Pittsburgh City Councilperson Bob Charland stood Tuesday morning in a Knoxville alley where food wrappers and paper plates poked out of discarded garbage bags and a box of hypodermic needles lay smashed on the road.

“I am sick and tired of our neighborhoods looking like no one cares about them,” Charland, D-South Side, said. “We know that our public works employees are working as hard as they can to get this city cleaned up. We also know that’s just not enough.”

Charland used the filthy scene to make a point that Pittsburgh is suffering from a trash emergency — one so severe it needs state help to fix.

Although some City Council members were sympathetic, they convinced Charland to abandon the idea of asking Gov. Josh Shapiro to step in.

An emergency declaration from Shapiro would slash red tape and free state resources to help the city fight illegal dumping, clean litter and remove garbage from private properties, roads and hillsides.

Pittsburgh leaders agree that the trash littering some alleyways, strewn about roadsides or tossed in empty lots is problematic.

They did not all agree that it warranted such a drastic step.

So Charland compromised. Council will make a formal request for help from the governor but won’t seek an emergency declaration.

“My heart still believes it’s a state of emergency,” Charland said. “This is a five-alarm fire.”

Charland did not specify what kind of assistance he hoped Pennsylvania would provide. Shapiro’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mayor Ed Gainey said the city can address trash problems without imploring the governor to help.

“For him to ask a governor to deal with a garbage situation we’re already addressing really doesn’t make any sense at all,” the mayor told reporters.

The city last year investigated 7,500 complaints related to garbage, Department of Public Works Director Chris Hornstein said.

City officials took action on over 5,000 of those incidents, including filing 600 criminal complaints.

Last year, the city conducted 270 clean and liens — when city crews clean egregious trash violations on private property and put a lien on the site — a nearly twofold increase from the year prior, Hornstein said.

A new $456,000 partnership with the Center for Employment Opportunities is launching this week. The program will hire people leaving incarceration to pick up trash, starting in Homewood. The mayor said the work could be expanded to include other neighborhoods, including Knoxville.

Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, said she cared deeply about trash cleanup but felt the city was “very close to tackling” it on its own.

Her fellow council member, Khari Mosley, D-Point Breeze, said he agreed with Charland that officials should focus on cleaning up the city. But he worried an emergency declaration over trash could take attention away from other pressing issues, like public transportation.

They were joined by Deb Gross, D-Highland Park, in asking their names to be removed from the garbage measure before the emergency declaration language was struck.

Other council members were prepared to support an emergency declaration.

“It truly is a health hazard,” said Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, who has taken to launching his own cleanup efforts throughout his district.

During Charland’s press conference, a reporter asked if he was engaging in political grandstanding.

Later, Coghill rejected any notion that calling for more help to address garbage was politically motivated, pointing out that Charland and other city leaders have long expressed a desire to do more to promote a cleaner city.

Council President R. Daniel Lavelle, D-Hill District, ultimately proposed the compromise that won the day.

“I actually agree with your sentiment, and I agree with your ask, and I agree with 95% of what is written here,” Lavelle told Charland.

But Lavelle said he felt an emergency declaration should be reserved for more serious matters. Such declarations were made during the covid-19 pandemic and when the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed.

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