alden and Harlow, 1899), renovated 2014 – Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Over and above the swag, I’m thinking of the intangible rewards of being able to navigate portions of the city more unfamiliar to us, and what made the visits really special – meeting a lot of people who seem to love what they do, and who went the extra mile to be helpful and accommodating.

If you’re interested, dig a little bit into the history behind Andrew Carnegie and his philanthropic quest that resulted in over 2,500 libraries built worldwide, with nearly 1,700 of those in the United States.

If there is a single act of philanthropy that has had more of a transformative impact on civilization in the last 200 years, I’m at a loss to think of it.

Threats, Interference Endanger Accessibility, Autonomy, Liberty

In the midst of this appreciation, libraries and librarians are under siege. As multiple media outlets have reported over the past year, challenges to books and other media, and the structure and integrity of library organizations, have seen a significant increase. This is especially true in areas where government has been heavily influenced by conservative politics, most egregiously in Florida but elsewhere as well.

An excellent story in this week’s New Yorker chronicles the degradation of an award-winning library system in Montana by ignorance and intolerance. It includes the following-

Public libraries—once as popular with libertarian autodidacts as leftists—have become targets of the Republican Party, and not just in Flathead County. Local-library systems, and local librarians, are being vilified nationwide as peddlers of Marxism and child pornography. Whatever faith there was in public learning and public space is fraying.

This story chronicled the gradual takeover of the library Board of Trustees by conservative Republicans aligned with the county commissioners. This is a cautionary tale, considering the now well-documented administrative chicanery afoot just across the Ohio River.

In the immediate local area there have been scattered challenges to school library and curriculum review policies, but these pale to the threat made against the Moon Township Public Library. The dispute also has the potential to alter the conduct of the township government as well.

As first reported by the Pittsburgh City Paper in January, the controversy began in December 2021, with a Facebook post (since deleted) that featured a book about drag queens as the “Book of the Day”. Per the City Paper account, which also quoted Moon Library Board President Kathleen Madonna-Emmerling –

“Every single picture book that comes into the library is scheduled on Facebook and Instagram to be the Book of the Day, so all picture books are treated equally.”

The post garnered comments claiming the children’s book was inappropriate and accusing the library of sheltering pedophiles. After a far-right news site published a ‘Groomer Alert‘ targeting the library for having the book in their collection, library staff began receiving violent threats, largely from individuals residing outside Pennsylvania.

After some comments to the township Supervisors, who appoint the library board, the manner in which prospective board members were approved changed dramatically. Quoting the City Paper –

Emmerling says the Supervisors have made it clear that they don’t approve of the library’s stance that all of their children’s books deserve equal public promotion.

“They’re holding over our heads very vague but pointed comments like, ‘You need to cool it with those kind of books, if you want to move forward with this process,’ or ‘You all have an agenda, and we are going to reshape the board to counter that,’” Emmerling says.

Kathleen Madonna-Emmerling – campaign website

Prior to this episode the Supervisors had “deferred to library trustees, allowing them to recruit, interview, and select their own candidates for membership“.

That changed at the beginning of this year-

Having interviewed six candidates, the trustees unanimously recommended one individual to join the board alongside three returning trustees seeking another term. The supervisors reappointed two returning trustees, including Emmerling, but declined to appoint the trustees’ unanimous choice, as well as one of the returning trustees.

“Well, you’ve done it again,” Emmerling addressed the supervisors after the Jan. 3 vote. “You’ve unilaterally placed two members on the Moon Township library board. For the record, on the ranked-choice of the six candidates you had to choose from, you chose numbers four and six, one of which is distinctly not qualified. In her review, it does say she said she’s not been inside the library in many years. She is also not a library card holder, nor did she have a particular interest in libraries.”

For their part, the Supervisors have refused to speak with the media, and have only offered vague references to “common sense” and “things that need to be taken care of” in response to citizen inquiries at public meetings.

A paragraph from the New Yorker story about Montana may shed some light about the agenda in Moon –

Part of the issue in Flathead County was a disagreement over the term “everyone.” The commissioners and conservative trustees appeared to prioritize the majority. If the area was predominantly white, straight, and Christian, then books such as (L.G.B.T.Q.+ titles) surely had no place in the public library. The workers…saw things differently. Yes, they served a large number of devout homeschooling families. But they also catered to atheists, immigrants, racial minorities, and people who are L.G.B.T.Q.+…

Along this same line, Ms. Emmerling was quoted by the City Paper as asserting that the Moon Library’s purpose is “meeting the needs of our community and caring about the First Amendment and people’s right to read. The library is very much a nonpartisan space…The library is not to reflect the majority of the community, the library is to reflect all of our community.”

Amen to that.

Interesting that the Moon Township seal includes the lamp of knowledge.

Such was the apparent impact of the City Paper story that its new “stepsister“, the Post-Gazette, published a forceful editorial in late January that co-opted the CP story, right down to Ms. Emmerling’s quote above – but without attribution.

The P-G eventually ran their own story about the controversy that covered much of the same ground, with additional coverage about the trends in banned books and adherence to national standards that mandate equitable practices in the selection and placement of library materials.

The controversy has also generated political energy into Ms. Emmerling’s campaign for township Supervisor, her second attempt at this office (she was defeated in 2021 by Republican David Bachman).

Ms. Emmerling’s campaign website is informative and comprehensive, and includes an issues page with a full platform of positions. Aside from listing the library board in her bio and advocating for expansion of the facility, the above controversy isn’t referenced as an issue unto itself. Perhaps it’s that proverbial 800-pound gorilla, still lurking in the shadows.

The Moon Supervisors apparently felt that some form of intervention was necessary to address what are essentially core values of libraries across the region and the country – in short, a ham-handed “solution” in search of a problem. That is, unless their area of concern is not the library at all, but is actually Ms. Emmerling, her advocacy, and her candidacy.

Multiple attempts to reach Ms. Emmerling via her campaign website were unsuccessful.

Can This Happen in Sewickley?

Digging into the events across the river gave me cause for concern about the governing structure of our own library, and how they would manage a similar crisis.

Sewickley Public Library Executive Director Carolyn Toth, contacted in early February, stated the following –

Sewickley Public Library is currently NOT facing any challenges to any books or any materials in our collection. However, if we were facing a challenge, we have a policy and process in place. Please see the Collection Development Policy.

I believe the lack of challenges at SPL is a testimony to the breadth of understanding and agreement to our mission statement by our residents and users that the library is free and open to all and that the collection will be diverse and current.

I asked additional questions about the SPL governing Board of Directors – how are members identified, vetted, and installed? Is there an external governing body that oversees this process, one that could potentially hold sway over who serves on the Board? Could elected officials attempt to inject politics into the oversight of the Sewickley Library, such as what was done in Moon?

Ms. Toth (who is in the process of retiring after a quarter-century at the helm) referred me to SPL Board Vice President Bernard John, with whom I spoke in early March. He provided me with a copy of the Library’s corporate bylaws, which state in part –

• The library board consists of anywhere from 5 to 9 members (currently 9). Three of these seats are occupied by the QVSD Superintendent (or designee) and two sitting School Board members.
• The remaining 6 board seats are filled by a Nominating Committee of the library board, which evaluates interested candidates and presents those approved as nominees to the full library board for approval, and then to the full QVSD board for their approval.
• Board members serve 3-year terms, with the terms of 3 seats expiring each year. Board members are term-limited to 3 consecutive terms.

Sewickley Public Library, possibly 1950’s (based on the parked cars). Note the location of the main entrance, which is a study room today. Click to enlarge. – Sewickley Public Library

Per Mr. John, the library board works closely with the board of the Friends of Sewickley Public Library, described on its web page as “formed in 1993 to encourage financial support of the library, increase awareness and utilization of the library’s resources, and to support the library staff and board of trustees“.

It is from the Friends board that many prospective SPL board member candidates are identified and recruited – Mr. John stated that level of interest in the library and other expertise, i.e. financial, higher education, and fundraising, are key characteristics they are looking for.

This sounds much like the identification and vetting process used in Moon Township, as described in media accounts.

Can such interference happen in Sewickley? It appears unlikely, as the structure of the library board and its nomination process precludes the selection of alternate applicants – such as the Moon Supervisors were able to do.

Nevertheless, some of the rhetoric and talking points appearing as part of primary election campaigns for the QV school board have created questions as to how prospective school board members will respond to situations such as this.

QVGOP campaign ad, April 13 Herald. Click to enlarge.

In a full-page ad in the April 13 Sewickley Herald, the QVGOP identifies their slate of school board candidates, along with a platform with several bullet points that include references to curriculum, culture, and “civil liberty“.

To obtain some clarification, I contacted Bill Jasper, candidate for the QVSD Board in Region 1, which includes Leetsdale. One of the questions I asked him was –

Q. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines ‘civil liberty’ as ‘Freedom from arbitrary interference in one’s pursuits by individuals or by government’. The bullet point in the platform labeled as such includes the language ‘respect freedoms of parents and students”.

What is meant by this statement? Is QVGOP trying to say that the freedoms of parents and students are being infringed in some way? Is this hearkening back to mask and vaccine mandates, or is there something else of concern?

A. It is a statement of principle. It means students and parents should be free to question everything they see or hear, do their own research and reach a possible, contrary position without being personally criticized or canceled. The response to the pandemic is one example.

Amen to that, too, save for the pandemic stuff, which Mr. Jasper also elaborated on via his expansive campaign website. Mr. Jasper also stated he was speaking for himself, and not necessarily QVGOP and the remainder of their slate.

On March 30, I was privileged to be asked to moderate a candidate forum in Leetsdale, sponsored by members of Leetsdale Council. The entire proceeding was recorded by Matt Doebler of Sewickley Stream, and is available here. The forum included candidates for Leetsdale Council, County Council, QV School Board, and Magisterial District Judge.

The school board candidates in attendance were those specific to Region 1 – Mr. Jasper and incumbent Gianni Floro. I had the opportunity to ask them about this topic – this part of the forum, and their responses, can be viewed by clicking here.

The National Angle

A March NPR story detailed how many people in communities across the country, and especially Florida, are responding to increased book ban activity through direct action, community action, or through established online resources that may not be commonly known. For example, there are numerous Little Free Libraries in our area and around the country, and more are popping up in places where they may be most needed, often populated with banned books.

The story also described the efforts as “a game of whack-a-mole – As activists come up with creative ways around book bans, the other side is starting to look at how to quash those end runs, which only leaves activists even more determined“. A publishing company executive weighed in on some of these efforts with perhaps a more practical approach –

People can signal their opposition to bans by making protest purchases and making them available to teens….I make my living in publishing, so I want people to buy books. But if I could choose what people do in response to a book ban, my first choice is to go to a school board meeting or library board meeting and to vote. Showing up politically is the better bet.

It seems as if those attempting to restrict access to information, a lot of which has been out there for decades, don’t understand the essential truths of human nature in a society that values education, curiosity, and entrepreneurship, while equipped with the immediate access capabilities of the Internet.

I guess they haven’t heard of the Streisand Effect (ironically named after a member of the so-called liberal Hollywood elite) – “the way in which attempts to hide, remove, or censor information can lead to the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information”.

One of these groups is Moms for Liberty, which claims numerous chapters across the nation, including several in southwest Pennsylvania. Their leadership was quoted in the NPR story as expressing frustration that “so many people want to show children all this explicit graphic content“.

I find this group’s name ironic – they seem to be all about parental freedom, but skewed toward freedom from something, as opposed to the freedom of something. They remind me of some of the hypersensitive people that populate many college campuses, including those that conducted recent protests surrounding speaking events at Pitt.

– robrogers.com

It appears as if Moms for Liberty is as intent upon canceling what they don’t agree with in public and school libraries as those who would cancel speakers who present unpopular or controversial viewpoints on campus. Their reported existence as a quasi-Astroturf organization fronting for far-right political groups notwithstanding, they sound as “woke” as the liberals they rail against.

Amidst All of This, Hope Endures.

It’s been a full year since I covered this topic in depth. It’s also coincidental that this post, and the one last year, dovetail with the annual observance of National Library Week.

This year’s activities included Right to Read Day, which is a call to action on many fronts for those who believe strongly in what the American Library Association stated in 2021 –

We stand opposed to censorship and any effort to coerce belief, suppress opinion, or punish those whose expression does not conform to what is deemed to be orthodox in history, politics, or belief.

The unfettered exchange of ideas is essential to the preservation of a free and democratic society.

This is something that needs to be remembered and reinforced as we (hopefully) move forward from this period of heightened zealotry, and its associated loss of good sense and reason.

In the meantime, there are some things going on locally that illustrate the point fairly well-

• The author Judy Blume has been in the news of late, owing to the release of a documentary chronicling her life and career as a novelist, and the much-anticipated release of the film adaptation of one of her most beloved (and challenged) books. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret opens nationwide this coming Friday, including at Sewickley’s newly-named Lindsay Theater.
• Last Saturday, Sewickley’s Penguin Bookshop hosted author Jessica Whipple for a reading and book-signing of one of her latest works, Enough Is…. The book’s online description speaks volumes –

How many friends, turns, clothes, toys, fashion accessories, books? How much of anything? The pictures follow one child as she learns the difference between wanting and needing and, in the end, feels the contentment that flows from being satisfied with what she has.

In an affluent suburb, that could almost be considered a revolutionary concept.

Enjoy the emerging Spring.

Emergencies In Our Midst

 

If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.

                              – Attributed to Abraham Lincoln

Smoke rises from a house fire along Myrtle Hill Road in Leet Township, February 1.

February was a somewhat eventful month for emergency situations – one in our backyard, one in a place that could be our backyard, and one that portends of future challenges that may require significant changes.

These presented unique challenges that range from temporary inconveniences to significant disruption and outright danger. Let’s take a closer look through a local lens.

 

Myrtle Hill Fire Presents Special Challenges, Traffic Concerns, Media Questions, Political Silence?

Smoke visible from Myrtle Hill Rd. above Leetsdale Fire Station. Click to enlarge.

The afternoon of February 1 was a relatively sedate day off for me until the fire siren sounded just before 3 PM. I started listening to the radio and when I heard the address, I went outside and looked on the hill above the borough building /fire station. Smoke was already visible.

