Six months after detectives searched City Hall, we know what they were looking for.

Also this week: the Steelers scored three points in New England, and there are archers in Frick Park again. On purpose.

Back in March, the DA’s detectives searched City Hall and carried out records. On Monday a judge unsealed the warrant: nine pages on what investigators think went on under former Mayor Ed Gainey. Nobody has been charged.

What the warrant alleges:

▸ No-bid contracts doubled, a witness says. About 1 in 10 city contracts skipped bidding before Gainey. Under him it was about 1 in 5, according to former council solicitor Daniel Friedson. His phrase: “an exemption buffet.”
▸ $2 million in anti-violence grants went out without bidding, the warrant says, to more than two dozen groups that backed Gainey’s election, with none of the required paperwork showing results. One group asked for $25,000 and got $70,000, Councilor Anthony Coghill told investigators.
▸ A $180,000 police staffing study was steered to one consultant, Matrix, the warrant says. Its finding: the police had enough officers.

Worth knowing who’s talking: Coghill, former Councilor Theresa Kail-Smith and Friedson. They’re the administration’s accusers, not neutral auditors. Gainey didn’t respond Monday, but he has denied wrongdoing before. His former deputy mayor, Jake Pawlak, said in 2023 the Matrix deal was “procured in a legal, ethical, and transparent fashion.” The DA won’t comment. The city says it’s cooperating.

The bottom line: this is one side of the story, and none of it has been tested in court. Even if it’s all true, rewarding allies isn’t automatically a crime. But a violence-prevention fund that hands out about $10 million a year should come with receipts, whoever you voted for. What’s next? Nothing is scheduled. Zappala said in May he expected charges. That was four months ago.

Annie Dillard died last Tuesday at her home on Cape Cod. She was 81. Most of the country knows her for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which won her the Pulitzer.

Pittsburgh should know her for An American Childhood, her 1987 memoir about growing up in Point Breeze in the 1950s, “in a house full of comedians reading books.” No steel, no football. Just a kid paying attention.

If you’ve never read it, this is the week.

The city’s deer program restarted Saturday. Sixty-five vetted bowhunters are back in Frick, Schenley, Highland and a handful of other parks, and this year the list adds Sheraden Park and the Spring Hill greenway. The season runs through Jan. 24, with a break over the holidays, and never on Sundays.

If a doe has eaten your hostas down to the dirt, this is your side winning.

Murray’s Market plans to open in 2027 in the old Rite Aid at Murray and Forbes. That’s about 200 feet from Murray Avenue Kosher, which the Markovic family has run since 1996. The Markovics say the new store’s owner, Yitzchok Glassner, saw their books in 2025 while talking about buying the store, under a nondisclosure agreement. Then, they say, he told the Rite Aid bankruptcy court he was acquiring their store, to win the lease. Now it’s in front of a rabbinical court, the Beth Din of America, with a ruling expected in the coming weeks. Glassner says it’ll be settled amicably.

Squirrel Hill could end up with two kosher grocers on one block. Whether both survive is the real question.

The Pitt won Outstanding Drama at the Emmys for the second year running, and Noah Wyle took lead actor. Its fictional trauma center is modeled on Allegheny General. Now the show is hiring paid Pittsburgh extras: patients, cops, city workers, people walking by. Shooting is Oct. 27 to 29, the days run 10 to 14 hours, and no experience is needed.

You’ve waited hours in a Pittsburgh ER for free. This time they pay you.

A developer wants to tear down the empty hotel at 359 Halket St. and build seven stories: 265 apartments on top of a full-size supermarket. Pitt keeps the land. The developer, Radnor Property Group, won’t say which grocer yet. It still needs the Planning Commission, and there’s no date.

Oakland is tens of thousands of students and hospital workers, and the nearest supermarkets are across the Mon or out in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill. This one would get used.

 

Two games into the Mike McCarthy era, the Steelers are 1–1, and the record is hiding something. The offense has scored one touchdown in 25 possessions.

Week 1 was a T.J. Watt pick-six covering for a 3-for-13 day on third down. Week 2 had no rescue. New England won 20–3, sacked Aaron Rodgers four times and turned one of those sacks into a touchdown. Bill Cowher said on CBS the offense has no identity. McCarthy, the Greenfield kid who got the job in January, said it starts with him.

The verdict: too early for “same old.” But this is exactly how the Tomlin years ended: a great defense waiting on an offense. That stings more when the new guy was hired to fix the offense. Cincinnati comes to Acrisure Sunday at 1. If the third-down numbers don’t move, this stops being “working things out.”

Also: the Pirates play their last game at PNC Park this year Thursday at 12:35. Dollar Dog day, with Paul Skenes scheduled to start. And Pitt (3–0) is home again Saturday against Bucknell, its fourth straight home game to open the season. Noon, homecoming.

 

Past 7 days, residential. “Was” is last week’s issue.

What we’re seeing

Fewer price cuts, more sales. Cuts still lead, but the gap closed.

Why you’d care

 

“If you ever wondered how the top 0.01% live in Pittsburgh, this is it. A private compound with actual acreage. This isn’t just the top 1%. This is the top 0.01%, baby. We only have so many homes in this tier around here, and no expense was spared on this one. The house is so big that even in a drone photo from several hundred feet up, it still looks big.”

It sits behind a private gate in the North Hills, built in 2018 by Chris Kaclik. The kitchen has four Wolf ovens. The theater is fully soundproofed, with a 138-inch screen. There’s a temperature-controlled wine room, a sauna and a gym.

The garage is heated, has six bays, and is tall enough for car lifts, so with lifts it holds twelve cars. The pool and the lawn run off a private well, so there’s no water bill for the grass. It’s the only line in the listing a normal person can relate to.

Listed by Robyn Jones, Piatt Sotheby’s International Realty.

 

A few summers ago you couldn’t walk a Pittsburgh sidewalk in August without stepping on one. This year you may not have seen one at all.

NEXTpittsburgh went looking for an answer. Penn State entomologist Julie Urban calls it an “ebbing year” and admits “we don’t have a full picture.” Pitt’s David Outomuro thinks it was boom and bust: they ate through the tree-of-heaven they depend on, and local birds and fungi figured out they’re food.

The catch is that nobody really counted. People stopped reporting them once stomping them became routine. So they may be gone, or just having an off year. We got too bored of them to write it down, so nobody can say which.

 

 

 

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— Tim