Highland Park Community Club monthly meeting - Thursday, January 16, 2003 at 7:30 pm.
Bob Staresinic was elected Executive Vice President with all in favor. Congratulations! The 11 board members present at the meeting (including officers) approved the 2003 budget unanimously. The Community Club needs a chairperson for the Children's Committee. This committee generally holds events for Easter and Halloween. Please contact Lisa Williams <mailto:l.c.williams@att.net>. SPECIAL PROGRAM... Mary Beth Steisslinger, a Highland Park resident who works for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy <http://www.pittsburghparks.org/>, gave a presentation about improvements to the park including the restoration of the entrance at North Highland Avenue. The Program Committee invited her to give this talk. She introduced Damon (I didn't get his last name), the new park foreman for Highland Park. Mary Beth and David Hance, president of the Highland Park Community Development Corporation, told us about the upcoming stages of work in the fountain and gardens area at the North Highland Avenue park entrance. The first stage, consisting mainly of infrastructure for the following stages, should be finished by the summer, and is limited to the immediate fountain pool area. The following stage will encompass the garden area around the fountain pool. Mary Beth's presentation was too expansive to summarize here faithfully--I'll try to get some of it on the Highland Park web site <http://www.highlandparkpa.com/>. David Hance also mentioned the upcoming replacement of Heth's Run bridge by PennDOT. The Club voted to authorize Lisa to write a letter to the CDC supporting the CDC's efforts to make sure the replacement is historically appropriate and that it will be compatible with the proposed pedestrian trail linking the riverfront to the park. The work being done in that area now is the installation/replacement of a gas line by Equitable Gas. It is not known yet whether the gas line will be a problem for the trail or for the temporary rerouting of Allegheny River Boulevard for the bridge replacement. The Heth's Run bridge as it is now was featured in a Post-Gazette article in 2000 titled "Pittsburgh picks its worst eyesores": <http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20000713eyesores3.asp> The Tribune-Review did an article on the bridge replacement in October: <http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/news/s_97967.html> HIGHLAND PARK CANDIDATES'S NIGHT... Bruce Robison, chairman of the Program Committee and rector at St. Andrew's Church, informed us that the Community Club and the East End Neighborhood Forum <http://trfn.clpgh.org/eenf/> will sponsor a candidate's night at St. Andrew's on Tuesday, February 18, 2003 to bring the candidates for Jim Ferlo's vacant District 7 City Council seat to Highland Park. Mark your calendars! NEXT MEETING... At the next Community Club meeting on Thursday, February 20, 2003 at 7:30 pm, Dell Zeigler informs us that someone from the US Postal Service will give a short presentation on the risks of scams. He has seen the presentation already and says that it is quite interesting and those who are present will learn a lot about protecting themselves from scam artists. MAILING LIST... We now have 50 subscribers to the Highland Park Neighborhood list. I'm going to get the list of Community Club members' email addresses from Kelly Meade in a week or so and add them so that more people can stay informed about community happenings. Rudy