It didn’t take long for the first fire official – Sewickley’s fire chief – to arrive on scene, provide an initial size-up, and assume Incident Command.  He instructed that just two fire vehicles – an engine (pumper) and a ladder truck – would be permitted at the house to attack the fire. All other responding crews would leave their vehicles on Camp Meeting Road and walk into the fire scene.

Myrtle Hill Road coming in from Camp Meeting Road. 20 Myrtle Hill can be seen in the upper right corner. Click to enlarge.                                                                                        – Google Maps

Emergency vehicles staged along Camp Meeting Road at the Myrtle Hill intersection. – Fair Oaks VFD via Facebook

This appears to be due in part to the nature of Myrtle Hill Road itself – a winding, single-lane communal driveway – and the location of the closest fire hydrant, along Camp Meeting Road just above the Myrtle Hill intersection. Large-diameter supply hose would also be occupying the narrow roadway.

 

This staging of vehicles necessitated the closure of Camp Meeting between Beaver Road and Pilgrim Drive at perhaps the busiest part of the day, involving school dismissal and the beginning of afternoon rush hour.

Per multiple accounts from firefighters at the scene and other sources, the fire started in the kitchen and stubbornly worked its way into the walls and between floors of the over 4,000 square foot house, built in 1890 according to county property records.

             – Fair Oaks VFD via Facebook

Within an hour, flames were through the roof. It would be another two hours before the fire was reported to be mostly under control.

Shortly after fire units were on scene, I noticed a media helicopter in the area. While walking the dog with my wife I was able to identify it as the WTAE Channel 4 aircraft. It arrived about 15 minutes after the fire call was dispatched, and remained in the area for about 15 additional minutes.

Because of the hilltop location and clear weather conditions, the fire was visible from across the local area, likely drawing the initial media attention. When I got home, video from above the scene was a teaser for the Channel 4 newscast at 4PM, and was included as one of the lead stories. WPXI also had a very short blurb about the fire, with a very short, distant video.

Firefighters begin the process of mopup as the fire is brought under control. – Wesley James

Even with the initial airborne reporting, I found the lack of media coverage to be a little strange, considering the visibility of the incident along with the disruption caused by the associated road closure. Channel 4 did not follow up with any additional coverage, and the story and video essentially disappeared – it is not available on their website, and they did not respond to an email requesting its location or availability.

The local print media appeared to follow suit, with nary a whiff of coverage from the Sewickley Herald / Trib, Post-Gazette, or Beaver County / Allegheny Times.

Graphic showing the location of the Myrtle Hill Rd. fire, the closest water supply, and where emergency vehicles were staged. Included are the road closure points at Pilgrim Dr. and Beaver Road, and the proposed location of the new QVHS. – Allegheny County GIS / J. Linko

I’m imagining an incident such as this occurring at the same time of day, only with buses, parents, and students attempting to enter / exit a new Quaker Valley High School.

It’s likely that a fire incident commander, working in concert with both Leet Township and QVSD Police, would have to try and find a workaround to permit access to/from the high school while restricting traffic through the fire zone.

Adding to the complex nature of such a scenario is the student and staff movement from the Watson Institute and Encompass Rehab – given the limited detour options, the commitment of manpower to facilitate traffic control may also present a daunting challenge in a possibly resource-scarce response environment.

Dave Volk, Leet Township’s Emergency Management Coordinator, sees these concerns as a problem manifesting itself in the present, as well as in the near possible future. 

Contacted in late February, Mr. Volk stated his ongoing concerns about the need for a secondary means of access to the proposed high school campus, and stated his opinion that the original driveway from Little Sewickley Creek Road (the Edgeworth side) was a viable alternate. He also opined that cost and perceived regulatory challenges were likely contributing factors to the school district deciding not to pursue its development.

Full-page ad in November 3, 2022 Sewickley Herald, placed by Citizens for a Great School. Click to Enlarge.

I asked him about the letter he and other emergency officials submitted to the Leet Zoning Hearing Board regarding the new high school site. He was displeased that this letter was appropriated from public records by Citizens For a Great School (CGS) as part of their campaign against the new high school site.

The letter asserts many of the concerns about access in/out of the proposed campus, including the perception that QVSD did not consult with local public safety and emergency stakeholders when planning the proposed facility.

Mr. Volk also stated that he organized and hosted an informational meeting for police and fire chiefs and Emergency Management Coordinators for all Quaker Valley municipalities and Ohio Township.

Click to enlarge.      – QVSD / J. Linko

Aside from those in the immediate area of the proposed school site, the meeting was sparsely attended. He suggested that many municipal stakeholders may be unwilling to weigh in due to the politically charged nature of the project, and/or the opinions of their respective elected officials.

Mr. Volk added that current traffic on Camp Meeting during the traditional “rush hour” periods on weekdays was already significant without the addition of a new high school.

Fair Oaks VFD Chief Nathan Turner did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

This incident is just one more example of the critical role that Camp Meeting Road plays in the movement of people and services to/from schools, health care facilities, and numerous private residences. While there are detour routes available, they are often less than optimal in both proximity and condition, and can add precious minutes to an emergency response.

Stakeholders in this roadway’s continued upkeep and maintenance, from Allegheny County on down, need to recognize this critical role and incorporate it into processes designed to keep the road open and accessible whenever possible.

We’ll see how this works in as the high school project moves toward its upcoming encounter with the Leet Township Planning Commission.

 

We Are All East Palestine…

The February 3 train derailment and hazardous materials release in nearby East Palestine, Ohio has been a consistent part of the regional and national news cycle since its occurrence.

It has also become fodder for all manner of political maneuvering and potentially confusing information, with stories designed to appear like hard news but with a decided slant toward an agenda (environmental, regulatory, anti-government) being pushed into social media. This includes all manner of online commentary that really wasn’t all that constructive. One exception to this was Robert Reich, who was thorough, concise, and to the point.

Another source of seemingly solid information came from our new Governor, Josh Shapiro. In a strongly worded letter to Norfolk Southern’s CEO, he outlined several observations by Pennsylvania officials on scene, including the following –

Norfolk Southern failed to implement Unified Command, creating confusion and resulting in a general lack of awareness for first responders and emergency management of the tactics Norfolk Southern planned in response. Early in the incident, Norfolk Southern personnel separated themselves from the rest of the incident management structure at the Incident Command Post to conduct separate operational and tactical planning, forcing state and local response agencies to react to tactics that were developed unilaterally and without the combined input of key state agencies.

As citizens and residents who also have Norfolk Southern as a presence in their respective communities, it’s incumbent upon us to ask questions of both our government and ourselves as to how we would manage a similar situation.

Gazette 2.0 looked into the potential impact of such an incident in their coverage area (Coraopolis / McKees Rocks), but came up with as many questions as they did answers. The Beaver County Times also reported today on this activity, but it’s hidden firmly behind their subscription paywall.

The train that derailed just outside of East Palestine, and just short of the PA border, was destined for the large NS switching yard in Conway, not very far north of the Quaker Valley. Where it was destined from there is unknown, but it’s within the realm of possibility that some or all of the train could have eventually been headed south through our area. 

A one-mile radius from a hypothetical incident at the Maruca Overpass in Leetsdale – this zone is the same as the original evacuation zone around East Palestine. Click to enlarge  – Allegheny County GIS / J. Linko

The above graphic shows the impact of the initial evacuation of East Palestine – a one mile radius from the scene – if a similar evacuation was called for an incident in Leetsdale.  The affected areas to be evacuated include the entire borough of Leetsdale, the Fair Oaks and Quaker Heights areas of Leet Township, the Route 51 (McGovern Boulevard) section of Crescent Township, and southern portions of Ambridge, Harmony Township, and South Heights in Beaver County. 

Many Leetsdale residents may already be familiar with evacuation procedures from the 2015 Lubrizol fire in the Leetsdale Industrial Park. This incident required the evacuation of the industrial and residential areas between the railroad and the Ohio River, and a shelter-in-place order for surrounding communities.

Remarkable with this incident, which I wrote about not long afterward, are two important factors in any evacuation scenario that remain newsworthy in this context –

• A secondary evacuation route from the Industrial Park / Buncher / Washington Street neighborhood, in the event the sole point of ingress and egress, the Maruca Overpass, is compromised by something like, you know, a train derailment.

Big Sewickley Creek and bridges between two industrial areas. Click to enlarge – Google Maps / J. Linko

Through conversation with borough engineer Dan Slagle and reviewing Council meeting minutes, I know that establishing a route through the Hussey Copper property and across Big Sewickley Creek into the Port Ambridge Industrial Park (where there is another bridge across the tracks) has been an ongoing project since the Lubrizol incident.

Hopefully the heightened awareness of the potential for an emergency in the wake of East Palestine will help to move the process along. 

• The proper use of a community alerting system, absent for the Lubrizol evacuation due  to an incomplete rollout of authorized users and procedures, is also in flux this year, in apparent response to some corporate mergers and acquisitions, with accompanying upgrades in available technology.

Seems that SwiftReach Solutions, the current provider of Leetsdale’s alerting system, was absorbed in 2018 by Rave Mobile Safety. This past December, Rave was acquired by Motorola Solutions, a legacy powerhouse in the provision of technology and integrative solutions for public safety and government.

Leetsdale Council last week authorized the incorporation of the Rave Alert application to accomplish these notifications in the future. Hopefully this upgrade of borough operations will follow best practice methodologies to assure both its availability as a viable resource on a 24/7/365 basis, and its ability to rapidly deliver information that is carefully crafted to be relevant, actionable, and understandable by the majority of the citizens it is intended to reach.

Alerting technology is something that will not be effective without development of a best practice for its operation – one that addresses the technology itself, the processes that govern activation, and properly orienting / training people about both. Procedures about who can activate, for what, and the content of any alert message need to be in place before the app goes live, and should be tested periodically to assure its continued effectiveness.

Citizens still have their own responsibilities to consider when/if their area of residence or employment is subject to an evacuation or disaster, and resources for making oneself prepared are in abundance online, at both the federal and state level. These and other private sources offer advice, and in some cases actual materials, suitable for putting together supplies for emergencies, whether in a shelter-in-place or evacuation scenario.

All municipalities in Pennsylvania are required to have an appointed Emergency Management Coordinator, who is charged with taking a leadership role in planning for these types of incidents, along with assuring that resources at the county and state level are notified / mobilized as the law requires. 

A list of those so appointed in Allegheny County is available here.

We in the Quaker Valley need to remember that the major transportation pathways that traverse our area – be it rail, highways, or overhead – carry with them the capability to significantly disrupt our lives and the viability of our community.

We need to maintain focus on keeping ourselves prepared locally, while lobbying our elected officials to keep the pressure on for safety regulations that are consistently and competently enforced.

This can be as simple as local police assuring that big trucks don’t go where they’re not supposed to, and are in a safe, legal operating condition. The Fair Oaks neighborhood of Leet Township is the most recent area to restrict big rigs – compliance with and enforcement of that restriction remains an ongoing issue.

 

Police Shootings Escalate In Our Area

I find it both extraordinary and tragic that within these first two months of 2023, five police officers from suburban Allegheny County agencies have been either killed or wounded by gunfire. These include the deadly ambush of Brackenridge Chief Justin McIntire, and the shooting death of McKeesport Officer Sean Sluganski. Three other officers were wounded in these and other attacks, some of which are becoming more aggressive, as witnessed on February 27.

I was working for the two fatal officer shootings, and have encountered similar circumstances over the course of my working life. While they differ in many ways from the hazards presented by the incidents discussed above, the preparedness and mitigation strategies have much in common, even with a risk profile that radically differs from those of other public safety stakeholders.

Ordinary citizens can readily see the physical manifestations of this preparedness when interacting with uniformed police officers. Over and above the firearm, an officer’s complement of equipment can typically include body armor, taser, collapsible baton, pepper spray, additional ammunition, and most recently, body-worn cameras.

The most important piece of equipment is the one that connects the officer to the system that supports their field activities and can rapidly summon additional help if needed – the portable radio. 

Over and above these tangible elements are the essential disciplines associated with proper training in assessment, response, and management of a critical incident. As explored last year with the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the presence of a visible, well-equipped field force is, in and of itself, not a predictor of a successful engagement or mitigation of the problem.

These incidents are often chaotic, fluid in scope and can move dynamically – all the more reason that interoperable communication across response agencies and the political or organizational subdivisions they serve is a critical element, along with an effective unified command structure at the earliest opportunity. 

 

Forecast Language is Harbinger of Risk, Caution, Challenges

Another thing that distinguished this past month was how generally mild and dry it was compared to previous years. According to the National Weather Service, February was the second warmest on record, and part of the warmest winter season, with the least snow, for the Pittsburgh area.

Along with this weather trend came several days with temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s, followed by or associated with weather fronts that included high winds with possible damaging gusts. On one of these days, this prompted the NWS Forecast Office in Pittsburgh to issue a Special Weather Statement that included language not seen very often in this area –

This had followed a few days after a large brush fire along the Allegheny / Westmoreland County border brought numerous specialized and multi-jurisdictional resources to bear.

This is the second year that I have heard the language of wildfire awareness in alerts, watches and warnings, and actual incidents here in PA, from sources like the National Weather Service and other emergency management stakeholders. 

Wildland firefighting in Colorado, 2018   – BLM

Perhaps the tactics of wildfire mitigation used in the western US, that I familiar with from my time in Colorado, will take hold here, with accompanying terminology such as helitack, hotshots, backfiring, and airtankers. When it does (maybe it already has?), I believe it will represent two things – 

• The beginning of transformative change for the volunteer fire service in areas of PA with a significant brush/wildland hazard profile. 
• The beginning of the end of any speculation as to the validity of climate change as a scientific concept. 

There are numerous online resources that illustrate the daunting challenges faced by wildland firefighters. If you like a good read, may I recommend Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean, or Fire on the Mountain by his son John. If you like a good movie that is considered largely accurate in its portrayal, try Only the Brave. The CBS-TV show Fire Country? Not so much.

Despite the climate challenges facing all of us, Pennsylvania is, of course, not Colorado, Montana, or Arizona. The challenges here will be different, but we may benefit greatly from the successes and failures experienced elsewhere.

Then again, as an NWS meteorologist stated to the Trib –

…the outlook for March and spring is for above-average precipitation. (Lee Hendricks) reminded Pittsburghers to get their umbrellas ready.

