Game Commission supersedes Allegheny County Health Department?

It is a known fact that Mt. Lebanon has a rat problem. Search "rat amnesty" on this blog. It is also well known that Allegheny County Health Department has rules and regulations for rodent and pest vector control.

Allegheny County Health Department Rules and Regulations

The Health Department shut down Merlin Benner. Remember this photo?

But things changed drastically since Tony DeNicola entered the picture, and Keith McGill became manager. The municipality became the Mt. Lebanon CIA leading covert operations. The commissioners are under the impression that the PA Game Commission supersedes the Allegheny County Health Department.

Commissioner Steve McLean finally responded to my numerous emails concerning bait.

Q: Was White Buffalo in compliance with the Allegheny County Health Department? He wasn't last year.

A: White Buffalo has complied with the State Game Commission requirements and that the state requirements ascend the County, similar to how Federal regulation can ascend state. So White Buffalo was in compliance with the State and thus with Allegheny County

With our terrible rat problem, wouldn't the commissioners want to comply with Health Department inspectors?

Q 1: What kind of bait was being used last year? This year?
Q 2: What mechanism or feeder was used to distribute the bait last year? This year?
A: I grouped questions 1&2 together - The bait and mechanism used is determined by White Buffalo and is not disclosed to the municipality and is confidential to White Buffalo as proprietary. Also White Buffalo is in compliance with the permit issued by PA.

Did you read that, Allegheny County Health Department Inspectors? It is all proprietary. How many other businesses get away with those answers? I'm betting that nobody else tells you that.

Anyone care to contact Allegheny County Health Department and let them know that the PA Game Commission and Mt. Lebanon don't give a rat's ass about them?

March 12 - March 18, 2017

It's Sunshine Week. Do something about it.

Rats as big as cats

Mt. Lebanon has a rat problem. There, I said it. We don't want to admit it, but we do. Rats as big as cats. Our municipality ended our rat control program less than a year ago. See Celebrate Rat Amnesty Day Over the weekend, Lebo Citizens reader Nick M. saw one of these legendary creatures with his own eyes crossing Cedar by the ball fields.

Mr. McGill, Commission and Mr. Sukal,

I went out for a bike ride last evening and was biking around the baseball fields and through the parking lot next to WildCat.

As I was biking through the parking lot an animal crossed the street (Cedar) in my direction. As I got closer to the entrance the animal ran back across the street.

This animal was an enormous rat, believe it or not, yes, it was the size of a cat, maybe bigger and the tail on the thing had to be a foot long.

I never would have believed Mt. Lebanon could have rodents this big until I saw one with my own eyes. So I have to ask, what the heck is being done about this? How is it possible our community could have rodents this big?

One thing is obvious: with garbage, food scraps and overflowing trash cans at the baseball fields, the rodents that live down that way are in their glory with all the food they could ever want. That’s one problem we need to solve and I’m sure you saw my email to Dave Donnellan.

But putting that aside for now, why does Mt. Lebanon have rats of this size and what specifically is being done to correct this? I have to assume if I saw one, there must be many more.

The only word that comes to mind at the moment is “disgraceful.”

Thank you,

Nicholas Meduho

Even though our commissioners collect a yearly stipend of $3600 each, they no longer answer emails. They have delegated that responsibility to our municipal manager. Soooo, Keith McGill wrote back to Nick M.

Good morning Mr. Meduho,
I can provide you with at least a partial response. Public Works collect trash from the municipal parks and ball fields Monday - Friday during the spring and summer months , which typically when these facilities see their highest use. Typically baseball/softball teams utilizing the fields on a weekend do a reasonable job of collecting their trash and placing it in the available receptacles. Unfortunately it does not appear that that occurred this past weekend.

Turf maintenance has been performed as scheduled and the g-max rating of the field was recently tested and found to meet the requirements.

Keith

On Mon, Jun 27, 2016 at 12:16 AM, Nicholas Meduho, Jr. wrote:

Mr. Donnellan,

Can you please remind me of the trash policy down at the baseball fields.

I was biking down at the fields earlier tonight and I noticed the trash cans at Middle Field were overflowing with trash. I thought that after each game or use of the fields the trash was to be bagged and disposed of.

