The City-County Building, where council meets. Photo: Cbaile19, CC0.

It’s budget week. Mayor Corey O’Connor’s first budget address was on City Council’s agenda this morning, and the budget hearings start Tuesday at 1:30.

What’s in it: a $728 million budget with no tax increase and no layoffs. To get there, it pulls $26 million out of the reserve fund and cuts spending 2% from this year. It also stops the $10 million the city has put into each of two trust funds every year, one for affordable housing and one for violence prevention, and moves that money into the general fund.

The catch: the city’s own five-year plan shows deficits of more than $25 million a year starting in 2028, and the reserve fund runs dry before 2031 is over. City property taxes already went up 20% this year.

The other idea: Councilwoman Barb Warwick wants a 2% city tax on investment income, like dividends, rent and capital gains on property sales. Her estimate: $51 million a year. O’Connor has “questions of the legality” and won’t count on it.

Next door, it already happened. Wilkinsburg voted 6–3 last Wednesday to double the borough’s wage tax, from 1% to 2%, starting Jan. 1. Some people who work there but live elsewhere will pay 1% too. The borough faces a $2.9 million hole next year.

And the county: Sara Innamorato’s $1.25 billion county plan has no tax increase either. The ordinance that sets next year’s county property tax goes to a council budget committee Thursday at 5.

Why it matters: none of it is final. If you want the housing and anti-violence money back, or have opinions about taxing rent checks, council is listening now.

Just before 4 a.m. Sunday, a tractor-trailer trying to get out of a lot on Lowrie Street hit Troy Hill’s World War I memorial, knocked it flat and drove off. The memorial went up in 1920 and honors the Troy Hill residents who served in that war. Its bronze eagles ended up on the ground.

It’s not the first time. A driver slid into it on ice in 2014, and neighbors say the traffic island around it is too big for Lowrie Street.

Police are going through security video. If you saw anything, call Zone 1 at 412-323-7201.

Why it matters: Veterans Day is Wednesday, and a 106-year-old memorial to the neighborhood’s own is lying on its side.

Three weeks left in the Wabash Tunnel. PRT’s board voted to close it for good on Dec. 1. About 1,500 drivers a day use it, and fixing it would cost about $43 million. Fences go up on both ends.

My councilor is leaving. Deb Gross, who has represented Lawrenceville, Bloomfield, Polish Hill, Highland Park and the rest of District 7 since 2013, won’t run again. She led the creation of the Housing Opportunity Fund, the same fund the mayor’s budget stops paying into.

The Blue Hole has a lead problem. The state traced lead in the Forbes State Forest swimming hole to a shooting range near Seven Springs owned by Pirates owner Bob Nutting’s company. There are signs up telling hikers not to drink the water.

 

 

Steelers (6–2): the bye week is over. Sunday they’re at Cincinnati, 8:20 p.m., NBC. The Bengals are 6–2 too, so the AFC North lead is on the line. The Steelers won the first one, 30–27, in September.

Pitt (6–3): Florida State at Acrisure Stadium, Friday at 7, ESPN.

Penguins: Sidney Crosby passed Marcel Dionne Saturday for sixth on the NHL’s all-time points list, with 1,773.

 

Pittsburgh’s home prices are going the other way. In the four weeks ending Nov. 1, the median sale price around here was up 7% from a year ago, the third-biggest jump of the 50 largest metros, according to Redfin. Nationally, prices slipped 0.4%.

And mortgage rates fell for a third straight week, to 7.17%. If you’ve been waiting for Pittsburgh prices to dip, they aren’t. The rate is the part that’s moving your way.

 

Allegheny General, where they filmed. Photo: Cbaile19, CC0.

Season 3 of “The Pitt” takes place on Nov. 12. That’s Thursday.

When the HBO show filmed outside Allegheny General on East North Avenue last month, the problem was the weather. It was too nice. The crew held giant white screens at an angle to fake a cloudy sky, and a water truck sprayed the street between takes so it would feel like mid-November.

“The one thing I never thought would be a problem is good weather in Pittsburgh,” said executive producer Michael Hissrich, a Pittsburgh native, wearing a Pirates hat. Real LifeFlight helicopters interrupted filming nine times.

The actual forecast for Thursday, Nov. 12: rain, 90% chance. We could have saved them the water truck.

 

 

The weekend: check back Thursday to see what it looks like. One to circle now: the first-ever Lawrenceville Cat Crawl, Saturday from 11 to 2, starting at Iron City Boulders. Twenty homes and businesses, their cats, and a $5 suggested donation for Conquer the Colony.

Coming up: Light Up Night is Saturday, Nov. 21, and the Wabash Tunnel closes Dec. 1.

 

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— Tim