Good afternoon, and welcome to the preagentia interview for Wednesday, March eighteenth, two thousand twenty-six for the Pittsburgh Water and the Pittsburgh Land Bank.

Would the clerk please read the title of the bills?

Bill one thirty-five resolution appointing Lou Irwin as a member of the Board of Directors of Pittsburgh Water for a term to expire January one, twenty thirty-one.

And Bill one fifty-one.

Resolution appointing Jesse Ainsman as a member of the board of directors of the Pittsburgh Land Bank for a term to expire January one, twenty twenty-seven, serving the remainder of the term for a seat previously held by Tamara Dedukovich.

For the record, we're currently joined by Councilwoman Strassberger and Councilman Wilson.

What we would like to do is turn it over to you to tell us who you are and tell us why you're wanting and willing to serve on this board.

And then after you both go, we'll allow members to ask questions.

Also in my army responsibilities, I happen to be a combat engineer.

So what that means is I also had responsibility for uh overseeing, especially at senior level, uhseeing large construction projects and managing uh uh making sure that uh a bunch of moving parts are moving at the same time and in the same direction to uh to get to the required outcomes.

On the civilian side, um, and perhaps the reason I'm I'm at this table today, I'm uh a professor of uh American government public policy at Duquesne University.

Uh, where back in the day, our new mayor happened to be one of my students uh back in the two thousands.

So anyway, um as it happens, uh work a lot in the areas of public policy, and for the last uh really since post COVID years when I returned from the military, uh, we've been focused on a lot of local issues, city issues, county issues, public uh Pittsburgh public school issues.

Uh to include, I had uh Councilmember Strasberger had a chance to visit us in the classroom uh for public policy seminar last spring, as did then uh Allegheny County Controller uh Corey O'Connor and uh now chief of staff uh uh Dan Gilman.

So I have a a real serious interest in these issues and have been studying uh a whole host of issues that are important to us in our city and our region for for uh years now.

Um in terms of some other connective tissue, it gets me uh connects me to these responsibilities.

Um my wife and I live in Shenley Farm, so of course we are Pittsburgh Water Customers.

Um also the uh chair, they call it the president of our neighborhood association, the Shenley Farm Civic Association.

And back in the day, this was about 20 years ago, and it of course a much smaller scale than uh what we're talking about here in Pittsburgh.

Um I also served on uh the stormwater management committee in Peters Township for some years.

Um and the relevance of that, not only just being in kind of the whole area of uh provision and protection or water supply was looking at uh increasingly the increasing frequency of uh storms that we think of as 100 year storms, 50 year storms, 20 year storms, uh, but also the intensity of those storms and what mitigation we should undertake while in terms of water uh the infrastructure uh in order to deal with some of these emergent problems.

Um from all those perspectives, uh I think that um I can add something to the board uh in terms of their deliberations and their activities, uh but mostly I view this as an opportunity to serve the public, uh, an opportunity to learn and an opportunity to uh collaborate with the professional staff at the authority as well as uh my fellow board members if I am uh confirmed, and I I look forward to that opportunity.

Thank you.

Very much hello everybody, my name is Jesse Easman.

I'm a commercial real estate broker at JL.

First and foremost, I want to thank you all for having me here today and considering me for this board position at the Pittsburgh Land Bank.

First and foremost, I am fourth generation City of Pittsburgh.

My family originally lived in the Hill District, then over to Stanton Heights, eventually over to Squirrel Hill, which is where I currently live today, and I'm raising my two children.

I went to Taylor Alderdice High School and played City League sports my entire tri childhood.

Traveling to these different neighborhoods while playing sports really made me appreciate at a pretty young age how unique and special this city really is.

I'm proud to have remained in the city as an adult and like I said, very proud to be raising my kids in the city of Pittsburgh.

I've been a commercial real estate broker in our city for the past 12 years.

Currently I'm responsible for leasing office buildings in the city, such as Bakery Square in East Liberty, Mill 19 in Hazelwood Green, Tech Mill 41 in Lawrenceville, Fifth Avenue Place Downtown, and several other urban and suburban properties.

My professional career has been built on stabilizing and filling buildings for my clients who are all primarily established developers.

I work with local Pittsburgh developers as well as national and institutional developers.

I see this opportunity to serve on this board as a way to help the neighborhoods in the city that are often overlooked by the type of folks that I work with on a day-to-day basis.

As I mentioned, growing up and currently live in Squirrel Hill, I've seen the other neighborhoods that desperately need help.

And if I can help through activating unproductive real property, I'll be honored to accept that challenge.

I would also welcome the opportunity to be creative in generating recurring revenue streams for the land bank.

Please don't ask me how I would do that today because I don't know the answer to that question.

But what I am looking forward to is the opportunity to work with City Council, the existing board members, see what tools are at our disposal, use those tools and try to think outside the box and grow upon what we have available.

I'm familiar with the rapidly developing neighborhoods like East Liberty and the Strip District.

I know the local businesses, I understand the areas well, and I can identify appropriate uses for these undeveloped parcels.

However, like I mentioned, I'm particularly interested in working with the neighborhoods that need our help the most.

These underserved areas, in my opinion, need our support, and I feel very passionate about doing what I can with my skill set and with the power of the board.

If appointed to the board, I'll utilize my skill set, my network of real estate professionals, as well as the City of Pittsburgh residents to fulfill the duties of the land bank board.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Let the record reflect we've also been joined by Councilman Warwick, and we'll start with Councilman Schwarzberger.

Thank you, Mr.

President, and thank you both for being here today.

I appreciate your opening remarks.

And I'll also start by saying that if I need to step out before I do need to step out at uh just before 2 30.

So if I leave before we finish, my apologies in advance.

And I think this is my first time seeing your CV.

So it's incredibly impressive, and I'm glad that we're that you have been appointed by the mayor to the Pittsburgh Water Board, as you know I serve as vice chair, and um I uh I think that you know you bring a really interesting background to the to the role.

I um also appreciate that you have had some time to think about stormwater.

It's a big focus um and is it I think it needs to be an increasing focus of the of the board um and of the authority um as a whole.

I was interested in what you said about oversight and oversight of, you know, in the case of Pittsburgh Water, it's oversight of of contractors and subcontractors and ensuring that the work that's happening on the ground truly reflects the principles and the mission of the entity that uh whose name is you know is attached to it.

Um if you could expound on that a little bit as to how you think that that experience might apply to even recommendations, conversations within the board with the senior staff, et cetera, to help um continue to do quality quality control um uh operations, you know, on the ground.