Pittsburgh City Council poised to vote down Wilkinsburg annexation

Pittsburgh City Council appears likely next week to vote down a proposal to annex neighboring Wilkinsburg, but some council members have voiced support for an annexation in the near future.

City Council on Wednesday voted against annexation in a preliminary vote, and a final vote is expected next week.

A separate proposal before council, however, would allow it to further investigate the possibility of annexing Wilkinsburg or annexing or merging with other neighboring municipalities.

After its preliminary vote, council members met with other local officials from Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg to begin what they say will be a yearlong investigation of the matter.

“It might not be the marriage that some of us were looking for, but I think it’s an engagement today,” Councilman Anthony Coghill said.

Coghill — along with Councilmen Corey O’Connor and Ricky Burgess — have voiced support for an eventual annexation, though they acknowledged that City Council may need more time to gather necessary data.

“We’re going to initiate a process that’s council-led to find facts and to lay the issues on the table,” Burgess said. “I think it’s in the best interest of both municipalities.”

Burgess said he will vote in favor of the measure if it is brought before council again in about a year.

If City Council approves the measure, it would appear on a ballot referendum for Wilkinsburg voters to make the final decision. Wilkinsburg Borough Council and Pittsburgh voters have no formal say in the process.

Pittsburgh already provides firefighting services, garbage collection and education for middle and high school students in Wilkinsburg.

Wilkinsburg Community Development Corp., the group spearheading the push for annexation, has provided reports that seem to indicate Pittsburgh Public Schools would profit from the annexation.

Those findings were presented to City Council on Wednesday, though some members said they’d still like to see more data and information about how the reports were conducted.

Ira Weiss, the solicitor of Pittsburgh Public Schools, said it remains “very unclear” what merging school districts would look like — and what that would mean for Wilkinsburg School District employees and union negotiations.

Pittsburgh City Controller Michael Lamb acknowledged there are still some problems that need to be addressed, but said he believes they’re “solvable.”

Lamb said he believes the reports provided by annexation advocates are “a little on the conservative side.”

Supporters say it would lower taxes for Wilkinsburg residents, improve development opportunities in Wilkinsburg and boost Pittsburgh’s population.

Coghill said Wilkinsburg’s population is roughly equivalent to the population of the city’s Brookline neighborhood, with around 15,000 people. Bringing Wilkinsburg into Pittsburgh would increase the city’s population by about 5%, said Kate Wittels, a partner at HR&A Advisors, which provided some of the annexation reports.

Some council members still oppose the annexation, citing a lack of information on some topics, Wilkinsburg’s debt and the manner in which the process was initiated, with strong resistance from many Wilkinsburg officials.

“I still need a lot of convincing before I will ever vote yes,” Council President Theresa Kail-Smith said, adding that she would need to find a way the proposal would benefit her district in the southwestern part of the city.

Councilman Bruce Kraus said he didn’t want to see resources redirected from existing Pittsburgh neighborhoods to serve a new one. He also raised concerns that the process would lead to gentrification and displace existing residents.

“A development corporation, against the wishes of the duly elected body, wishes to see this happen for one reason and one reason only, and that is development,” Kraus said, explaining that he doesn’t want to see gentrification happen in Wilkinsburg as it has in some areas of the city such as East Liberty where development has occurred.