“Nature will probably get even with us,” Hendricks said. “She likes a balance.”

Plan ahead, exercise caution, and stay safe. Enjoy the upcoming Spring.

New Year Marked by Multiple Media Missives

Granddaughter and Grandmother making their way, at Ascend Point Breeze.

The last two weeks of December were typically hectic, punctuated by the bitter cold that enveloped the Christmas holiday, and included a visit from my son, who we hadn’t seen in 4 years. He brought his new girlfriend.

Some of us went climbing – I was an enthusiastic observer.  

Evan does many things for a living, but enjoys cooking and food a lot. He and Julia discovered several local offerings on their own, but together we explored traditions new and old in the form of Galley Bakery Square and Primanti’s in the Strip. We were not disappointed.

New Year’s Eve was a unique experience for me, as I fell asleep in front of the TV about 15 minutes before the ball dropped. I was not pleased with myself, and it felt as if some sort of change will be necessary to keep that from happening again.

The Thursday before Christmas, I was a little surprised to read a small blurb on the front page of the Sewickley Herald, stating the print edition would be taking a two-week hiatus from publication, resuming on January 12. Perhaps they’ve done this in the past, but for some reason this stuck with me as more important or noteworthy – a harbinger of something else.

Over the last month I have noted several stories about and involving media organizations of varying size and focus that are significant in their scope, subject matter, and/or potential impact on the ability of citizens to obtain information about all manner of subjects. Here’s a sampling.

Santos Reporting Illustrates Importance of Hyperlocal News

In mid-December, the New York Times published a lengthy investigation into the background of then Congressman-elect George Santos (R-NY). The result of this investigation was to expose Mr. Santos as a fabulist who had misrepresented his higher education, employment history, property holdings, and net worth, along with other falsehoods designed to curry favor with certain demographics in his constituency.

Remarkable as these revelations may have seemed after the election, many of them were actually reported nearly two months prior to the vote – by The North Shore Leader, a small, local, weekly paper covering several communities along coastal Long Island in Rep. Santos’ district. Looking at the paper’s digital editions, it is reminiscent of the Herald of decades past.

After the Times report, the Leader published an op-ed by a staff member, basically saying “we told you when nobody else would”. This was embellished further by the paper’s publisher in an interview with Here and Now on NPR. He also stressed the essential role played by his reporters in fleshing out details within the lens of local context, i.e. over a million dollars reported spent in a campaign finance report, but “not a single lawn sign or campaign office” to be seen.

Maggie Haberman of the Times, in a January 3 appearance on CNN, called the episode a “death of local media story“. The Times followed up this past weekend with a comprehensive analysis of how “The Talented Mr. Santos” evaded detection of his deception, and how those who raised red flags (such as the Leader) were mostly ignored by larger media outlets.

When important stories are not told, community members lack the information they need to participate in the political process and hold government and powerful private actors accountable.

– Clara Hendrickson, Journalism in Crisis: Why America must revive its local newsrooms

In the Sewickley area, our local weekly paper is a component of a large media organization. This likely provides it with access to resources that it otherwise wouldn’t have, but also guarantees that the reporting is shared with the entirety of their network of publications.

Herald / Trib reporter Michael DiVittorio has in recent months been a more visible presence at evening council and board meetings in the Sewickley / Quaker Valley area. Examples of this include his ongoing reporting on the firing of Leet Township Police Chief Michael Molinaro, and the subsequent appeal process. He was also at last week’s Leetsdale Council meeting and came away with interesting information that only attendees would have been privy to had he not been there.

This capability can be a double-edged sword, however. A search for articles under Mr. DiVittorio’s byline shows that he has reporting responsibilities for other areas of Allegheny County as well. This includes the Penn Hills and Allegheny Valley areas. It therefore appears that readers in the Herald coverage area may not have a fully dedicated reporter or editorial staff.

The Santos episode reinforces the concept that local independent papers possess intrinsic value to a community by virtue of their presence, community involvement, and hyperlocal focus. Independent papers in our part of the Pittsburgh suburbs, such as The Citizen and Gazette 2.0, are run by people that live in the communities they serve.

 As the Editorial Board of Gazette 2.0 opined last October –

 We’re a mirror and sometimes a guide, a chronicler of a constantly changing landscape. We’re annoying and you don’t agree with us, and you love to tell us when you think we got it wrong.

That’s wonderful too, though, because it means you care. We want to matter to you as much as you matter to us, and that means we’re here to make you uncomfortable sometimes. 

People have lamented the political division in our country, sometimes on this editorial page. When everyone uses their most comforting media sources to guide them, our democracy suffers. When we close our eyes to the problems in our communities they get worse.

You deserve to know the people elected to serve you, what they prioritize in shaping our community, and what is done in your name. 

Our local papers are uniquely positioned to act as archivists of history, enablers of local commerce, promoter of community events, and when necessary, agents of change. We need to have them and support their efforts when necessary. They in turn need to welcome those willing to lend support in its various forms. This is how a well-informed community is sustained.

Changing Delivery Methods Impact Local Governments

One change that The Citizen made at the beginning of this year was to eliminate their print edition in favor of a digital-only publication. The small local paper, published since 1976 from a small office in an alleyway next to the Bellevue Municipal Building, has been a staple source of local news from the North Boroughs and surrounding municipalities.

As has been the case with many laws and regulations that have become arcane in response to technological and/or economic trends, this change by The Citizen and other papers like it is complicating the ability of some local governments to follow the law when conducting business.

David M. Sanko, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, described the problem in a recent column in the Allentown Morning Call –

Pennsylvania law still requires municipalities to keep the public informed of meetings, bid opportunities, proposed ordinances and more through the placement of legal advertisements in “newspapers of general circulation.”

The question now becomes what is a newspaper of general circulation? Circulation of newspapers is less than half of what it was just 40 years ago, despite continued population growth. Plus, some newspapers simply aren’t circulating.

Indeed, the above-referenced section of Pennsylvania statute states this requirement but includes no definition of what constitutes “general circulation“, what with the maturity of online publication and especially given the recent economic difficulties newspapers have faced. Mr. Sanko also states-

Residents look for news about their township where you’d expect: on the township’s website, social media pages and in newsletters…Although not required by law, many local governments post public notices on their websites because they are open and accessible. Keeping that level of transparency in local government is not solely reliant on print newspapers, nor should it be.

PSATS supports government transparency and a well-informed public. But it also supports the modification of Pennsylvania’s legal advertising laws to reflect the public’s changing news-gathering practices.

As the seemingly myriad municipal entities in Pennsylvania re-organize for the new year, many of them may face more difficult choices when designating an official newspaper for legal advertising. It would appear that some modification of the existing statute needs to happen to reflect how, where, and when legal notices are published. Staying tuned.

 Journalists are people who represent us at public meetings, and they ask questions and they report back to us what’s going on. And if there are fewer people doing that, there are going to be a lot of stories we don’t hear and things we don’t know we don’t know. And ultimately it has the potential to hurt the whole community.

– Andrew Conte, Director, Center for Media Innovation, Point Park University

An additional factor in some of these municipal decisions concerning legal ads is the ongoing labor dispute between the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh and other unions and Block Communications, parent of the Post-Gazette.

Might some boards and councils with majorities of pro-union members display solidarity with the striking workers by moving their legal advertising elsewhere? It’s a question whose answer will gradually make itself known – as will the effectiveness of the strike as it grinds on.

As WESA reported when the strike began last October, the vote to walk out was close and appears to have impacted Guild membership, as several reporters and staff members have resigned from the Guild and continue to work at the paper.

The striking employees are still producing content through their strike publication, the Pittsburgh Union Progress. The Guild website includes a solidarity pledge that has been signed by numerous individuals, elected officials, and other unions, many who have pledged not to speak with a P-G reporter until the strike is settled.

Considering the apparent intransigence of Block Communications, combined with a nagging feeling that a lot of people don’t seem to care, it’s looking as if the Block family has no real intent on bargaining in good faith anytime soon. That’s unfortunate for the Pittsburgh print media landscape.

To add apparent insult to injury, last week Block Communications finalized the purchase of the Pittsburgh City Paper from the Butler Eagle. Andrew Conte of Point Park University penned an excellent overview of the sale and its potential consequences that is worth taking the time to read fully, if the integrity and autonomy of the city’s only print alt-weekly is a matter of concern.

The bottom line from Mr. Conte’s assessment is that the deal will likely assure the CP‘s survival, but at what cost to its soul and reputation? We’ll see…

West Virginia State Media? Let’s Hope Not…

The south and west suburbs of Pittsburgh are within the range of many FM radio station transmitters in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. This includes the Pittsburgh Jazz Channel at 88.1 – the transmitter is actually in Bethany, WV (it used to be the Bethany College station).

Also in range is West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB), which transmits NPR and related programming statewide, including on 89.9 out of Wheeling. It’s a good alternative for NPR programming if WESA is in the middle of pledge drive or something. Mountain Stage is an excellent live music show that originates from Charleston on Saturday evenings.

In November, WVPB reporter Amanda Knisley detailed legislative efforts to get answers and action from the state agency overseeing care facilities for the disabled, after several incidents of abuse and neglect were documented.

 Ms. Knisley was subsequently forbidden to do additional reporting related to the issue, and then discharged from her position just before Christmas – this after the head of the state agency involved wrote WVPB management demanding a retraction (none was made), and may have exerted pressure via Governor Jim Justice’s office. WVPB receives state funding as part of its operational budget, and is governed by the state Educational Broadcasting Authority.

The Post-Gazette editorial board chose to weigh in on the Knisley dismissal last week, and minced no words –

This is the kind of stuff you’d expect in Russia. It was wrong for the state to bully the station, after one of its reporters uncovered abuse by a public agency, but it was even more outrageous that the station caved into the pressure. For the state’s public broadcasting agency to acquiesce to bullying undermines its credibility and mission to provide honest, independent reporting on news that matters to the people of West Virginia.

The Parkersburg News and Sentinel also noted in its reporting that the Executive Director of WVPB, hired by the Educational Broadcasting Authority (whose members are appointed by the Governor), is a former communications director for Governor Justice. In short, a former (?) member of the ruling Politburo…

Governor Justice needs to be reminded that state-funded public media is not the same as state-owned media. Who does he think he is, Putin?

It’s good to hear that Ms. Knisley has apparently landed on her feet, at a newspaper in Beckley. Hopefully the attention brought to this and other episodes will help to bring them to a halt.

Transitions – Hello, Farewell, and Hello Again

The end of the year also brought an end to two news sources that I have relied on for many years, and have been featured in the sidebar of this blog. 

When I was first starting my career as a volunteer, a firefighter from a Ross Township company gave me a free subscription card to a monthly publication called Land Mobile Product News. It was full of developments in the two-way radio industry, along with advertising for new and used equipment and informational articles about legacy and emerging technology. 

The magazine was invaluable as a learning tool, as well as alternative sources for equipment and services that were priced competitively alongside the primary manufacturers and local service providers that public safety agencies were often steered toward.  

In the late 1980s LMPN was purchased and folded into the RadioResource Media Group, which published RadioResource magazine and later a sister publication, Mission Critical Communications, which focused on public safety and other disciplines that relied heavily on the rapid, efficient, and resilient movement of information. 

That all ended at the end of 2022. In their final post, president and founder Paulla Nelson-Shira basically blamed the wireless Internet – 

We appreciate our readers who have come to trust our media, but we have found that the business model of advertising-supported media in the critical communications sector is no longer viable…I have watched wireless technology evolve from 2G to 5G with 6G on the horizon, and witness media move from print-only to social media and search engines pushing news to users’ mobile phones. Hopefully, the decision makers of tomorrow will be able to sift through the deluge of information available and be able to discern fact from fiction.”

As one who has also witnessed the transition from authoritative print sources to having to separate the wheat from the chaff along the information superhighway, I feel her pain. They’ll be missed. 

——————

In 2007, Carlos Miller was arrested by Miami-Dade Police for attempting to record law enforcement in the performance of their duties. This led to the founding of the activist journalism site Photography Is Not a Crime, or PINAC. 

The movement to affirm citizens’ First Amendment right to record police and other public officials at work dovetailed almost perfectly with what Mr. Miller, in his last post on the PINAC site, termed “technology plac(ing) a video camera in the hands of every smartphone owner. Police eventually began using PINAC’s videos in their training sessions to learn how not to act when being recorded in public.”

Mr. Miller shuttered PINAC at the end of December, citing difficulties encountered with hosting services, government agencies, social media content bots, and a law enforcement community that Mr. Miller felt wanted to punish him for what he and others had helped to bring about. His final post, worth reading if only for the history and passion behind it, included this – 

 

PINAC was born from the streets and jail cells of Miami on April 28, 2007 during the golden age of the blogosphere, a period where anybody with a passion for writing and a computer could launch a blog and reach the world based on the quality of their content instead of the algorithms determined by Big Tech…

Lasting roughly from 2003 to 2009, the golden age was a fluke in history, the only time where true freedom of the press existed for everybody.

Mr. Miller also blamed “Big Tech” and their quiet partnerships with government agencies to combat “‘disinformation’, which is information not approved by the government.” 

Part civil liberties movement, part conspiracy theory, but always engaged and active, PINAC was a source for information and advocacy through a time of great change in technology and processes. Due largely to their efforts, governments have been forced to leverage technology such as body-worn cameras in an attempt to get ahead of this narrative. This has resulted in solid forward movement toward police transparency and accountability. 

——————

Since high school I’ve been a fan of the Columbia Journalism Review. Most recently I’ve subscribed to their e-mail newsletter The Media Today, which returned last week after a 4-month hiatus. If you’re interested in how those who teach journalists view the current state of the profession and its work product, it’s worth checking out. 

Finally, if you’re a fan of streaming audio and maps, check out Radio Garden. The website and phone apps allow the user to search using a map for streaming radio sites around the world. While the site does not support some formats such as Soundcloud, there are numerous online feeds of broadcast stations, online only stations, and even some public safety and weather radio sites. 

I’ve started something new, and will have more to say about it in the months ahead.

Until next time, enjoy the new year.

Post-Election, Pre-Holiday Observations and Other Things

 

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here — and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels hovering overhead? Hark.

