Glen Hazel’s Burgwin Recreation Center holds another two weeks as the city brings its computers and network in-house

Top Agenda Items

• Glen Hazel families turn out to back afterschool programs at Burgwin Recreation Center
• A $58,283 bill in overlooked interest is all that's left to own 2,000 Dell devices

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Glen Hazel families turn out to back afterschool programs at Burgwin Recreation Center 🔗 

Sixteen residents — including six children — turned out to support programming at Glen Hazel’s Burgwin Recreation Center, as council considered whether Stop the Violence (STV) dollars should foot the bill.

“More and more kids lose their homes, and their grown-ups are losing their jobs,” said one of the children at the July 8 committee meeting, “so I think that they should make more…afterschool programs.”

Currently, Saundra and James Cole provide activities at the center for neighborhood children, but it is no longer sustainable to do so. The proposed legislation asks the administration to seek proposals to take over programming.

“There are multiple council members at this table who have programs just like this, operating small nonprofits on shoestring budgets,” said Council Member Barb Warwick of Greenfield, whose district includes Glen Hazel, “but that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

Warwick drew pushback during the June 24 meeting when she asked that the money — capped at $200,000 for one year — come from STV trust fund.

She followed up during the July 8 meeting and said, “The purpose of Stop the Violence funding is to provide culturally competent social services for our highest need communities, especially our youth.”

 She noted the free city-funded activities available for her children at Greenfield’s Magee Recreation Center. “In poor communities across this city, communities like Glenn Hazel, kids don’t have that,” she said. “Instead, we say to those communities, ‘Figure it out for yourselves.’”

According to Warwick, Mayor Corey O’Connor has said the administration is willing to “work toward a solution.” Council voted to hold the bill two weeks to give him that time.

A $58,283 bill in overlooked interest is all that's left to own 2,000 Dell devices 🔗 🔗 

Pittsburgh is $58,283 away from owning over 2,000 Dell devices used by city employees.

The Department of Innovation and Performance (DIP) asked for  council’s approval to pay the remaining balance to Dell Financial Services.

Zoe Burns, senior manager of the service desk, said the city had a four-year lease-to-own agreement with Dell. The budget did not reflect the $58,283 in interest that was included in the contract.

Sylvia Harris, DIP’s acting director, said, “It just got missed, is what it looked like.”

DIP also requested $95,440 for a one-year agreement with ePlus Technology, Inc. for general networking and IT support to augment the existing internal team.

Harris said that Tom Juip, who works for ePlus, designed the city’s network. “We need [him] to help us stand up some connections that we have, and also to be able to document this” as the department brings everything in-house.

According to the legislation, the network includes connections for Google Cloud Platform, the city’s data repository, as well as internet circuits that provide connectivity between approximately 120 City of Pittsburgh facilities, the majority of which are public safety facilities.

Council agreed to move forward with both requests. Council Member Deb Gross of Highland Park gave the idea of moving networking services completely in-house “two thumbs up.”