22 Oct Pittsburg Funds Programs for Its Youngest and Oldest Residents

Pittsburg City Council member Dionne Adams, right, praised the city’s youth programming for “weaving in the whole child.” Next to her is council member Shanelle Scales-Preston. (Screenshot captured by Samantha Kennedy / The CC Pulse)

By Samantha Kennedy

The Pittsburg City Council on Monday allocated more than $130,000 in grant funding that will go towards youth and senior recreation programs over the next two years. 

The grant — which totals $136,750 and will be split between the fiscal years of 2024-25 and 2025-26 to programs at the Marina Community Center and the Senior Community Center — comes from the Keller Canyon Mitigation Fund and is administered by the District 5 Supervisors Office of the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors. 

The funding was created to offset the impact of the Keller Canyon Landfill, located south of the city of Pittsburg and the unincorporated Bay Point, on nearby communities and can be used to fund youth services, community beautification, public safety and code enforcement. 

Pittsburg programs funded by the grant this year will allow “opportunities for socialization and improved quality of life,” according to the staff report, and include the Youth & Government program and Tiny Tots Sports program for youth and Food, Fun and Fellowship program for seniors. 

“We talked some time ago about adding more programming for our youth that is not just sports,” said council member Dionne Adams. “I love how (the city) is weaving in the whole child — that’s what I call it — so the other things besides sports, to be a part of our offerings to really empower our youth.”

The funding will also support the Senior Services Division through a printed newsletter for older residents and the Empowerment in Motion program, which gives young girls and women a “sense of self-assurance and resilience” by teaching them how to navigate their environment safely, according to the program. 

The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors first approved allocations for the programs in August, with each program in Pittsburg receiving up to $10,000 per year.

The KCFM has previously funded a music and arts festival for Bay Point and Pittsburg youth, surveillance along Highway 4 between Bay Point and Antioch to combat gang-related shootings and a career training program for residents of Bay Point and Pittsburg.

Pittsburg pursues millions of dollars for street safety

Pittsburg officials are hoping two grants will bring in over $3 million in funding to support street safety after over 900 crashes — many of them at night and more than 70 at one arterial thoroughfare located by various schools — happened between 2019 and 2024. 

Council members authorized the applications for the Safe Streets and Roads for All from the U.S. Department of Transportation and Highway Safety Improvement Program through Caltrans. 

Pittsburg would receive $2,612,700 from the Highway Safety Improvement Program and $510,000 from the Safe Streets and Roads for All. 

If awarded, the grant from Caltrans would go toward upgrading traffic signal hardware, improving sidewalks with enhanced safety elements and the installation of streetlights.

The Department of Transportation grant would be used to collect community feedback on transportation issues, conduct an equity analysis and update plans for addressing infrastructure to better serve individuals with disabilities. 

Pittsburg’s plan for funding from Caltrans would focus on Harbor Street, which is used by students attending Highlands Elementary, Hillview Junior Elementary and Pittsburg High schools. The 71 collisions along Harbor Street between 2019 and 2024 resulted in four deaths. 

“Ensuring that children have safe routes to school is a crucial aspect to community planning and parental concern,” Matthew Belasco, Pittsburg Unified School District’s director of maintenance, operations and transportation, wrote in a Sept. 9 letter to City Manager Garrett Evans. “By improving lighting and traffic signals intersections along Harbor Street, we can eliminate a lot of the traffic accidents and hazards that currently exist.” 

The next Pittsburg City Council meeting is Nov. 4.