                                          –   Garrison Keillor

 

Another year is in the process of winding down. We managed to survive the onslaught of election ads and hyperbole, and managed to do very well in the final result, at least from this vantage point. We have also endured Christmas advertising (some of which began before Halloween), and have navigated that fairly well with an 8-year old in the house…so far.

As seems typical for the rush that the end of the year brings, I have been collecting occurrences in our local area worth noting, as well as occurrences elsewhere that may have a local impact.

Local Fire Tragedies Raise Up Community Concern, Response

Last month while driving home from Massachusetts, we exited Interstate 84 in Connecticut in search of a gas station and found ourselves driving through the village of Sandy Hook. The buildings were older, quaint, well-lit, and populated with people going about what they do. Last Tuesday, those residents remembered the tragedy that befell their community ten years ago.

512 Miller Way, Sewickley, December 13

Driving through Sewickley that same evening reminded me of Sandy Hook, save for the large group gathered in front of the Methodist Church in response to the house fire the previous morning, and the two young souls lost to it. 

This incident seemed to touch the entire Sewickley community in some way. The little boy, Wylde, was a classmate of our granddaughter at Edgeworth Elementary. Her mother was a classmate of the children’s mother at QVHS.

The school district seemed to step up in recognizing this impact, and supporting the school community and the community at large. Sewickley’s Union Aid Society and United Methodist Church have also put their efforts forward to assist the family. The children’s obituary page on the Richard D. Cole Funeral Home website also includes a way to donate to help cover these expenses.

Jack Wylde Lightner and Lyric Keys – WPXI

And as hard as it is for families and responders to bear, it was but one of several fatal fires to strike our area this past week. These claimed older adults in downtown Pittsburgh and Braddock Hills, and two more children and a young adult in Brighton Heights.

Just as individuals walk through life and community bearing the weight of their own personal tragedies, there isn’t a community that hasn’t had to collectively bear the weight of tragic events. The holidays will not be the same for those who must endure these kinds of memories along with “tidings of comfort and joy“. 

As a member of the response community, I also understand how these incidents impact all manner of first response and support personnel.

I will defer to the words of Nicholas Kurta, who runs the Allegheny County Emergency Things page on Facebook –

This week has been a difficult week for Pittsburgh area fire fighters, police officers, paramedics, 911 dispatchers, and countless other volunteers from organizations assisting at these incidents.

Multiple fatal fires and multiple mass casualty incidents in the span of one week. It’s never easy dealing with a fatal call, especially one involving children, let alone multiple children in the span of one week. 

With it being this close to the holidays, it’s impossible to even begin to imagine what these families are going through, and what’s going through the minds of all of the first responders who have been affected by these unfortunate tragedies. 

If possible just keep all of these unfortunate victims and the first responders in your thoughts and prayers while everyone involved goes through the grieving process. 

And if any one reading this was affected by these events, just remember you are not alone. There are people out there who can, and will help in any way they can.

General Election Fundamentals

In 2016, filmmaker and pundit Michael Moore famously (infamously?) predicted Donald Trump’s victory. His knack for sensing the mood of the electorate resurfaced this year, when he published a series of posts listing the reasons that the Democrats would make an uncharacteristically strong showing for a midterm election – and he was largely right again.

Outside of any repudiation of Mr. Trump and his endorsed slate, all I will venture to say about the outcome is that the overall quality of the candidates matters to the bulk of the electorate, not just their fealty to an ideology or an individual. Doug Mastriano is one example. Herschel Walker is another.

As much as some may desire it, our government is not an autocracy – working together is at least as, if not more important than lockstep adherence to philosophies that appear to be no longer relevant to a good chunk of our citizenry.

This was starkly evident in the race for Governor. Mr. Mastriano and his campaign staff came off as combative, and would largely not engage with the mainstream media. His affiliation with Christian nationalist groups such as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), detailed by The New Yorker a full year before the election, gave many pause as to his ability to be a Governor for all the people.

When the very reliable conservative columnist George F. Will called his candidacy “a special danger to the nation“, it was clear that Mastriano was in trouble.

This also speaks to the unsustainable nature of fundamentalist beliefs. Writing in The Dispatch a couple of weeks ago, David French spelled this out in a rather clear and excellent way –

In the early stages, fundamentalism can be invigorating. It’s an antidote to a life devoid of purpose and dedicated to selfish pursuits. In free and prosperous nations, it doesn’t take long to understand that consumer goods provide merely momentary pleasure. In libertine cultures, millions soon learn that sex divorced from love and commitment is ultimately a source of profound loneliness and deep pain. 

And then there’s the presence of persistence in injustice. The word “woke” has meaningful roots. What happens when you suddenly become aware of atrocities past and present? If you’ve never heard of, say, the Tulsa Race Massacre, doesn’t something stir inside of decent people when they read that story? Could that be called an awakening?

But there’s always a time when the awakened man or woman—no matter the righteous idea they’re awake to—faces a defining choice. We’ll call it the choice between the open hand or the closed fist. Do you verbally, emotionally, and sometimes even physically punch your way into the public square, or do you approach with compassion, grace, and humility—often knowing that you are speaking to people who were just like you days, weeks, or years ago?

This dichotomy between absolutism and reason – the open hand versus the closed fist – is present in many things that seemingly serve as anchors for societies, but can also become impediments to a flexible response to the consequences of our humanity.

This behavior knows no political inclination – witness some of the fallout from Cancel Culture. Even holy scripture isn’t immune.

The bottom line for me is stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything. While I’m doing that, I must try to keep an open mind. Not an easy thing.

Local Translation Not Lost

Valerie Gaydos seems to get this. The incumbent Republican state representative defeated Debra Turici to be re-elected for another term in a re-shaped 44th District that now includes all Quaker Valley municipalities.

Ms. Gaydos comes across as someone willing to take the time to listen and ask questions.  During her campaign through the neighborhoods of Leetsdale, she stopped at our house and spoke with Leslie for about half an hour. One evening while waiting for a prescription at the Giant Eagle in Quaker Village, I watched her chat up an employee for a good while, listening and answering questions in what appeared to be a calm, genuine way.

Ms. Gaydos called me last week in response to an email I had sent her about several legislative issues, including the questionable process of ramming legislation through via creating a constitutional amendment and associated ballot question.

The GOP leadership was apparently emboldened to push other priorities forward in the wake of voter approval of an amendment to restrict the Governor’s emergency powers, in response to the restrictions put in place during the height of the pandemic.

State Representative Valerie Gaydos (R) – campaign website

Most of the amendments being proposed involve such issues as handcuffing regulatory agencies, requiring Voter ID, and mandating that the Auditor General audit elections. It seems to me that these are attempts to circumvent the Executive branch and Pennsylvania’s regulatory infrastructure in an inappropriate, shortsighted, and potentially damaging way.

One amendment sounds like it belongs in the debate – one that would change the process by which the candidates for Lieutenant Governor are selected. There appear to be valid arguments on both sides. 

I did express to her one recent concern – how beholden is she to House GOP leadership that has put forth other questionable initiatives – specifically, the impeachment of Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner? This action has drawn severe criticism from several corners as an affront to the democratic process and a waste of time and resources that could be better used to actually solve the problems at hand. Ms. Gaydos voted in favor of the impeachment resolution.

She stated that while she did vote “yes”, she felt it necessary as a consequence of serving her district – a vote for something like this helps her get support for things that she considers a priority. In short, party politics. She also stated she is skeptical of any success in convicting Mr. Krasner, as there are insufficient GOP votes in the State Senate to secure the 2/3 majority necessary, and few Democrats willing to assist.

We spoke for at least 30 minutes; I relayed to her the above-referenced observations by myself and others. She stated she prefers to have a smaller number of quality conversations with her fellow citizens than an abundance of less meaningful contacts.

Ms. Gaydos possesses a solid business background, with emphasis on entrepreneurship and venture capital. By virtue of her demonstrated listening skills, she comes across as one open to bipartisan cooperation and striving for consensus to achieve positive results for her constituents.

As it happens, there will likely be a Democratic majority in the State House come January. These skills may prove invaluable over the course of her upcoming term, especially with indications that many of her House Republican colleagues are doubling down on their brand of legislative craziness.

I will miss Rob Matzie, but I think we’re still in good hands.

Court Decision Gives High School Project Momentum…Maybe

In mid-November, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph James overruled the Leet Township Zoning Hearing Board and granted the Quaker Valley School District a special exception for the proposed high school location.

Judge James’ decision, available here, parallels the arguments made by QVSD attorneys regarding the appropriate venue for bringing up the issue of an emergency access road –

The Court recognizes that implementing an emergency plan is a legitimate concern to members of the community. However, the emergency–only road is a matter to be addressed as part of the land development process, not zoning use approval. The Board has no jurisdiction regarding road design.

Or as I summarized in a post from February, “legal arguments and precedent say that the Zoning Board must approve the special exception. That other stuff doesn’t matter right now”.

The response by both the school district and QV Strong was as expected – spinning the upbeat and positive, emphasizing efforts to move forward with the process. QV Strong takes it a step further, quoting a Leet resident –

We urge Planning Commission members to move at a more deliberate pace to ensure the new school is completed in a timely manner. Further delays only harm Quaker Valley students who deserve a far superior learning environment than the current facility.

The Sewickley Herald reported last week that the Zoning Board will meet this week to consider an appeal of Judge James’ ruling. The story included criticism of the board by QVSD Board member Gianni Floro. 

Barring an appeal, the approval process now moves on to the Leet Township Planning Commission. This is where the land development issues, including safety, are supposed to be presented. Per the Herald report, QVSD is expecting to submit these plans in March. One planning commissioner stated that the Commission has already begun to receive unsolicited public comment about the project, in advance of any formal submission of a proposal.

At least one planning commissioner also reported being contacted by a QV Strong Steering Committee member, perhaps in an attempt to assess their opinion and lobby for alacrity in the handling of the district’s proposal, whenever it actually arrives.

For its part, Citizens for a Great School (CGS) has been relatively quiet, save for a full-page ad in the November 3 Herald. This consisted of the re-printing of a letter sent to Zoning Board solicitor Vince Restauri last July, expressing concerns about emergency response and access issues. The letter was signed by Leet Township’s then-interim Police Chief, along with the current Fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator.

While it’s unknown if any of these officials authorized the use of this letter by CGS for this purpose, the issues expressed will likely make their way toward what is the correct forum for discussion. While individual objectors may still make themselves heard, it’s unclear as to what message will be forthcoming from CGS. As of today, the CGS Facebook and Instagram pages haven’t been updated in over two years.

If the Zoning Board experience is any indication, I believe the proceedings before the Planning Commission will follow the same pattern, irrespective of attempts by stakeholders and interest groups to pressure those involved to speed things up.

The game is afoot. We continue to monitor.

Nichols Field Upgrade Becoming Complicated?

Since my last post about the proposed improvements by Sewickley Academy to Nichols Field, and the Herald report of September 12, there has been little forward movement with the proposal.

According to email exchanges with members of Preserve Edgeworth, SA has withdrawn their previous plan after requesting multiple extensions of time to submit revisions to Edgeworth Borough. New plans are reportedly in the works, with an unknown time frame for submission to the borough for consideration by the Planning Commission.

These emails also made mention of other aspects of the plan that were batted about – one example was the cutting down of mature trees along Beaver Road and the construction of an 8 foot wall.

Those of you who follow these kinds of issues, especially in Edgeworth, know that tearing down a historic mansion is one thing, but cut down a shade tree? To quote Bugs Bunny, “you know this means war…“

Information was also received from Mike Cevarr of Preserve Edgeworth, who is also a member of the Board of the Sewickley Valley Historical Society –

At (the November) SVHS board meeting, I was alerted to a 1997 agreement on combining the 2 adjacent Nichols properties for the purpose of SA building the tennis courts on the lot line…The document states that no further structures other than those already specifically approved can be placed or constructed on the property. 

If this information turns out to be accurate, it brings into question not only the Academy’s planning for the expansion of Nichols Field, but their entire initiative relating to property acquisition and development.

Dating back to the 2005 abortive attempt to build athletic fields along Woodland Road Extension, up to and including the purchase of the Blacksmith’s House (reported on earlier this year), the apparent failure to properly research covenants and related restrictions on properties acquired, along with daunting regulatory challenges related to land use, safety, and aesthetics, may place the bulk of the Academy’s expansion plan at risk.

Whether or not these plans pass muster with local government, the push-back from neighbors, other residents, and preservationists may have exposed a case of tone deafness on the part of Academy administration.

In a possibly related development, earlier this month Leetsdale Borough Council approved the construction of a 90,000 square foot warehouse with 5,000 square feet of office space along Brickworks Drive in the Leetsdale Industrial Park.

Along with their recommendation, the borough Planning Commission encouraged Council to consider formalizing indoor recreation as a permitted use in the Industrial Zone – this considering that there is a go kart track and axe throwing facility currently in operation in this zone, and a trampoline park operated there several years ago.

Tony Rosenberger of Chapman Properties, which operates the industrial park, stated that there is no specific client that the building is being built for, but there have been discussions with some prospective clients that he declined to identify.

Other sources have indicated that one of those clients may be Sewickley Academy, or someone representing their interests.

Along with the Nichols Field upgrades and other enhancements at the main campus facilitated by the Tull Family Foundation gift earlier this year, these sources have also expressed concern that increased emphasis on athletics versus academics could result in additional faculty and student departures.

If this comes to pass, how much the Academy can sustain in the short term (even with significant philanthropy) before an existential crisis develops remains to be seen.

God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay…

Best wishes for a blessed holiday season and new year ahead.

A Helicopter Flies Overhead, and the Rest is History

Helicopter N355MT, owned by Vola Libere LLC of Princeton, New Jersey, makes an approach for landing at the high school stadium in Delsea, New Jersey, September 9, 2022 – Joe Warner | For NJ Advance Media

November is upon us. Along with all of the rhetoric flying across the airwaves (which I will get to in some fashion soon), I’d like to digress for a moment to other subjects of an airborne nature, which in turn stir up a rhetoric and hype all their own – and like the political variety, not all of it is good.

This isn’t the first time that a helicopter flying over our house has spawned an investigation and subsequent post. This one is different from the first one, and speaks to other issues that cropped up as a consequence of my curiosity.

This latest incursion into my personal airspace happened on Friday evening, October 21, as I was on my way home from work. My route takes me under the flight path of several runways at Pittsburgh International, and the helicopter in question (pictured above) looked somehow out of place to me, so I took notice of it.

