Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, surrounded by public safety officials and members of Hilltop communities, announced on Friday that the Zone 3 police station would move on January 1, 2009 to the former youth hostel building on the corner of East Warrington and Arlington avenues in Allentown.
Tom Smith 22.JUL.08
Mayor to move station from South Side Flats to former youth hostel building on Hilltop
Zone 3 police will soon be based in a new location when the station is moved from Mary Street on the South Side Flats to the former youth hostel building at the intersection of Arlington and Warrington avenues in Allentown.
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl brought Hilltop community leaders and media together on Friday afternoon on short notice to make the announcement. On the sidewalk in front of the new location, the mayor outlined his three-prong plan to help the crime plagued neighborhoods on the Hilltop.
The mayor plans to continue the saturation patrols on the Hilltop that were instituted after several shootings in Mount Washington. The patrols, which have been operating three days a week on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, will be increased to seven days a week.
"It’s clear [we have] to do more every day of the week," Mr. Ravenstahl said. He added that the police’s Street Response Unit has been and will continue to participate in the saturation patrols. (Zone 3)
The combined July-August meeting of the South Side Planning Forum yielded a response to what residents can do to stop the closing of UPMC South Side, but it wasn’t an answer the roughly 40 audience members wanted to hear.
The decision is final, said hospital president Nancy Magee of closing the facility within five years as it consolidates with UPMC Mercy.
"This is a very good thing for Mercy," said new UPMC Mercy President Will Cook of the upgrades, expansions, and additions — such as a larger emergency department and more operating rooms — to handle the extra patients.
"We have open arms for all of this," he said.
The hospital officials were present to explain the consolidation and answer questions from residents, many of whom have stated publicly that the closing will negatively impact senior family members and neighbors for whom the facility is a short distance away. (UPMC South Side)
"We’re trying to be proactive rather than reactive," Councilman Bruce A. Kraus said in Arlington last week about the Town Meetings in District 3 neighborhoods he has been holding.
Assistant Police Chief William Bochter, Lt. Shirley Sloan, acting commander of Zone 3 [while Commander Catherine McNeilly is on vacation] and Zone 3 Crime Prevention Officer Christine Luffey were on the panel of public safety officials at the meeting.
Councilman Kraus quickly noted some of the concerns: shootings on the Hilltop, absentee landlords and bad Section 8 tenants.
In discussing the problems of absentee landlords and the fear of retaliation by some residents for reporting crimes they see in the neighborhood Mr. Kraus was a strong advocate of Silent Complaint Forms. He said the forms could be filled out anonymously with the complaint and returned to his office where he will see to it that the forms get to the police.
"I don’t want you to feel you’re at risk for doing your civic duty," he added. (Arlington)
Mount Oliver police now have a new tool to help deter crime in the borough, an “eye in the sky” that’s capable of seeing and recording in all directions at the five-way insection at the clocktower. The state-of-the-art system incorporates four stationary cameras and one pan/tilt/zoom camera to monitor the area. The cameras are able to be viewed and controled from police headquarters in the Borough Building and in each of Mount Oliver’s police vehicles.
Several years ago Mount Oliver Mayor Jeff Repasky had a simple idea to fight crime in the borough: put cameras up on the clock tower at the five-way intersection of Brownsville Road, Hays Avenue and Bausman Street.
In order to make his idea a reality, Mayor Repasky needed a lot of help, $40,000 worth of help. To find the money to put the cameras in the central location, he applied for and received grants with the help of State Sen. Jay Costa Jr. and State Rep. Harry Readshaw.
The borough now has a state-of-the-art wireless surveillance system that is capable of being monitored and controlled from not only police headquarters in the borough building, but also the police cruisers on the streets of Mount Oliver. The system, with four high resolution stationary cameras and a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera that is able to rotate 360 degrees, is able to monitor and record the entire intersection in color. (Cameras)
