South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association is hosting a virtual Development Activities Meeting (DAM) on Tuesday, Sept. 6 at 6:30 p.m. to review a revised plan for a development project.
What: Desmone Architects & Abode Well Realty, Inc. will share significant updates to their 32 and 44 Pius Street development plans. The new plan proposed includes the demolition of the existing 44 Pius Street building and construction of a new building with a similar footprint, height and size, instead of the previous plan to renovate the 44 Pius Street building.
Why: SSSNA is a Registered Community Organization (RCO) through the Department of City Planning to provide input and feedback on local development activities and planning procedures in partnership with community stake holders.
Where: This will be a virtual Zoom meeting. The meeting zoom link will be sent via email to the SSSNA e-blast list before the meeting. If you do not receive it, please email info@southsideslopes.org to be added to the list or receive the Zoom meeting link.
UPDATE: This Bylaws change was approved at a vote at the May 14, 2022 General Meeting of the South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association. The updated Bylaws are now posted on our website here: SSSNA Bylaws
The Board of the South Slide Slopes Neighborhood Association is proposing a change to the bylaws of the association. This change to the bylaws regards the eligibility to be considered for board membership. It would more accurately reflect how we engage with our community and broaden the pool of potential board members.
Here is how Article IV: Members, Section 1. b. currently reads:
“Voting Members: those members eighteen (18) years or older who attended at least two public meetings in the past year.”
We propose that this sentence of the bylaw be revised to read:
“Voting members: those members eighteen (18) years or older who attended at least two public meetings, events, or activities convened by the South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association in the past year.”
We, like many other for- and not-for-profit organizations, have experienced a shift in the way that we interact with our members – and the way that they interact with us. It’s clear that the pandemic has fundamentally changed how people are choosing to spend their time outside of family, work, and other obligations.
It’s important for us to understand and respond to these shifts. Expanding the pool of potential Board Members to more accurately reflect how the organization engages with the community – now, and going forward – will put us in a better position to achieve our goals. We see the challenge of attracting and retaining board members as a long term one – and this is the appropriate opportunity to make this small, but impactful change.
This proposed change will be published in the South Pittsburgh Reporter and on our website. The change was introduced to the membership at the March Annual meeting. We will have a discussion before a formal vote at our May 10th general meeting. This vote will be open to all board members and general members in good standing. If you have any thoughts on the topic in the meantime, please reach out to any of our Board Members in the meantime and let’s chat!
The South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association (SSSNA) is excited to announce its updated Board of Directors as of our Annual meeting on March 8, 2022.
We wish a heartfelt thank you to our retiring board members Denise Fillip and Brian Oswald. We are thankful for their combined decades of volunteering with the South Side Slopes. They will continue to be involved in the association, especially with the Dirty Dozen Hot Chocolate Stop and StepTrek.
Re-elected board members were: Cara Jette, Gavin Robb, Lucia Sanchez-Madrigal, and Jami Szalla. We also welcome two new board members, Marc Bowman and Andrew Fetzko.
Marc Bowman lives on Shelly Street, near the Oakley Street Mosaic Steps. He’s into running, mountain biking, walking around outside, video games and technology in general, and he is a senior web developer at Pitt’s School of Medicine. Marc has served on several boards and committees, including The Friends of South Park, The Whitehall Wildlife Management Committee, and he currently serves on the board of a 501(c)(3) non-profit known as Vegan Pittsburgh (veganpittsburgh.org). Expect more vegan options at our events going forward!
Andrew Fetzko has been a resident of the South Side since 1993. He graduated from Duquesne University and owned the retail store, Head Board Shop, a skate and snowboard shop on Carson St. from 1994 to 2014, which grew to 5 locations in the Pittsburgh area. In addition to retail sales, he did logistics and promotions for dozens of community events and music festivals, including fundraising for Pitcher Memorial Skate Park, a public skatepark in Carnegie. Andrew is also an ICC certified Building Inspector and is currently employed at Legal Tax Service, a municipal billing and law firm servicing the mid Mon Valley, where he oversees the lien dept. in recovery of delinquent taxes and municipal service fees. In 2018, he and his wife, Steph moved to Windom Street, from Sidney St., becoming official South Side Slopes residents. Andy is looking forward to helping improve the day-to-day quality of life in our great neighborhood.