Three hours later while cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, the unmistakable hum of rotors overhead took me outside to see the same helicopter making it’s way toward Greater Pitt. It was at this point that I elected to use some online reference tools to figure out what this helicopter was up to.

Before you start thinking about Ray Liotta in Goodfellas (like I did), this kind of stuff is right up my alley – aviation, wireless technology, and media – along with being just plain nebby. So it went from there.

Aviation Info is (Largely) Public Info

An eleven year-old blog post sets the stage for the bulk of this fact-finding, and even hints a little at the topic at hand in its first paragraph.

Further down the page is where the meat of the issue takes hold –

Aside from military and government sensitive flights, flight information collected by the FAA is considered public information because taxpayers pay for air traffic controllers, runways, towers, and other resources utilized by both commercial and private pilots.

Multiple technologies and wireless communication systems, along with rules promulgated by the FAA and its counterparts around the globe, help to assure that aircraft status and movement are readily available to Air Traffic Control personnel, and by default to the general public. The system most used is Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast, or ADS-B.

ADS-B information about flight activity is monitored, aggregated with other sources and databases, and broadcast online by several different platforms, including ADS-BExchange, FlightAware, and FlightRadar24.

The monitoring and rebroadcast of this data can often be newsworthy – most notable is the popularity of tracking the private jets of celebrities, especially Elon Musk. Many of the rich and famous who own or regularly travel on private jets are seeking alternatives to having their movements tracked worldwide by the curious and tech-savvy.

The Rest of the Story

According to FlightAware data for that Friday evening, a helicopter with the tail number N355MT landed at Pittsburgh International shortly after making its approach over Leetsdale. The flight path showed it had taken off from near the Zelienople Airport – this meant that it gone there not long after I left work.

FlightAware also shows recent flight activity for aircraft, as well as registration information imported from the FAA Aircraft Registry. The registration page often includes photos taken by aviation enthusiasts and uploaded to the site.

All of this information showed that after landing at 6:15 PM, N355MT was at PIT for about an hour before departing to the southeast, landing at a non-airport location about 6 minutes later. According to the mapping and GPS coordinates, that location was an athletic field near Chartiers Valley High School.

On a Friday night, this likely meant one thing – someone wanted to go watch a football game.

Chartiers Valley Communications Director Angela Conigliaro was happy to identify the VIP attendee – Penn State Head Football Coach James Franklin. Coach Franklin was there to spend some time on the Chartiers Valley sideline with star cornerback and PSU recruit Lamont Payne.

From there, Coach Franklin and his entourage traveled to the Zelienople area – specifically the Seneca Valley stadium in Harmony, Butler County, as the Raiders took on Central Catholic.

I have a cousin who is a sophomore linebacker for the Central Catholic Vikings – his grandmother told my mother that he played most of the game and saw Coach Franklin and his security detail swoop in to spend some time on the sidelines. Grady’s father is a PSU alumnus, and probably wouldn’t mind a bit if his boy wound up playing at what has long been known as “Linebacker U“.

After about an hour, Coach Franklin took off again headed back to Greater Pitt, flying over the house in the process. About 25 minutes after arriving, the helicopter took off again, returning from whence it came about 3 1/2 hours earlier – it’s home base at the Princeton Airport in New Jersey. That’s a pretty long haul to do a couple of short hops around the Burgh, but it seems that Coach Franklin and the operator of this particular aircraft are well acquainted.

According to media accounts and the FlightAware activity logs, this helicopter has been used by Coach Franklin at least three times over the past year for trips to high schools in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This includes a stop at Belle Vernon High School (near Rostraver Airport) in early September, and a visit to a suburban Berks County school near the end of that month.

Taking Care of Business

Coach Franklin has apparently been using this airborne strategy dating back to his head coaching days at Vanderbilt University, and has continued in earnest since taking over the Penn State program in 2014. Philadelphia-area sports blogger Jim Adair observed (with some snark) at the time –

Because the best way to recruit high school football players is to roll up like a villain in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Penn State head coach James Franklin headed down to Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, MD via helicopter…So the next time someone points out that college athletics aren’t a business, or that athletes shouldn’t get paid, just picture PSU’s football coach rolling up to a high school in a helicopter like he’s goddamned Mark Cuban. And for a program like Penn State, nothing says “keeping things in perspective” like building helicopter rentals into the football budget.

I could continue investigating this in more depth – contacting the Penn State football SID and/or the company that owns the helicopter for specific information about the extent of Coach Franklin’s airborne recruiting, and the expense involved.

I decided against it because it would not embellish or enhance the topic in a meaningful way. In terms of these kinds of things I’m more of an interested observer than an investigative journalist. I thought this worth mentioning because it presented an opportunity to share an occurrence in our community, and the story behind that occurrence.

If I do have any concerns, they relate to topics for another time and place –

• The commercialization of scholastic athletics.
• The commoditization / exploitation of the student athlete.
• The proliferation of sports gambling, and the framing of sporting events by major media outlets in terms of betting odds.
• The increased focus on sports by educational institutions – not because of their perceived value in producing a well-rounded, physically fit young adult, but of their appeal as a potential revenue stream.

If there’s a lesson coming out of that, it’s one that also applies to the upcoming election next week –

Don’t Believe the Hype.

This past Monday evening, while with the family taking Violett trick-or-treating, I heard another helicopter overhead, at a pretty high altitude and cruise speed. A quick check of my online resource confirmed that it was a medical helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76 from outside of the local area, apparently transporting a patient from a hospital in northwest Virginia to the Cleveland Clinic.

That was a fun tidbit of information, and on a nice mild evening with good company that’s all it needed to be.

Have a good week ahead.

Sewickley Academy – Securing the Future, Calculating the Past

Happy October.

With the topic of school security in the wake of Uvalde still occupying the news cycle, and Quaker Valley taking a leadership role in establishing best practices in security and preparedness, it’s good that the Sewickley Herald provided a timely update in late August on security upgrades in progress at Sewickley Academy.

The article was informative, but made little effort to explore some of the assertions and relationships that the Academy’s statements made mention of. The story also raised questions about relationships not mentioned that are both essential and topical in an ever-evolving school security ecosystem.

The Academy’s overall security – as it relates to its future viability as an institution – is also an evolving issue, as the school presents plans to Edgeworth Borough for enhancements to Nichols Field, and girds itself for a dance with both regulatory requirements and the concerns of nearby residents and preservationists.

Protecting the Perimeter – What Price Privacy?

Aerial view of Sewickley Academy campus, seen from the west with municipal boundaries. Included are the immediate surroundings of the campus – private residences, the Edgeworth Club, and Route 65.  BELOW – the 300 block of Academy Avenue, with municipal boundary. Click to enlarge – Google Maps / John Linko

The Herald story outlined numerous security enhancements at the SA campus, including secured entry doors and a robust visitor management system. Also reported was the installation of additional security cameras, and the retention of “Edgeworth Security” to monitor them via “remote guarding”.

The story failed to make any clear distinction between “Edgeworth Security” and the Borough of Edgeworth and its police department. As it happens, Edgeworth Security is a private company, headquartered in Findlay Township.

Edgeworth Security is affiliated with Tulco LLC, controlled by Edgeworth resident, billionaire, and SA benefactor Thomas Tull.  This is stated in Mr. Tull’s CMU Board of Trustees biography, which describes Tulco as “a Pittsburgh–based investment holding company established to disrupt large sectors of the economy“.

The company’s Remote Guarding security solution, as illustrated in part below, establishes a digital boundary – presumably a section of a larger visual field as provided by the cameras as placed – and utilizes monitoring technology to identify possible incursions onto the protected property, perhaps even before such an incursion actually takes place.

Once alerted, monitoring “agents” use loudspeakers to notify the trespasser that they are being monitored, and can instruct them to leave. The company claims that a majority of trespass incidents can be resolved in this manner. A related blog post on the company’s website provides interesting arguments for the use of this technology.

Screen capture from the Edgeworth Security website, describing one of the steps in their “Remote Guarding” process.

An issue nonetheless arises with the Sewickley Academy campus, fronted on three sides by residential neighborhoods in two different municipalities, along with a private club.

Regardless of the “virtual guardrails” that alert a private monitoring center when breached, the amount of neighboring private property visible to these cameras will likely be significant. This is noteworthy as most of the public and private school facilities in the Quaker Valley area are situated amongst residential areas.

In response to a specific inquiry about this, SA spokesperson Jennifer Donovan stated via e-mail that “Our agreement with Edgeworth Security is for monitoring Sewickley Academy property only”.

I also asked if SA had reached out to neighboring property owners and Sewickley Borough, which borders the campus to the south, about their planned enhancements. This question went unanswered.

Edgeworth Security management did not respond to messages left.

Is Everyone on the Same Page?

When I reported in early August about the robust planning and training resources available via Quaker Valley and Chief Aaron Vanatta, I did not explore the potential of those resources being shared or coordinated with Sewickley Academy, or any of the other four private K and above schools within the QV district boundaries (Montessori Children’s Community, St. James Catholic, Watermark Classical Academy, Watson Institute).

In response to questions via e-mail in mid-September, Chief Vanatta stated that he has assisted area departments with the “physical security assessment” of at least one private school. Ms. Donovan stated that “SA’s security team has communicated with QVSD regarding best practices”.

Both stopped short of stating that there are specific plans in place for coordination between public and private schools, in the event of an incident that may impact a common geographical area near those schools. As an example, Sewickley Academy and Edgeworth Elementary are located roughly 1/4 mile apart.

Chief Vanatta stated, “We have not coordinated with these schools. We do initiate our own responses if and when these schools or other parts of the community are affected by some type of concerning incident.”

Ms. Donovan stated, “SA’s security team partners with the Edgeworth Borough Police Force.” 

Edgeworth Elementary and Sewickley Academy campuses. Click to enlarge – Google Maps

Edgeworth Police Chief John Burlett, who works closely with both schools, stated that response planning in his jurisdiction is driven largely by the significant differences in the campuses, and their respective configurations. He described Sewickley Academy as “more like a college campus“, while Edgeworth Elementary is “a little square“.

Considering that two of these private schools (Sewickley Academy and Watson) had incidents during the 2021-22 school year that required a multi-jurisdiction police response, this is something that should be a continuing topic of discussion among involved stakeholders.

Watermark Classical Academy and Quaker Valley Middle School in Sewickley. Click to enlarge – Google Maps

Changes in the status of schools and other facilities can also alter emergency plans. Consider Watermark Classical, which opened its doors in 2018 as St. Stephen’s Classical Academy, occupying space on that church’s campus. According to the school website, they quickly outgrew St. Stephen’s, changing names and locations in Fall 2020.

Watermark now occupies what was the educational wing of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Beaver Street in Sewickley, about two blocks from Quaker Valley Middle School. The church building was an evacuation point for the Middle School, as part of its emergency plan. Watermark also has students just down the street at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.

In late 2021, St. Andrew’s closed permanently. This was our church – I’ll have more to say about that down the road.

In late August, Watermark closed on the purchase of the entire church property. Chief Vanatta stated that QV has secured a different evacuation point for the Middle School.

Frenzied Foment Leads to Fall Fizzle and/or Flight?

The 2021-22 school year at Sewickley Academy was largely dominated (at least in the media landscape) by the administrative turmoil that began in June of last year, continued into the school year and culminated with protests and media coverage this past February and March.

Notably absent from that Herald coverage of the security upgrades was any mention of the events of the last school year. Ms. Donovan alluded to a “response to national events“, but the turmoil that brought police and media to the campus in March had to be on the minds of administration – especially with many of the issues in question likely left unresolved.

The story also addressed the school’s “launching a computer science program for all grades…There will also be advanced electives on topics such as artificial intelligence and cyber security. Renovations are currently taking place to the Oliver Science Building to enhance computer science instruction, as well as robotics…Plans are underway for the addition of an egaming/esports facility in the school’s Events Center”.

These programs and enhancements are likely a direct consequence of the Tull Family Foundation’s $20 Million gift, one of the few pieces of news from seven months ago that the Academy could be happy about.

That Mr. Tull controls a security firm that can be retained to address campus security issues seems to be some extra icing on top of that cake.

Student protesters address the news media across the street from the Sewickley Academy campus, March 4, 2022 – Tony LaRussa / Tribune-Review

As for the protests and protestors, things appear to be a lot quieter. Contacted in early August, former student protest leader, now SA alumna and UCLA freshman Georgia Cox stated –

I’m not sure what’s in store for next year. I think it all depends on how the school plans to continue and if people are willing to stand up.  I do know there are some rising juniors and seniors that are more than ready to resist the school if need be.

Active signs of that resistance appear to be waning. The websites for the student group CARES, as well as the aligned parent group Concerned Sewickley Parents, both appear to have been taken down. The Sewickley Parents website remains up, but without any substantive information beyond what was placed online last year.

According to the Academy annual report for the 2020-21 school year, total enrollment was 594. Head of School Ashley Birtwell provided an enrollment figure of 583 for the same period in a Herald story from August 2021.

Informed sources have indicated that enrollment for this school year may have dipped below 500. If correct, this would reflect a decline of at least 14.6 percent from June 2021 (the beginning of the staff purge) until today.

Along with these numbers, the apparent general quieting of those opposed to the Academy’s shift in direction may be indicators that along with those who graduated, a number of SA families decided they’d rather switch than fight.

The August 2021 Herald story also sought to compare enrollment and tuition numbers between SA and two prominent Pittsburgh area private schools, Shady Side Academy and Winchester-Thurston. These schools and others compete with each other not only athletically, but also for prospective students across metropolitan Pittsburgh. According to an informal survey by an SA alumnus, roughly half of the graduating class of 2022 had home addresses outside of the Quaker Valley School District.

It’s possible that the controversy and resulting media coverage may have been factors in giving prospective students and families pause, thus affecting the Academy’s ability to attract new students from these areas.

Shifting Strategies and Building Back…Better?

This past May, SA announced a partnership with Beaver Falls entrepreneur Robert “Rocky” Washington to establish a scholarship fund for students in Beaver County. The Academy calls this the first of many new efforts to, as Director of Enrollment Management Dave Fortna framed it, “help us to share our wealth of opportunities with our neighbors to the north and west.” The new “For the Future Fund” is “funded by many generous Academy donors“.

