Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor on Thursday announced $600,000 in donations to improve city baseball fields, the latest in a string of financial contributions from outside groups.
The Pennsylvania Laborers District Council is providing $300,000 for new scoreboards at fields across the city that are used for youth sports. The mayor estimated they’d buy about 10 new scoreboards this year.
Pirates Charities will chip in $300,000, which will buy the city high-end laser-grading equipment — the same technology used at PNC Park — to maintain the fields.
O’Connor said the equipment levels out fields, some of which have holes or are uneven. It also will help address drainage issues that plague some sites.
The city will use that technology at about 20 fields this year, said O’Connor, who announced the donations during a gathering of local officials outside of Herschel Field in the city’s Elliott neighborhood.
“Fields are the lifebloods of a lot of our neighborhoods,” said O’Connor, who grew up playing baseball in the city. “If we want Pittsburgh to be every family’s first choice, it comes to details. It comes to supporting places we see each and every day.”
Pirates Chairman Bob Nutting was on hand for the announcement.
“One thing that I have learned over many years of supporting baseball fields and youth baseball is that great programs are built by a broad base of committed local partners who can keep fields maintained, supported, activated throughout the year,” Nutting said.
Bessy Miller, representing the West End Athletic Association, said Herschel Field is an important spot for the community. Improving fields, she said, means kids have a safer, more welcoming place to enjoy the sport.
“This field is more than just a place to play,” Miller said. “It’s a place where kids, families and the entire community come together.”
String of successes
The donations announced Thursday are the latest in a series of successes O’Connor has notched in convincing outside groups to help the city cover its costs.
Officials have long called for nonprofits and others to pitch in more — but the need is especially pronounced now, as the city faces significant budget challenges.
O’Connor in January stood in front of a 31-year-old ambulance that had been driven over 100,000 miles to announce that UPMC would donate $10 million for the city to buy new ambulances this year and next.
The PNC Foundation quickly followed with a $2 million contribution to cover the cost of new snowplows in the wake of a massive snowstorm that left many city roads treacherous for days.
Officials in recent years have struggled to find money to upgrade the city’s aging vehicle fleet, despite increasingly dire warnings that it was imperative to do so.
The Heinz Endowments, partnering with The Pittsburgh Foundation, offered $750,000 to help the city finish crafting a comprehensive master plan after some council members, put off by the price tag, threatened to scrap the effort.
The University of Pittsburgh earlier this week announced it would invest $5 million over the next five years in Pittsburgh’s parks, business districts and public safety efforts.
O’Connor campaigned on pledges to ask major nonprofits and other partners to provide funding for city initiatives that match each entity’s priorities. He told reporters Thursday that the donations he’s secured demonstrate that groups are willing to pitch in — if city officials make requests they can support.
“More and more wins like this help build momentum for Pittsburgh,” O’Connor said.
The contributions Pittsburgh has netted from outside groups in recent months represent only a fraction of what the city would rake in from its largest nonprofits — including universities and health care systems — if they had to pay taxes.
A recent report from the Harrisburg-based Keystone Research Center showed the region’s five largest nonprofits would contribute about $133 million combined to Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and Pittsburgh Public Schools each year if not for their tax-exempt status.