There are now two openings for Board positions. Please contact info@southsideslopes.org if you are interested in joining the Board or a committee. You must have attended 2 meetings or events in the last year to be eligible to join the Board of Directors.
All meetings start @ 6:30 p.m. At this time, all meetings are being held virtually on Zoom. Zoom links will be published before each meeting.
All South Side Slopes residents are invited to attend. Join us to meet new people or reconnect with long-time neighbors, learn what is happening and planned for the community, and share your ideas, concerns and love for the Slopes.
In order to be a voting member of the South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association, you must attend at least 2 meetings and/or events per year.
Who: South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association is hosting a Development Activities Meeting (DAM) on Wednesday, October 27th at 6:30pm to review one development project.
What: 1611 St Patrick Street Single Family Home
Why: SSSNA is a Registered Community Organization (RCO) through the Department of City Planning to provide input and feedback on local development activities and planning procedures in partnership with community stake holders.
The South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association (SSSNA) stands in solidarity with Pittsburgh’s Black and brown communities in saying unequivocally that Black Lives Matter and that we will not tolerate the vile hate speech and acts of racism on display in the vandalism of Quarry Field.
Quarry Field, in the heart of South Side Park, is the home of the South Side Bears, a youth football and cheerleading community organization that supports the development of young majority Black and brown children in the South Side Slopes and surrounding neighborhoods through sports. The Bears are the last remaining youth sports team in the Hilltop Neighborhoods. We are exploring ways for us to meaningfully engage and support the Bears as a SSSNA community – and we also urge you to consider donating to the South Side Bears by reaching out directly to its president, Kevin Alton @ www.facebook.com/Southsidebears.
We also acknowledge that we must move beyond words of support into action – and cannot do that without addressing our own biases and inequities.
As an all-volunteer neighborhood association in the predominately white South Side Slopes, we must address head on the privilege of our organization and our neighbors and reflect on how we contribute to the continued segregation of Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods. From a review of our mission and the activities and priorities we undertake – to the makeup of our board and membership – we will strive to eradicate the vestiges of racism, misogyny, ableism, transphobia, and xenophobia within our organization. We will work to become a model of what it means for neighborhood associations to live our values and contribute to a vision of Pittsburgh that is truly most livable for all.
As President of the Association, I don’t have all the answers of how we’re going to move forward. As a 41-year-old white man, I know that I have not yet done all the work I need to do to fully understand how I benefit from, and contribute to, white supremacy and systemic racism. I commit to holding myself accountable and ask that you help hold me accountable as the leader of this vibrant and evolving organization.
A big part of that will come from listening and learning. In the city of bridges, I’m committed to building new ones and look to you to help inform how we can better align our work with the needs of the community.
Please join us in this process so together we can identify and undertake tangible actions that move us and the South Side Slopes forward – now and in the future.
The South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association welcomes Jami Szalla to the Board of Directors. She is a fifth-generation Pittsburgher who was born and raised on Wellington St. in the South Side Slopes. A proud Carrick High School graduate, she attended Edinboro University of Pennsylvania where she received a degree in forensic accounting. Later, she earned her CPA while working as an internal auditor for the Department of the Navy in Washington, DC. Missing family, friends, and the city she loved, Jami returned to Pittsburgh in 2017 to take an accounting job with UPMC. Over the next year, she and her now-husband, Dan, purchased and renovated their 1888-built home on Eleanor St., just a few blocks from her childhood home. Recently, Jami and Dan opened Hilltop Coffee – a community-focused café on the corner of Eleanor & Arlington. In her spare time, Jami enjoys participating in community events, reading historical fiction, gardening, traveling, and running.
The Board is thankful to the years of service from Candice Gonzalez and Donna Tarkett who have both stepped down.
There is now one opening for a Board position. Please contact info@southsideslopes.org if you are interested in joining the Board or a committee. You must have attended 2 meetings or events in the last year to be eligible to join the Board of Directors.