Considering that their recruitment efforts to the south and east may now be somewhat compromised, this is an ambitious, prescient, and perhaps existential move to try to bolster enrollment from outside the immediate Sewickley area.

The Academy is also proceeding with its plans for physical improvements, with an ambitious proposal to make changes to the athletic complex at Nichols Field. According to the minutes of the August 10 meeting of Edgeworth’s Planning Commission, “proposed changes include synthetic turf soccer and baseball fields, additional parking, upgraded lighting, and a field house.”

Preliminary site plan for improvements to Nichols Field. Click to enlarge.

Herald reporter Michael DiVittorio provided a somewhat detailed look into the proposal and some of its challenges in a September 12 story.

Ms. Birtwell was quoted extensively, equating the improvements with increasing enrollment, and attempting to tie enrollment and the school’s overall health and vitality with that of the local economy –

If our enrollment is growing, then we’re attracting more families to the region. Property values do well. We support local businesses, but we need your help in making sure that Sewickley Academy continues to grow and is a prestigious institution in this town.”

Ms. Birtwell also stated, “My mindset is if we succeed and thrive, the community thrives and vice versa…It’s about how do we remain competitive with our peers, Shady Side Academy, Winchester (Thurston School), Ellis (School). How do we continue to attract student-athletes to Sewickley Academy? We really want this to be a collaborative, cooperative venture with the community and the town“.

Does this mean that the proposed facility would be open for public use?

That is the tip of the iceberg of questions that local residents and preservationists have been asking about the initial project documents. The topics covered include –

• Lights, Sound, Parking, Traffic – The planned facility will include lighting which extends the use of the facility into the evening hours with associated noise, traffic, and potential parking impacts on the nearby neighborhood.
• Relocation of a Floodplain – The Edgeworth Borough Zoning Map shows all of Nichols Field in the 100 year floodplain for adjacent Little Sewickley Creek. The plans propose to raise the elevation of the field, in an attempt to remove the floodplain designation and improve overall drainage. This will require, at a minimum, permitting at the state level.
• Impact on Little Sewickley Creek – Concerns over runoff containing components of the proposed artificial turf field, threatening the quality of a very clean stream. The Little Sewickley Creek Watershed Association is reportedly taking increased interest in the project.
• Character of the Community and Preserving Historic Homes – The initial project plans proposed the demolition of the Miller’s House, adjacent to the field. In response to feedback from Preserve Edgeworth and others, the plans were reportedly tweaked to preserve the original 1856 section of the house, with a reduction in parking spaces.

Preserve Edgeworth has produced a flyer that provides additional information on the above concerns and others, as well as contact information for borough officials and an online petition. According to those involved with the organization, SA has requested to present yet another revised set of plans to the Planning Commission at their November meeting.

A Hasty Charge Forward?

The proposal to construct new athletic facilities, while rife with attempts at community engagement and multiple adjustments in response to it, is nonetheless reminiscent of the challenges that SA faced in 2006, when it attempted to develop land along Woodland Road Extension for the same purposes.

I covered this more in depth in June, along with other issues that seem eerily similar to the concerns being expressed now, and will likely be a challenge to overcome – much like the covenant that currently protects the Blacksmith’s House from the same kind of development discussions.

Most of the aforementioned enhancements – from physical security to computer science programs and facilities to the revamp of athletic infrastructure – appear to have some involvement with the philanthropic and/or business empire of Thomas Tull.

Mr. Tull’s documented financial involvement, perhaps combined with influence that often accompanies it, appears to be a primary factor behind Sewickley Academy’s attempt to reinvigorate itself in the wake of the disruption of the last school year, and the resultant fallout.

Considering that the lone physical edifice in Sewickley currently bearing his name will soon be rebranding itself, is it unreasonable to consider the possibility of another local institution placing his moniker in a prominent place?

Enjoy the Autumn.

From Columbine to Uvalde – The Years of Living Dangerously

Officers with ballistic shields begin their approach toward classrooms 111 and 112 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, May 24, 2022. This is approximately 50 minutes after the shooter entered the building, and nearly 30 minutes before the shooter was engaged. – KVUE / ABC News

It’s August already. Hard to believe that it’s been over two months since the May 24 shooting incident at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. This tragedy has produced levels of scrutiny, criticism, and incredulity not typically seen in the aftermath of previous similar incidents.

I was working in Colorado when Columbine happened – while we were 250 miles from the scene, we had a Columbine Elementary School in Grand Junction, and fielded numerous calls from frantic parents and local residents looking for information. We were fortunate to be able to assuage many fears that day, while being collectively taken aback by the nature of, and damage inflicted by, the attack in Littleton.

I collected and reviewed several of the many incident reports and analyses that were produced, as well as the book that came out ten years later. I learned several things from them, but had several existing truths reinforced as well.

Even though mass shootings at educational institutions were a historical reality well before 1999, Columbine crystallized the efforts and resolve of many in the emergency response community (both public and private) to develop safety protocols and training programs for school administrators and public safety agencies alike.

The continuous process of developing these programs and protocols were not without their growing pains – witness zero tolerance policies, too often implemented “with seemingly little consideration given to individual circumstances and to teaching children about fairness, justice, and common sense”.

Another ongoing effort is training and orienting both school and public safety personnel in utilizing the National Incident Management System (NIMS), a critical component of the National Response Framework.

These systems are a common thread running through the varied and comprehensive response systems, training, and consulting programs that have been developed and marketed since Columbine. This thread emphasizes three guiding principles –

Flexibility – Standardization – Unity of Effort

While at first glance this may seem contradictory, in practice it works well. It’s the roles within the system that are flexible – not the standards, terminology, and responsibilities assigned to those roles.

Unfortunately there are too often examples of where, despite training to apply these principles and appropriate exercise activities, problems continue to arise. On too many occasions these problems are rooted in difficulties in communications, attributable to deficiencies in any of the three components of a best practice – technology, processes, and people.

Many of these difficulties have at their core a perceived need by the involved school(s) to keep incidents as quiet as possible, often with the complicity of local law enforcement. I’ve experienced this type of obfuscation as both a public safety professional and the parent of a student.

This emphasis on secrecy is an affront to effective incident response as well as transparency on the part of entities that are accountable to the people, and remains as unacceptable now as it was then.

Some failures appear so onerous upon initial reporting as to enhance the usual skepticism about their accuracy, until additional reports corroborate the initial information. Such was the case with the initial reports from this latest tragedy. Some of these key points remain controversial – I’m not going to make a whole list because others have already done that, and it invites armchair quarterbacking, which I am going to resist and not encourage.

Still, to proceed into a worst-case scenario incident as the lead school police official, the perceived first unit in and the presumed incident commander, and deliberately leaving your radios behind because you “believed that carrying the radios would slow (you) down“, invites questions that I just can’t shake.

As it happens, those questions are being addressed as part of at least one significant report, prepared with remarkable speed and quick to point out numerous failures on the part of the school district, its police force, and other responding agencies. Many of these failures were related to communications and incident management – areas that beg more questions that I’m sure will be asked ad nauseum as the fallout continues.

Other concerns surround the attempts by police officials, private citizens, and others to actively interfere with news media attempting to speak with local residents, cover funeral services, and conduct other news-gathering activities.

How Prepared Is Our Area?

I will continue to focus on what this corner focuses on – how things are run locally. For that, I reached out to who by many accounts is a true subject matter expert – Quaker Valley School Police Chief Aaron Vanatta.

In addition to his lengthy experience and career commitment to school policing, Chief Vanatta also provides consulting services on a private basis. His wife is Superintendent of Schools at Chartiers Valley.

I wasn’t about to try to get Chief Vanatta to play armchair quarterback when I’m uncomfortable with it, so I started off by asking him about the ability of school district personnel to effectively interact with local public safety responders when necessary.

Chief Vanatta gave me an overview of the radio system that the district installed in 2015. The system has channels for district-wide administration, each individual school building, and maintenance personnel, with each separate group having the ability to communicate with the other if needed.

More importantly, school police officers and district administrators have interoperability with public safety responders, on public safety radio channels, when needed. This also means that local first responders don’t have to carry two radios to communicate with school personnel. Chief Vanatta told me that this has been used in limited response situations, but is very helpful for special events that require an effective joint response, such as football games or graduation.

Unified Command – fbi.gov

He also affirmed his department’s commitment to the principles of unified command (a key component of NIMS), as well as other process and people components of a best practice. Regular drills and building walk-throughs with responders were a regular activity before the pandemic, and hopefully can resume soon.

Training on active shooter strategies is also a priority. Examples include the SORD (Solo Officer Rapid Deployment) training program administered by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) center at Texas State University. This group has also released a portion of its After Action Report (AAR) on the Uvalde incident. The report is concise, informative, and well illustrated.

Chief Vanatta stated that he was working with the QVCOG to help facilitate this and other types of training for local law enforcement.

Chief Vanatta also touted the capabilities of the Navigate 360 suite of emergency management software products, including a new Safety and Security module, described by the company as “ensuring real-time, whole-campus oversight and accountability, as well as improving communication pathways between first responders, school staff, students and families, including reunification during a crisis“.

While these tools can be comprehensive in their scope and capabilities, it’s also important to assure that they are not unnecessarily locked down when critical incidents demand access, and that the information and communications capabilities are as interoperable and reliable as other shared systems.

Chief Vanatta was also featured prominently in a story in yesterday’s Post-Gazette that sought to illustrate the debate about the efficacy of a dedicated police presence in schools –

Chief Vanatta said school police in Quaker Valley operate not only as law enforcement officers, but also as educators and “informal counselors.” He said they regularly lead classes for students covering topics including emergency preparedness, drugs and alcohol, bullying and internet responsibility.

“We’re obviously law enforcement officers, but we do a lot of things to keep kids out of the criminal justice system”…He said his police department takes a “proactive” approach to addressing the possibility of a violent threat on campus by prioritizing “building relationships with kids…We reach out to kids that we see are struggling. We try to get them on a better path,” Chief Vanatta said. “We found out that kids that feel loved and cared for very rarely turned to violence.”

The P-G story also featured comment from the ACLU of Pennsylvania, which disagreed with the involvement of police in approaches like this one, citing a January 2022 report on student arrests in Allegheny County. The story quoted ACLU community advocate Ghadah Makoshi –

“No matter what you think of police’s role in general, I think adding more things to their plate is not doing anybody any favors,” she said. “We don’t need police to be mentors when we actually have mentors, we have social workers, we have counselors — people who went to school to explicitly be those things for students.”

Ms. Makoshi said because police can act on information students provide them related to unlawful activity, “there is no confidentiality” when children confide in their school’s officers.

“Posing them as a mentor or somebody that can guide students is unfair to students because kids are young and they don’t understand,” she said.

The ACLU report shows that Quaker Valley, while listed among the top 10 school districts in arrests per 100 students in the 2017-18 school year, dropped to 26th the following year. One of Ms. Makoshi’s statements also make it appear that in one area she and Chief Vanatta are on the same page –

Instead of turning to police-oriented measures that she said can heighten distrust in schools, Ms. Makoshi said districts should foster more respectful learning environments by expanding mental health support for students.

This sounds like the integrated, cooperative approach that Chief Vanatta appears to espouse.

Whether or not his and QV’s approach to policing is sustainable in school districts with a different financial condition, and/or serving populations of different social, economic, and racial demographics from QV and similar suburban districts, is a very good question.

Emergency response and preparedness is also a key issue in the process to get the construction of a new Quaker Valley High School approved. The district is in the midst of an appeal of the Leet Township Zoning Board’s decision not to approve the high school plan as submitted. Chief among the board’s concerns was the lack of a secondary access road for emergency services personnel.

According to the most recent Sewickley Herald reporting on the saga, additional briefs from both sides are due to Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph James by the 15th of this month.

Conclusions

It seems apparent that Quaker Valley has taken an approach toward school safety that is comprehensive in scope, well integrated into its culture, and relevant and sustainable for changing times and tactics. This seems to be due in large measure to the level of expertise and experience of the personnel that district administration has been able to retain, and whose efforts continue to keep the system a dynamic and responsive one.

This excellence can be a slippery slope, however. Too many times over my career I have seen best practices, across routine and specialized operations, crumble into mediocrity without a commitment to sustain that practice integrated into the culture and management model of the organization. It is incumbent upon even the most charismatic, visionary leaders to assure that part of their vision for the organization is how it will  function when they are no longer a part of it.

Many leaders seize the opportunity to take the next step in their careers via teaching and/or consulting. I have benefited from many of these leaders sharing their vision and expertise – examples include Gordon Graham, Rich Gasaway, and the late Chief Alan Brunacini.

Those who seek out advanced training as provided by these experts and others are hopefully taking back the lessons they learned and applying them in a way that makes a positive difference, without the undue backlash often rooted in parochialism or politics.

Even over two decades of awareness, preparedness, and more tragedies to mourn and learn from, it’s disheartening to see responses to what Mr. Graham calls a High-Risk, Low-Frequency event go as badly as Uvalde is reported to have gone.

There is much room for debating our failures as a nation to address issues that are considered by many to be contributing factors to these incidents. These include –

• The pervasive presence and ease of availability of assault weapons.
• The inability to effectively recognize, treat, and mitigate mental illness, and/or prevent those who present a danger to themselves or others from legally obtaining and/or possessing weapons.

I do believe that our children and educators here are well supported by a safety system that meets or exceeds the expectations of subject matter experts, and is well-positioned to both sustain itself for the long term and serve as an example to others in our area.

With three weeks until the first day of school, perhaps that’s one less thing to worry about.

Endangered History – Six Degrees of Real Estate Separation

627 Beaver Road, Edgeworth – The former Wasco residence, now owned by Sewickley Academy. Originally the “Blacksmith’s House”, c. 1823 – zillow.com

I am very familiar with the red brick house along Beaver Road at Village Drive, at the Leetsdale / Edgeworth border. Like many older homes in our area, I have driven/walked/bicycled past it innumerable times over my life, and like many people I hadn’t given it a second thought until the last few years.

At the same time, I was also aware that the house was admired by many who knew about such things, and/or knew the owners and their level of commitment.

Interior of main level, library / study – Click to enlarge. – zillow.com

Leslie and I met Barbara Wasco, who owned the house with her husband Frank, at a Historical Society gathering several years ago.

