Council flags police license plate tracking, revives comprehensive plan with Heinz grant and delays fleet fund

Top Agenda Items

• Council approves license plate reading software as questions mount over surveillance policy and data sharing
• Heinz Endowments' $750,000 grant revives city comprehensive plan
• Proposed $20 million annual fleet fund put on hold as city spends $400,000 a month on vehicle repairs

Council approves license plate reading software as questions mount over surveillance policy and data sharing

Pittsburgh Police are keeping an eye on your car — and everyone else's.

City Council Member Deb Gross of Highland Park flagged an invoice at the March 18 committee meeting for PlateSmart license plate reading software.

The software can track individual vehicle travel history, its most common routes and travel time between cameras.

PlateSmart’s website also states that its software is helping Pittsburgh’s auto squad—a unit dedicated to finding stolen cars—investigate a multi-state credit card fraud scheme. That story has not otherwise been reported and does not say that there were any criminal charges filed.

Gross said that her staff has been tracking the use of surveillance technology with an eye on  updating city policies.

Internal policy for PlateSmart software allows the city to share data with outside agencies, “which is maybe too vague for the current situation that we’re in historically,” said Gross. She added that, according to the administration, “outside agencies” does not include the federal government.

As with the previous invoice Gross pulled for discussion, a contract for the software is not publicly available.

Council Member Anthony Coghill of Beechview cited an incident from last month where a license plate reader could have helped police find a gunman after someone fired almost 30 rounds outside of a bar on Brookline Boulevard. Security cameras only captured the make and model of the car; the shooter remains unidentified.

Council approved paying the invoice.

Heinz Endowments' $750,000 grant revives city comprehensive plan

With $750,000 from The Heinz Endowments, city council won’t have to cancel the comprehensive plan after all.

Last year, council voted to terminate “ineffective and ineffectual” contracts with three consulting firms that were assisting the Department of City Planning to create the plan. The cancellation would have saved taxpayers from paying the remaining $2 million on the $6 million contracts.

Then-Mayor Ed Gainey and the planning department disputed council’s authority to terminate the contracts.

One criticism last year was lack of diverse representation in community engagement throughout the city, rather than just focusing on certain neighborhoods, such as the East End, while giving short shrift to others, such as the West End, which several council members echoed during the March 18 committee meeting.

The mayor’s chief of staff, Dan Gilman, agreed. “There are some core constituencies who hadn’t been at the table,” he said. “If this plan is going to be successful and have broad buy-in, we need to reach out.” He said the city is looking for new engagement and intends to have one meeting per council district during the drafting process with additional meetings before final review.

Council Member Deb Gross of Highland Park said she is not sure the plan will be effective since the city has so many layers of government. She pointed out that city government does not have jurisdiction over Pittsburgh Public Schools or authorities such as Pittsburgh Water and Pittsburgh Regional Transit. She said there are still no official collaborations or memorandums of understanding between those and the city for the plan.

Gilman said that the administration will also follow through with the previous administration’s $250,000 reduction to the overall cost. With the assistance from The Heinz Endowments the city’s remaining cost for the plan will be $1 million.

“It’s a drop in the bucket,” Council Member Anthony Coghill of Beechview said, “but it’s a big drop.”

Coghill said the department can now resume its work on the plan. The projected completion date is the end of the summer.

Proposed $20 million annual fleet fund put on hold as city spends $400,000 a month on vehicle repairs

City council’s proposed Fleet Vehicle Fund has stalled.

Council agreed at the March 18 committee meeting to put another six-week hold on legislation to start a dedicated fund for the city’s vehicle fleet. Council Member Barb Warwick of Greenfield moved to hold the legislation in light of the mayor’s intention to reopen the 2026 budget.

According to Warwick, the administration is committed to funding the fleet.

The proposed trust fund is intended to have steady funding — at least $20 million per year beginning in 2027 — to buy new vehicles. The 2026 budget as passed by council last year allots $20 million for the fleet.

The city’s aging vehicles made headlines again after the late-Jan. snowstorm when 37 plows broke down in one night.

Jennifer Olzinger, assistant director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said the city spends approximately $400,000 per month repairing its vehicles. “That’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of downtime,” she said at the committee meeting. “Parts are getting harder and harder to find. Sometimes they have to be custom made because they’re so old.” 

OMB estimated last year that bringing 100% of vehicles within their recommended life spans — which would drastically reduce repair costs would require at least $206.7 million over five years.