P.O. Box 1041

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15230-1041 U.S.A.

Telephone: 412-561-7876

Electronic Mail: < gawalsh@andrewcarnegie.cc >

Internet Web Site: < http://www.andrewcarnegie.cc >

2009 December 11

Luke Ravenstahl, Mayor

City of Pittsburgh

City-County Building, Suite 512

414 Grant Street

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219-2419

Re: Request under terms of the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law [Act of June 21, 1957, P.L. 390, No. 212, 60 P.S. 66.1 et seq., as amended].

Dear Mr. Mayor:

At the beginning of this decade, then-Carnegie Library Director Herb Elish began a strategic planning process, which resulted in a plan for library facility renovations and/or replacements. To my knowledge, as of this point in time this plan has never been released to the general public.

The Pennsylvania Code provides that public libraries may receive public funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania so long as the home municipality has declared the library in question to be their legal “agency” for providing library service to the general public.

In the case of The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, this requirement was satisfied on 1890 February 25 with the enactment into law, by the City of Pittsburgh, of Ordinance Number 240. Ordinance Number 240 of 1889-1890 accepted Andrew Carnegie’s generous offer to build libraries for Pittsburgh and officially designated these libraries as the “Carnegie Free Libraries of the City of Pittsburgh.” Ordinance Number 240 was passed by the Select and Common Councils of the City of Pittsburgh on 1890 February 24, signed into law by Pittsburgh Mayor William McCallin on 1890 February 25, and then entered into Ordinance Book 7 page 265.

As The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is the official “agency” for providing public library service to the citizens of the City of Pittsburgh, I am making this Right-to-Know Law request to you.

I, respectfully, ask that you send me a copy of the final plan for renovating/relocating public libraries, which was developed by the strategic planning process started by Herb Elish at the beginning of this decade.

According to a 2002 June amendment to the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law, which legally took effect on 2002 December 26, the response to Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law requests, by non-Commonwealth of Pennsylvania agencies, including municipalities and “agencies” of municipalities, “shall not exceed five business days from the date the written request is received.”

I look forward to a prompt reply to my Right-to-Know Law request.

Sincerely yours,

Glenn A. Walsh

gaw