After Mr. Wasco passed away in 2020 and the house was listed for sale last autumn, I started to pay a little more attention to what I already knew and liked about the site, in hope that whoever purchased the property would show the same kind of care and respect for it that Mr. and Mrs. Wasco did.

Admittedly, the news in April that Sewickley Academy had purchased the house and its one acre lot did not lend itself to encouraging thoughts, despite the reported assurances that there was “no timeline for making any plans about its use.”

Interior of sun room. Click to enlarge – zillow.com

Three additional references also contributed to this trepidation – not only from the perspective of the future, but also of the past. These references comprise the response of SA Buildings and Grounds Director Jim Miller to the media coverage of the sale.

I was also referred to this response by SA spokesperson Jennifer Donovan after requesting additional comment.

Quoting the Sewickley Herald –

‘With the scarcity of available land in Sewickley, when a property opened up so close to our athletic fields, we felt we needed to make an offer’, (Mr. Miller) said. ‘We are working with the municipality and look forward to figuring out, with their help, what the best options are for use of the property. Depending on zoning and other regulations, we’d really like to find a way for this space to benefit the whole community.’”

Before we dive any further into this rabbit hole of history, some additional perspective is necessary. Fortunately, the Sewickley Valley Historical Society’s Architecture Committee felt compelled to provide some, in the form of a letter to the Chair and Vice Chair of the SA Board of Trustees and published on the SVHS website. An edited form of the letter was published online in the Herald on May 6, and in the May 12 print edition.

Aerial view of the “Miller’s House”, 624 Beaver Road, adjacent to Nichols Field. – Google Maps

The committee makes it clear that it “endorses the preservation” of both the Wasco property and a house adjacent to Nichols Field that the Academy has owned since 1994, which until last summer’s housecleaning served as the Head of School’s residence. These homes were part of the Daniel Leet / David and Eliza Leet Shields estate ‘Newington‘, and are respectively known as the “Blacksmith’s House” and the “Miller’s House”.

The document is a comprehensive accounting of the historic significance of this part of “Sewickley Bottom” (as Edgeworth was known at the time) as a “bustling rural enterprise” that has impacts across the history of the Sewickley Valley.

Aerial perspective of the buildings associated with the Leet / Shields estate ‘Newington’, along with present day land uses. Click to enlarge – Allegheny County GIS / John Linko

Along with this area’s 19th Century significance in the “story of a developing transportation network”, the Blacksmith’s House property also factored in the history of mass transportation via the Beaver Valley Traction Company, which ran a network of streetcar lines from around 1908 until 1930. According to the Ellwood City Ledger –

In late 1908…Following a merger of two Ambridge streetcar interests, Beaver Valley Traction bought out the rights to the combined route. This move required the extension of the existing Traction Co. line…to Baden. From there, it hooked up with the former French Point Electric Street Railway line, following Duss Avenue to Ambridge. The line was then extended to Edgeworth via Beaver Street. This extension became known as the Pittsburgh & Beaver Street Railway.

The Pittsburgh system…was completed to the new Sewickley Bridge round-about in 1911. This left a small, 1-mile gap between the Beaver Valley Traction and Pittsburgh systems. Unfortunately, for a multitude of political reasons, this gap was never filled. Buses would operate between the lines during the period of 1915 to 1930, but no direct streetcar service ever existed.

Early 20th Century trolley turnaround, present day – zillow.com

Because Edgeworth and Sewickley would not permit streetcars through their boroughs, the Beaver Valley Traction cars used the Blacksmith’s House property for a turnaround loop. According to Amanda Schaffer of SVHS, Edgeworth only permitted this because at that time the house had a Leetsdale mailing address. The looped driveway, pictured at right from overhead, still exists today.

Contacted in mid-May, SVHS Board Chairman Joseph Zemba stated that the Herald op-ed was “an attempt to open a community dialogue“, as he had it on good authority from Edgeworth officials also involved in SVHS that “the best way to preserve the house is civic involvement by residents“.

This admonishment is consistent with the message delivered by Edgeworth Borough since historic preservation became a topic of controversy. This began in earnest in the early 1990s, with the formation of the group Edgeworth Preservation and their efforts to enact a historic preservation ordinance – efforts which have thus far proved futile. I have written about this previously.

This is where our journey of connections begins.

If I break down Mr. Miller’s statement above by each sentence, additional information begins to come to light. With additional research and the contributions of others, connections begin to appear – some recent, some not so much – that have been forgotten, if only temporarily.

“With the scarcity of available land in Sewickley, when a property opened up so close to our athletic fields, we felt we needed to make an offer.”

One of the primary forces behind Edgeworth Preservation was Mrs. Cynthia Giles, who along with her husband Dr. Harlan Giles owned the William Walker estate “Muottas” off of Little Sewickley Creek Road. The Gileses received an award from SVHS in 1994 for their meticulous restoration of the estate and grounds.

“Muottas”, circa mid-1990s – Sewickley Valley Historical Society

Stymied in their attempts to get a preservation ordinance passed in Edgeworth, Mrs. Giles and others focused their efforts on documenting the history and design features of many of these estates. These efforts culminated in the publication of a book that garnered popularity locally and received several awards. Mrs. Giles was recognized as the Herald Woman of the Year for 1996.

“Muottas” relocated on the Tull property, approx. 2017

Fast forward to late 2015, when Three Rivers Trust, representing Edgeworth billionaire Thomas Tull, purchased “Muottas” for $5.5 Million, without any preservation easement. I’ve recounted previously the history of Mr. Tull’s stewardship of the house and adjacent properties prior to his selling the whole thing to the Quaker Valley School District in 2018.

This is the same Thomas Tull whose foundation recently awarded $20 Million to Sewickley Academy, for support of multiple projects including “overhauling the school’s athletic facilities”.

The same Thomas Tull who, after selling the property that includes “Muottas”, purchased a nearly 15,000 square-foot mansion on Woodland Road, built in 2007, from Glen Meakem and his wife Diane.

This is the same Glen Meakem who twenty years ago demolished the pre-Civil War Thomas Leet Shields mansion and adjacent properties to build the new estate.

The same Glen Meakem that is currently a member of the Sewickley Academy Board of Trustees.

“We are working with the municipality and look forward to figuring out, with their help, what the best options are for use of the property”.

The Blacksmith’s House property was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Wasco from Edgeworth Borough in 1965. The Borough had purchased it in 1962. According to the recorded deed, the property as purchased by the Borough totaled 2.5 acres.

The property sold to the Wascos was just under 1 acre of land – Edgeworth had subdivided the lot, with the remaining 1.5 acres incorporated into the adjacent Morrow-Pontefract Park.

Per the Borough website, the park was “established…in 1956 after its ten acres were donated to the Borough by the heirs of Elizabeth W. Pontefract, John D.A. and Jessie L. Morrow, and William Walker”.

This is the same William Walker who in 1904 along with his wife Jane commissioned “Muottas” from Pittsburgh architects Alden & Harlow, and 30 years later donated 81 acres of land along Little Sewickley Creek in Leet Township to Edgeworth Borough – what we know today as Walker Park.

Morrow-Pontefract Park. Click to enlarge.

The county historical deed card shows how “Morrow Park” was cobbled together from a total of 7 separate parcels of land, beginning in 1945 and culminating with the Blacksmith’s House parcel in 1962.

The timing and location of this activity leads me to surmise that Edgeworth’s leaders at that time saw the burgeoning development at their northwest doorstep, in the form of the Buncher Industrial District just across the border in Leetsdale. “Buncher” began operations in 1954.

It would then follow that the 1962 addition of the Blacksmith’s House acreage may have been in response to the construction of Quaker Village Shopping Center, which opened in 1963, and of Village Drive, which connected the shopping complex to Beaver Road.

Those 1.5 acres may have been envisioned as an additional buffer of green space, and if that was the case history has certainly proven this out. Amid all of the bustle that surrounds it, Morrow Park carries with it an unexpected sense of peace and renewal. It remains one of my favorite parks anywhere.

Aerial view of the immediate area of the Blacksmith’s House property, including present day land uses and municipal boundaries. Click to enlarge – Google Maps / John Linko

Not to leave a measure of preparedness unaddressed, Edgeworth and its solicitor put additional protections in place when they sold the Blacksmith’s House to Mr. and Mrs. Wasco. This took the form of a covenant within the language of the deed, stipulating that –

…the premises shall be used and occupied for single family residence purposes only and for no other purposes whatsoever, this covenant to run with the land and to be evidenced by the acceptance and recording of this indenture.

To run with the land refers to a covenant “that will exist regardless of the transference of the land. The subsequent landowner will continue being burdened or benefited by the covenant.”

The Wascos included this covenant when conveying the property to a living trust in 2007, but the deed conveying the property to Sewickley Academy does not include the covenant language above. Unless additional action has been taken, it may still be in force – at least two sources have told me that these covenants typically require a court order to be modified or removed.

The potential impact of this on any development plans is therefore unknown.

“Depending on zoning and other regulations, we’d really like to find a way for this space to benefit the whole community.”

Seemingly emboldened by their enhanced financial condition, SA has indeed wasted no time in pursuing improvements to its athletic facilities. The agenda for the May 11 meeting of Edgeworth’s Planning Commission included a “Pre–Application Conference with Sewickley Academy Regarding Nichols Field“.

In a letter to the editor published on the Herald website on May 26 and in print on June 2, former SVHS Executive Director and SA alumnus John Poister asserts that the “preliminary plans call for the demolition of the historic houses on both properties“.

Like the Architecture Committee letter before it, Mr. Poister’s letter is an eloquent defense of historic preservation, with the added advocacy of creative repurposing for these historic properties – much like the successful effort to save the “Pink House” in Sewickley, 10 years ago last month.

More recently, the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation has also made a written inquiry of the Academy’s plans, in response to feedback from “a number of concerned individuals“.

There is additional relevant history involving the Academy, Edgeworth, athletic fields, and zoning that may contribute to both community reaction and municipal deliberation.

In July 2005, the Herald reported on SA’s purchase of two residential properties and acreage along Woodland Road Extension, also in Edgeworth. County property records show that the Academy paid a little over $1.4 Million for the two parcels, which totaled around 6.5 acres.

One of the homeowners who sold their property to the Academy was Edward Abbott, who the following year purchased a house in the steep slope area of Sewickley Borough. This is the same Edward Abbott who in 2013 began flipping houses in that neighborhood, creating some development and zoning issues of his own before passing in 2018.

Aerial view of properties on Woodland Road Extension in Edgeworth that were purchased by Sewickley Academy in 2005 for the purpose of constructing athletic fields. After failing to gain borough and public approval for the project in 2006, the Academy abandoned their efforts and sold the properties. – Google Maps

Coincidental to the most recent purchase, then-Head of School Kolia O’Connor also told the Herald that “we have no immediate plans to use the properties“. It took a year to bring a proposal for large athletic fields, a pavilion, and parking to the public and the Borough – once they did, a clear picture emerged of the challenges associated with turning this pastoral setting into an athletic complex.

The first of several Herald stories outlined objections brought by nearby residents with regard to safety and esthetics. Additionally, a neighboring property owner cited covenants reached with the prior owners, requiring that their properties remain residential.

Subsequent Herald coverage reported significant disagreement, disapproval, and downright acrimony toward the proposal – adjectives quoted by the Herald included “horrendous” and “arrogant“. The Planning Commission voted down the proposal, citing incompatibility with established zoning.

The project was also determined to be within the 100-year floodplain for Little Sewickley Creek, which was reported to be ineligible for development lest borough residents lose their ability to obtain flood insurance.

After several revisions were made to the proposed facility, SA again approached the borough in October 2006. The Planning Commission again rejected the plan, which led the Academy to withdraw the plan from further consideration the following month.

SA sold the properties in 2011 and 2016.

Will History Repeat Itself?

According to Edgeworth Borough Manager John Schwend, draft plans were presented to the Planning Commission last month, but none were submitted for formal review. Mr. Schwend also stated the earliest that SA could submit plans for consideration would be for the July 13 Planning Commission meeting.

Some of the same restrictions and concerns involving the Woodland Road Extension properties appear to involve both the Blacksmith’s and Miller’s houses as well –

Zoning – The current Edgeworth zoning map shows both properties within the R-1 zone, described as low-density residential.

According to the zoning ordinance, the listed permitted and conditional uses and allowed special exceptions may not fit what is proposed.

Such factors include a minimum lot size for development – at just under one acre, the Blacksmith’s House property does not meet this minimum size requirement (60,000 square feet). This does not apply to the Miller’s House, whose lot was consolidated into the Nichols Field parcel several years ago.

Other restrictions include limits on how much of a lot may be surfaced with impervious material such as asphalt. In the R-1 zone this is limited to 15 percent of the lot size.

Floodplain – The zoning map includes an overlay indicating those areas of the borough that are in the Floodplain Hazard Overlay District. This includes approximately half of the Blacksmith’s House lot and the bulk of the Miller’s House / Nichols Field Lot.

The zoning ordinance provides very clear and informative direction on how these floodplain areas must be managed, including the following language –

2. Within any floodway area, no new construction or development shall be allowed, unless the appropriate permit is obtained from the Department of Environmental Protection Regional Office.

Covenants and Design – Aside from the aforementioned covenant in the deed for the Blacksmith’s House, the Borough appears to have doubled down in their desire to keep that property as single family housing, by making the minimum lot size for development larger than the lot they created.

Demolition – In the absence of a preservation ordinance or community activism, is it really possible that SA could just obtain demolition permits and bulldoze both houses? Per Mr. Schwend, the answer is yes. “A property owner has the right to tear down what they’ve bought” – and that’s not just true for Edgeworth, but anywhere else that doesn’t have codified protections in place – like those that protect Edgeworth’s shade trees.

Community Involvement – Given Edgeworth’s wealth of unprotected historic architecture, the borough’s elected leadership has held over the years that they would consider a protection ordinance if a sufficient number of borough residents stepped forward and requested it. The recent statement about “civic involvement by residents” would appear to echo the same sentiment.

Considering the previous failures to accomplish this, I’m wondering what portion of Edgeworth’s 1,669 residents would be sufficient for such an exploration, and in what form that interest is expected to take – packing Council chambers? Statements across traditional and/or social media? A slate of pro-preservation candidates for the next election?

