Oakland locals clash with Pitt students

For Pitt students, Central Oakland is a cheap neighborhood that’s close to campus where they… For Pitt students, Central Oakland is a cheap neighborhood that’s close to campus where they can buy $5 pizza on weekend nights. Students stop there for a few years and move on, but for Carlino Giampolo, Oakland is home.

Giampolo, who moved to Hawaii in 1980 for a job opportunity but visits his parents in Pittsburgh frequently, described the old neighborhood as a place where everyone knew each other.

“Even if you didn’t know other residents, you still had a level of respect for them,” Giampolo, 65, said.

But for Giampolo and other lifelong Oakland residents, the rapid expansion of Pitt over the last few decades has presented a clash of two different cultures, causing residents of the community to question the practices of the University that serves as the centerpiece of the community.

According to Pitt’s annual Fact Book, undergraduate enrollment for full-time students at the University increased from 9,648 students in 1970 to 17,083 in 2011, a 43 percent jump.

For Giampolo, the clash with Pitt began during a visit to his parent’s home on Boundary Street in March 2007. While walking around in Panther Hollow, he noticed a copious amount of beer cans, pizza boxes and other trash, which he deduced came from local college students.

Giampolo said he contacted Pitt officials regarding the debris but was told that the University didn’t own the properties in Central and South Oakland and that landlords had the responsibility of cleaning the streets.

Resident complaints

After hearing that the University wasn’t responsible for the off-campus properties, Giampolo set out to create a committee called the South Oakland Urban Litter Code. The committee was meant to combat the trash and what he perceived to be a lack of responsiveness by Pitt to the negative claims of residents.

Giampolo asked for an allocation of $100,000 from the Student Activity Fund but was denied because he is not a student.

“I wanted to create a program to hire at-risk youth and have them work four to five hours a week to clean the streets of Oakland,” Giampolo said. “It would benefit everyone, including Pitt and the community.”

In addition to the trash in Central and South Oakland, Giampolo said that binge drinking, excessive noise and Pitt’s unified resistance to his protests constitute his quarrel with the University. Since Giampolo never received the requested funds, the committee was never formed.

Liz Gray, a resident of Ophelia Street, said that she also had a mixed experience with college students in the area. The late-night partying by students didn’t bother her, but she did mind the reckless behavior demonstrated by groups of students.

“I had an incident where students were climbing on my roof after I told them to stop earlier in the night,” Gray said. “I ended up calling the police, and they were arrested.”

Incidents like that are what fueled Giampolo’s crusade.

Giampolo said he funded multiple advertisements in The Pitt News and the University Times to advertise his South Oakland Urban Litter Program. He said that faculty members approached him with support, but they would not raise the issue to the University. Giampolo said this is a troubling sign.

“No one is willing to step up and make support, and it is clear that something is amiss,” he said.

Pitt spokesman Robert Hill said in an email that Giampolo’s accusations were “inaccurate and unfair.”

“Through a series of meetings and conversations with [Giampolo], he has demonstrated no interest in acknowledging the contributions the University of Pittsburgh has made to the Oakland community,” Hill said. “For that reason, the University is not interested in responding to any questions, allegations or charges attributed by him.”

Nathan Hart, a resident of Parkview Avenue for more than a decade, said that he had no such issues with the University and that Pitt made all of its development plans known to the community.

“Over the last 15 years, they’ve been pretty inclusive in terms of letting their intentions known in the community as well as in the city,” Hart said. “They made sure to alert the community before the expansion of Bouquet Gardens and the dorms on the hill.”

Pitt’s response to Oakland residents

In response to the growing tension between Oakland residents and Pitt students, Pitt’s Student Government Board formed a community outreach committee at the beginning of the spring semester to establish communication between the residents and the Pitt student body.

Sophomore Mary Mallampalli, chairwoman of the committee, said that SGB formed her committee to “ease the tensions” between members of the Oakland community.

“We’ve started a ‘Good Neighbor’ campaign where off-campus students could work with five Oakland residents to help clean the streets and address any other issues that exist,” Mallampalli said.

In order to introduce Oakland residents, Pitt students and local businesses to the efforts made by the community outreach committee, Mallampalli said that the committee will host a “Good Neighbor Lunch” on March 24, where the members plan to create solutions to the growing tension between Oakland residents and students.

After that meeting, the committee will enact plans to start cleaning the streets.

Mallampalli said that her committee is also working with the Oakland Code Task Force, a group of local businesses, code enforcement groups and Oakland residents formed under former Pittsburgh mayor Richard Caliguiri. The late Caliguiri, who served as mayor during most of the ’80s, hoped the group would provide a forum for Oakland institutions to share their plans regarding current and future development plans.

The group meets at 8 a.m. on the second Tuesday of each month, and the location of the meeting rotates between different Oakland institutions and organizations.

Under the supervision of Pitt’s Vice Chancellor of Community and Governmental Relations John Wilds, the group works to improve housing conditions in the community. Wilds said that Pitt actively works with the group in order to promote the welfare of its students.

“[The Oakland Code Task Force] looks for houses that are over capacity,” Wilds said. “We know that students often pack into houses; these buildings aren’t designed to safely hold all of these people.”

In addition to Pitt’s efforts to improve the Oakland community, private organizations are also stepping in to help. Wanda Wilson, executive director of the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation, said that her company currently works to improve all aspects of community outreach.

Through a project called Oakland 2025, Wilson said her company strives to create a better future for the community.

“One of the main aspects of the plan is workforce development, where we hope to help out-of-work residents find jobs,” Wilson said. “We’re also implementing a youth program called ‘School to Career,’ where local high school students can gain experience in the workplace.”

Wilson said that her organization has a strong relationship with both the governmental relations and community outreach committees of Pitt’s SGB. She said both committees help mobilize students to clean up large amounts of trash in the community.

Unlike Giampolo, Wilson said that she believes Oakland has a bright future.

“I think that we’ve been very successful,” Wilson said. “A lot of residents are beginning to see progress.”