Skip to content

“…denied,” says PA Supreme Court

In what we believe to be the final action related to the failed efforts to use an unused, shortsighted, and outdated law from the early 1900s to annex Wilkinsburg into Pittsburgh, on April 17, 2024, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied the appeal of the annexation petitioners.

In the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Western District. In re: Proposed Annexation of Wilkinsburg by the City of Pittsburgh. Intervenor objectors: Carmen Brown, Renee Haynes-Johnson, Borough of Wilkinsburg, Moira Kaleida, Angel Gober, Susan Oerkvitz, Pamela Harbin, and Evan Gascoine. Petition of: Tracey Evans, Monica Garcia, Debra Raubenstrauch, Vanessa Buffry, and Michael Rose. No. 205 WAL 2023. Petition for Allowance of Appeal from the Order of the Commonwealth Court. Order. Per curiam, and now, this 17th day of April, 2024, the Petition for Allowance of Appeal is DENIED.

We held that annexation wasn’t good for Wilkinsburg and would never happen. We said it was dead, but the Wilkinsburg Community Development Corporation and the Wilkinsburg Action Committee it funded tried and tried to make it happen, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the failed attempt. That money could have been spent in ways that actually helped Wilkinsburg residents and business owners.

Now, and forever, annexation is dead.

One may ask, What is Wilkinsburg Future now?

We’re out in the community, working to restructure the borough government. Some of our members have run and been elected to office. Some are working on community organization efforts that others with money and power haven’t tried. Some of us are moving on, having expended tremendous effort to fight misinformation and bad math for almost four years. We don’t know what the future holds for Wilkinsburg Future as it once was, but we know now that Wilkinsburg has a future.