Regardless of the form it takes, I’m hopeful that those citizens so inclined will oblige Council’s desire to hear from them.

John Way House, Beaver Road, Edgeworth. The original section built 1810, noted as the first brick house between Pittsburgh and Beaver. Also operated as an inn and tavern. In 1838, John Champ and William Nevin opened a school for boys here – the first location of Sewickley Academy. – Google Maps

Conclusions

According to Mr. Zemba, SVHS “is not a preservation society“, but their letter sent to SA and the Herald makes a case for preservation, while encouraging all stakeholders to adopt with them “a broader view of the community and this very historic neighborhood through the lens of education, balancing our shared history with meaningful and sensitive change.”

This appears to be a well-articulated, thoughtful approach – one that these stakeholders will hopefully feel comfortable participating in. This includes the owners of Newington, the seventh generation of the same family living there, who have reportedly commissioned a book about the Leet and Shields families and their storied estate.

SVHS marker commemorating Captain Fred Way, Ohio River Blvd. near Walnut Street, Sewickley – Mike Wintermantel, The Historical Marker Database

Perhaps they would be willing to work with SVHS and others to commemorate this legacy in a way that will not only edify but educate the community at large, i.e. a marker of some type. “Historic architecture and the cultural landscape reveal countless stories of our predecessors for future generations“.

It’s quite possible that SA is pursuing a similar strategy to what they did in 2006 – they have the financial resources to procure properties that may fit their needs, as well as develop those properties if permitted to do so.

It just seems as if that procurement process doesn’t take into account the numerous regulatory hurdles and potential community backlash that may accompany their choices. In any event, it’s prudent for the Academy to tread carefully – they’ve had quite the year already.

Summer is nearly upon us. It’s a good time to get outside and explore not only the natural beauty that exists, but also to appreciate those places built by our not-so-recent ancestors that complement their setting, and enhance the character of our community.

Maybe you passed a few on the way home today. There are plenty of ways to learn about them, supported by many of your fellow community members. Check them out – the more we learn about our past, the better prepared we are to navigate the future.

Acknowledgments

Allegheny County Office of Real Estate – Online Records Search

Sewickley Herald Digital Archive

Sewickley Valley Historical Society – Teresa Duff, Amanda Schaffer, Joe Zemba

Book Bans, and Other Boogeymen

As a teenager, my interest in reading ran the gamut of the literature of the time period. I was already a voracious newspaper and magazine reader – I had a student subscription to Newsweek (courtesy of my 8th grade social studies teacher at Sewickley Academy) that I ended up keeping for nearly 40 years.

The Sewickley of my youth was well suited to accommodating these interests. The original Penguin Bookshop, located where Dollar Bank is today, had along with its regular selection a small lending library of current fiction and non-fiction books, available for 3 days’ rental for something like 45 cents. The ladies that ran the bookshop at the time were very nice and accommodating, but did have occasion to call my parents whenever I would borrow titles such as Sybil.

Joseph Wambaugh was among my favorite authors growing up, along with Michael Crichton and Kurt Vonnegut.

Beaver Street also had the Sewickley News, where El Fumador Cigars currently sits. The newsstand sold out-of-town newspapers and numerous magazines, but not all that boys my age were interested in. I had to head down Chestnut Street to the Stop-N-Go (the current location of the Bridgeside Market) to get the National Lampoon.

Constant through all of this was the Sewickley Public Library, which continues to serve as a beacon of community enrichment and connection through nearly 150 years of service.

As it happens, this past week marked National Library Week, courtesy of the American Library Association. They and the SPL recognized the many critical functions that libraries undertake to help to enlighten, inform, and empower communities everywhere.

One activity that this corner takes a particular interest in is the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom – specifically their section that deals with banned and challenged books.

According to a press release last week that included the group’s annual list of the 10 most challenged or banned books, the ALA noted –

Library staff in every state faced an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons.

This is all part of a larger effort targeting education, which Vox characterized earlier this year as “a conservative movement that once claimed to stand for limited government…increasingly embracing the coercive use of law to commandeer a culture it fears it has lost“.

The ALA also made a very forceful statement last November about the recent trend in censorship, calling it “the proposition that the voices of the marginalized have no place on library shelves”.

The statement also includes the following, which I have emphasized for clear effect –

We stand opposed to censorship and any effort to coerce belief, suppress opinion, or punish those whose expression does not conform to what is deemed to be orthodox in history, politics, or belief.

The unfettered exchange of ideas is essential to the preservation of a free and democratic society.

 

Old, Tired, Doesn’t Work

The book ban is obviously not a new strategy – it seems to get pulled out of some old, dusty file folder whenever conservatives feel the need to stir up their base in response to any perceived threat to their influence.

There are many historical references to this activity – most notably for me was a meme that referred to a commencement address by President Dwight Eisenhower at Dartmouth College in 1953. Headlines were created by the following passage –

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as any document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.

Ike had been in office less than 6 months. The speech was seen by many as the first salvo against the radicals in his own party who were aligned with the witch hunt known as McCarthyism. Fortunately, by 1954 Senator McCarthy’s influence was greatly diminished, as were the tactics of his minions.

From the mid-1970s through and following the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, conservatives were emboldened to attempt this strategy again. In 1975, a school board on Long Island, New York voted to remove several books from the school library because, in their opinion, they were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy.”  This decision was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1982 decision –

The Court…held that as centers for voluntary inquiry and the dissemination of information and ideas, school libraries enjoy a special affinity with the rights of free speech and press. Therefore, the Board could not restrict the availability of books in its libraries simply because its members disagreed with their idea content.

A Time Magazine essay from that same period made an assertion that maintains validity over 40 years later –

Thanks to the First Amendment, the U.S. has been remarkably, if not entirely, free of such official monitoring. Still, the nation has always had more than it needs of voluntary censors, vigilantes eager to protect everybody from hazards like ugly words, sedition, blasphemy, unwelcome ideas and, perhaps worst of all, reality.

Fast forward to today, and the activity being reported is a combination of frustrating and encouraging –

• According to recent polling by the ALA, “book bans are opposed by large majorities of voters of all parties. The value of libraries and librarians has similar bipartisan support, with strong majorities of voters voicing confidence in libraries and favorability toward librarians”.
• Many school districts are pre-emptively removing books from their libraries, in an apparent attempt to avoid controversy or challenge. This unfortunate approach to the problem actually creates two issues for First Amendment advocates to fight against.
• Suburban parents are becoming increasingly mobilized against attempts to ban books, as well as to educate those advocating for bans that many of their efforts have been orchestrated “around an issue that was manufactured to serve the interests of wealthy, corporate elites.” One group that is particularly active is Book Ban Busters, affiliated with the women’s political collective Red Wine & Blue.

On the local front, newsworthy book challenges have thus far been few and far between. Most notable is the temporary pause imposed on the 2004 graphic novel Persepolis by the curriculum committee of the Franklin Regional School District in Westmoreland County.

After significant news coverage (including a critical editorial by the Post-Gazette) the pause was lifted, but only after the appropriate review and input, which by the media accounts was measured, civil, and in keeping with an established process – in short, the way it should be.

Other organizations that espouse freedom of expression and access, such as PEN America, expressed concern about statements made by some Franklin Regional parents and others as part of an April 9 Trib followup story –

(PEN America CEO Suzanne) Nossel said that while parents and community members deserve a voice in shaping what is taught in schools, ‘the embrace of book bans as a weapon to ward off narratives that are seen as threatening represents a troubling retreat from America’s historic commitment to the First Amendment rights of students’.

In an April 11 column, Post-Gazette columnist Tony Norman took a satirical, “devil’s advocate” approach to the latest round of book challenges –

There’s nothing like a vaguely defined and poorly understood enemy to bring out parents and political opportunists by the dozens, especially if they’re also willing to chase and surround hapless school board members cowering in their cars as news cameras roll. That sets the stage for much needed political realignment, doesn’t it?

The entire column is well worth your time.

In a more direct manner, a 2017 article from the National Council of Teachers of English seemed to flesh out the real reasons behind this effort as part of their take on why book bans do not work –

1. Students deprived of texts that will enable them to construct their learning rather than have it forced down their throats to be memorized, don’t learn and, worse, don’t learn how to learn.

2.  We humans are curious folks and every time a book has been removed from the classroom with the students’ knowledge, that book has become the most popular book in town—students want to read it to see why it was banned.

3.  Students are usually way more resilient and knowledgeable than their parents know—they can handle, they often need, the texts some parents want to tear out of their hands.

4. Our democracy was designed for a knowledgeable electorate and having someone dictate what we can or cannot learn does not produce such an electorate. (emphasis mine)

I have to admire those who responded to the recent banning of Maus in McMinn County, Tennessee schools by offering free copies to students. However, a February op-ed in the New York Times makes it clear that in “red” states, the deeper threat to a real education is, well, real.

That’s not surprising at all if you know anything about the Tennessee Republican Party, which is in lock step with right-wing oligarchs funding their campaigns. The fact that so many of these challenged books have been in the literary canon for decades is a dead giveaway that the new bans are a response to contemporary political forces whose true motivation has nothing to do with books. What they really want is to destroy public education.

Given this threat to reason and discourse, it’s real important to keep the political balance in Pennsylvania this election season.

Getting It On Paper, Clearly

In the Quaker Valley School District, administration appears to have made it a priority to establish policy that addresses selection of materials for libraries and other uses.       Among the proposed changes are –

♦ A significant expansion of the current Policy 1o9, governing the selection of resource materials. The revised policy defines the authority of the Superintendent to select administrators and instructional personnel to review and recommend materials for approval.

The policy also defines standards for selection of materials, and includes some important new language, alongside already existing language from the original policy, adopted in 1998 –

Section B, in part –

2. Wherever possible, materials shall be selected to provide opposing views on controversial issues so that students may develop critical reading and thinking skills. (2022)

3. Wherever possible, materials shall represent varied religious, ethnic, gender and cultural groups and their contribution to American heritage. (1998)

The policy continues by providing direction to district librarians for the scheduling and review of materials. This section includes the following –

Section C (1), in part –

Input from students and other school stakeholders may be
considered. All selections will be made using reputable, unbiased, professionally prepared selection aids as guides.

♦ The board will also consider for adoption additional policies in Section 105, governing curriculum. Proposed policy 105.1 establishes procedures for the review of curriculum and/or instructional materials –

Guidelines – Upon request by a parent/guardian or student, the district will make available existing information about the curriculum, including academic standards to be achieved, instructional materials and assessment techniques.

In an apparent nod to parents and religious liberty, proposed Policy 105.2 establishes a firm process for parents or guardians to request, in advance and in writing, exemption from classroom instruction that conflicts with religious beliefs.

These policies are up for second reading and approval at tonight’s board meeting.

According to Assistant Superintendent Dr. Andrew Surloff, QVSD has an existing contract with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) to review and revise “several batches” of district policies.

While these specific revisions are included in the wholesale review of those policies, they appear to be particularly timely in the wake of the current sensitivities. They will likely help to assure that educational and resource materials are well-sourced, professionally vetted and curated, with an established process in place for review and comment.

The comics section of my book collection, now residing with my son in Colorado. Included are my well-worn copies of Art Spiegelman’s Maus.    Photo – Evan Linko

Some in the community appear to think otherwise – Leetsdale resident William Jasper, in an online comment to the Sewickley Herald website in mid-March, equated the proposed change to Policy 109 to “an exalted few to be the sole authority to decide what you can see or access in the various school libraries” – as if that really wasn’t the case already.

That’s what we pay these school district employees to do, and the proposed policy provides specific direction on how to do it in a balanced, equitable manner.

The policy is a buffer against the ill wind of political influence, now and in the future.

I inquired of Dr. Surloff if any book challenges had been received by the district recently, and what the dispositions of those challenges were.

According to district spokesperson Angela Conigliaro, two formal challenges were made –

• Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin, who “met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults, describing their sense of identity before, during, and after transitioning.”
• The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas  – a young adult novel that tackles subjects such as culture conflict, police shootings, and systemic racism.

These books have appeared regularly on the ALA most challenged books list, including this year. Per Dr. Surloff, neither of the challenges resulted in any books being removed.

While I was speaking with him, I thought I would clear up a question that popped up while thinking about all of this – What, if any, oversight does the district have over the content and resources of the Sewickley Public Library?

Dr. Surloff stated that the district’s involvement in the library’s operations is limited to their ownership of the building, along with a portion of the library’s operating costs, as per the district website. The board is slated to approve the proposed final budget tonight, which includes a $535,000 allocation to the library. This constitutes less than one percent of the proposed $55.6 Million budget.

Dr. Surloff stated that the library administration, and its associated operating policies, are otherwise independent of the school district. That’s good to know.

Conclusions / Observations

♦ Decisions about instructional materials and library resources need to be made as part of an established process involving all stakeholders – not by a raucous crowd at a board meeting.  Quaker Valley is on the right track with this.

♦ Attempting to ban books or remove them from library shelves is a tired, ineffective, reactionary strategy being put forward by conservatives who, having been abandoned by the junk food politics of Donald Trump with its empty calories of rage and blatant falsehoods, are bereft of any new strategy to assuage their anger over the continued enlightenment of students and youth in subjects they feel threatened by.

♦ One example of these subjects is Critical Race Theory (CRT), which I have written about previously in brief, and will continue to do so in brief, as the proper study and discussion of the concept is better suited for academic studies in at least the post-secondary level, for which I am unqualified.

As I understand it, CRT postulates that race is a social construct – “an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society“. As this pertains to American society, it contrasts with the assertion in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal“. Such is the paradox that our society has placed itself in for nearly 250 years.

In today’s America, racism continues to pervade everyday life. While great strides have been made in the law pertaining to the rights of citizens of all colors and characteristics, our humanity (“love, or the lack of it“) governs how we interrelate with one another. Whether in the form of microaggressions, covert legal or policy moves, or outright violence by those in real or perceived positions of authority, we continue to struggle with this.

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. –

True integration will come only when men are true neighbors, willing to be obedient to unenforceable obligations. ¹

I believe that the core tenets of Critical Race Theory have validity in everyday American life. I also believe that the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice cannot be imposed (see the quote above), but they can be taught.

This is why assuring that an education system that is built on understanding the complexities of a changing world – not avoiding them – is so important if we are to grow, thrive, and keep up.

Until next time.