Council to vote on $9 million for paving

The winter chill yesterday found City Council members debating a wide variety of heated… The winter chill yesterday found City Council members debating a wide variety of heated issues.

Councilwoman Darlene Harris of the Public Works committee recommitted a bill that called for more than $9 million of city funds to be allocated to the street-resurfacing program.

The bill would allow for 51 miles of city streets to be resurfaced over the course of the 2008 calendar year.

Director of Public Works Guy Costa describes the project as “aggressive,” explaining that the city was able to resurface “39 miles of streets in 2007 and has averaged about 36 miles of streets every year over the last 8 to 10 years” at a cost of “between $215,000 and $250,000 per mile, depending mostly on the cost of oil.”

When questioned about which streets in the city would receive the highest priority, and specifically if Oakland would reap much of the benefit of such a project, Costa explained that “the streets that were not completed last year will be the first ones on the list this year.”

But a full list of the streets to be resurfaced will not be available until later this spring, he said.

The final vote on the resurfacing bill is slated for Tuesday.

The council also voted unanimously to support a bill that would address illegal gambling introduced by new councilman Bruce Kraus, chairman of the Committee on Public Safety Services.

Kraus argued that the city should use money from the gaming commission to address the problem of illegal slot-machine gambling that could arise with the construction of the Majestic Star Casino in the North Side.

Potentially, this bill would not only address public safety concerns, but also ensure that licensed slot-parlors are as effective as possible, Kraus explained.

Council president Doug Shields submitted a motion that urged residents of the city of Pittsburgh to support a bill before the Pennsylvania legislature that would expand the language of equal-rights legislation to include sexual orientation and gender identity as categories protected from discrimination.

Shields noted that the city has had such language in its code for many years and said that he strongly supports the legislature adopting it for the rest of the commonwealth.