As it stands now, who will be going down there to empty the trash cans and pick up the water and sports drink bottles that have been thrown all over the place.

Is anyone policing or spot-checking things to make sure these fields stay clean and picked up after? If not, can we start doing this?

Also, has the school district done any maintenance to the artificial turf since it opened last year? Has any maintenance been done at all by anyone?

Thank you,

Nicholas Meduho

 Nick wrote back with:

Two things:

#1 So if the fields are being used on a Friday evening, all day Saturday and all day Sunday, the trash doesn’t get picked up and the trash cans don’t get emptied until Monday which means the trash cans over flow which leaves trash on the ground and for folks to leave their trash on the ground being they have no place now to put it? This needs corrected with either additional trash receptacles or bigger ones. And we wonder why we have rats as big as cats (see my previous email).

#2 Can we backtrack to find out who used the field over the weekend to find out who the culprits are? A reasonable job of collecting trash and placing it in the available receptacles is not good enough Mr. McGill, I’m sure these folks don’t leave trash laying all over their houses…well maybe they do.

These rules should be and need to be consistently reinforced at each and every SAB meeting. This ain’t rocket science folks.

So now I have to wonder…how long has this been going on with no corrective action and why are we paying these huge salaries to folks who should be on top of this instead of the residents.

Mr. McGill, you have the ability to fire and hire. Maybe the time has come to clean house.

The good manager that Keith McGill is, responded quickly and answered Nick with the following:

Mr. Meduho, 

While there were two cans that were overflowing this morning when I checked, there were at least 5 other cans in close proximity that had room for additional trash..This is not a capacity issue, this is a behavioral issue. I will ask Mr. Donnellan to remind coaches that they need to ensure that all trash has been properly placed in the available receptacles.

Instead of this becoming a Sports Advisory Board issue with Dave Brumfield as commission liaison, Keith is forced to continue the email exchange with Nick. You may remember how Dave Brumfield insisted that we needed to spend over a million dollars for artificial turf and rules were created to maintain this unnecessary expenditure.

Nick replied with:

Mr. McGill,

Let’s back up and review because I checked too.

At Middle Field, there are three trash cans, two on either side of the bleachers (that get filled immediately) and one way, way, way down at the other end of the field (see pics below).

If you are expecting people to walk way down there to empty their trash, it’s never going to happen. You see that little brown speck to the right of the port-a john in the picture above, that’s a trash can.

Two tiny trash cans are not nearly enough. It’s obvious that either we don’t have enough trash cans in this area and/or the trash cans are not large enough to handle all the trash. The size of those trash cans are the same size that most residents use at their houses. So basically you expect 3 days of trash from hundreds of people to fit into the same size trash can that most folks don’t fill up in a week. This part is not behavior, it’s common sense...

Dixon Field has trash cans all over the place, like every 10 feet or so. The thinking over there is good but do we really need all those cans over there?

Why not transfer some of those cans over to Middle Field? Such a novel idea, isn’t it?

Another question: why are we not encouraging recycling at the baseball fields. All trash including hundreds of plastic bottles every week goes into one trash can, no recycling. Why is that?

********

Here is my question. Do rats eat these? They are all around the upper Rockwood Park lot and basketball court.

Celebrate Rat Amnesty Day

At 5:30 tonight, the commission will be discussing Public Works and Recreation Departments line items in the 2016 Manager's Recommended Budget. During Tuesday's Budget Public Hearing, I asked specifically about Rat Control and Deer "Management."

Mt. Lebanon has decided to stop baiting for rats. They are taking a nonlethal approach by educating residents as to how to coexist with rats. Upon further investigation, Public Works has come to the conclusion that bird feeders are a contributing factor of rat infestation. Will our commissioners be banning bird feeders next? Since rat/car collisions are at an all time low and rat complaints are nonexistent with the majority of our commissioners, our commission has eliminated rat baiting from our budget.

Additional line items to be discussed tonight are the three line items for deer "management," totaling $100,000. There will be a carryover of $30,000 from 2015, which will give commissioners $130,000 to play with for deer management in 2016. For the record, Dave Brumfield will not spend $5,000 for an aerial survey to determine how many surviving deer are in Mt. Lebanon, after 4.5 months of archery.