Pine’s World War I Veterans

The political environment of World War I was generations in the making. The alliance system in Europe was so complicated and sometimes so old that countries forgot who they were supposed to be allied with.

The alliance system was an extension of the centuries old ethnic problems. Serbs, Croats, Slavs, Hungarians all lived in close proximity to one another but felt their backgrounds and traditions would always keep them divided. Compound that with the changing economic environment of modernization and urbanization and it would seem the perfect storm had brewed.

World War I was ignited by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The tension in Europe was already high which escalated the situation.

The old alliance system in Europe created the impossible situation of endless declarations of war.

Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in retaliation of the assassination. Russia, despite a previous alliance with Austria-Hungary declared war on them to help defend Serbia. Germany decided to defend Austria-Hungary rather than Serbia and declared war on Russia. France tried to ignore the situation but was dragged into the war by an aggressive Germany who attacked Luxembourg. Germany also attacked Belgium. Britain declared war on Germany after they attacked Belgium.

The problem was that no one really knew what they were fighting for.

There was no specific bad guy. There was no great cause to fight for or against. It was just an endless war of wounded pride.

America entered the war after the Zimmerman telegraph revealed that Germany was trying to convince Mexico to attack the United States. The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917.

The residents of Pine Township felt the strains of war with many of their young men going off to war.

Only seven names are memorialized on the war memorial but many more from Pine served. There are two World War I veteran pictures in the Pine history booklet and I have found one additional name in the newspaper.

However, with this year being the 100^th anniversary it is important that we honor the men from Pine that served.

Names on war memorial: Arthur Beaver, Woodrow Cole, Thomas R. Haefner, Guy Hetrick, Wayne Jones, Lewis Uhlenburg.

Names of men pictured in Pine history book: Frank Laklia, Raymond McKinney Sr.

Name found in newspaper: Claude E. Adams.

If you have more information about local veterans please see my Looking For section.

Pine Mall: The finale

“No municipality has been successful in halting the avalanche of change that some call progress.” (News Record, May 8, 1976, page 4)

The election at the end of 1975 certainly made a mess of things in 1976.

The two new board supervisors, E. Stuart Savage and Nancy Mantia, two members of the Pine Township Citizens Association (PTCA), the organization fighting the construction of the Pine Mall, were going to use their new positions to stop the mall at any cost.

The first problem that arose, almost immediately in the new year was that Mr. Savage and Ms. Mantia voted to expand the Pine Planning Commission from five to seven positions. They were hoping to get more PTCA members involved to help block the construction of the mall. Although the planning commission’s vote doesn’t count, as the supervisors make the decision, it would help to have the support from the planning commission.

In February, the nomination process was heated with some residents demanding to know if nominees were members of the PTCA while Donald Peters, a supervisor, deflected by saying it wasn’t important.

The second problem was that the PTCA had hired a lawyer to fight the construction but now as township supervisors, Savage and Mantia hired a lawyer as special counsel for the township. Oxford pointed out they (Savage and Mantia) had been involved in legal action on both sides of the issue and many thought it was a conflict of interest. Some questioned whether they were still active in the PTCA even if publically they declared they were not.

In February, the first roadblock for Oxford Development, the organization building the mall, was when the new special council declared that the vote and subsequent signed agreements were not legal. Certain regulations were missing and guidelines apparently had not been followed. Gerald Weaver, a supervisor, had filed a suit with the Common Pleas Court and Commonwealth Court challenging the special council appointment. He said that since Savage and Mantia helped bring four suits against the township they were in conflict of interest. Oxford joined his suits.

Fed up with the construction delays, constant argumentative newspaper articles, and the attempted reversals by the supervisors, Oxford served Pine Township with an official notice which they published in the paper (News Record, April 4, 1976, page 19). The introduction and the letter informed the residents of Pine that Oxford intended to sue for liability that could reach $1 million in five months.

At the zoning meeting held after the publication of the letter the supervisors went ahead with their plan to rezone the proposed mall site. The site was zoned from commercial, allowing a mall, to residential, obviously not allowing a mall. The vote was 3 – 2.

The special council went on the record to defend his job and the supervisors saying that the Oxford letter may have been a criminal violation as it was trying to influence public servants.

In April, the Common Pleas Court ruled that the special council appointment was legal but that Pine must issue building permits.

But for several months there was a lull. The residents had to wait for more court matters to resolve and life continued. The biggest issue for several months was the drama of Pine Township’s new sewer system. Many meetings were held and questions asked and answered but it seemed the mall issue was dormant.

After months of only minor issues regarding the mall, a big news story. Oxford was suing the PTCA and ten of its members. The federal lawsuit said that they deprived Oxford of using the land as intended and wanted damages and fees paid by the defendants. Their damages listed totaled $140,000.

The PTCA members and former members may have been a little surprised since the courts had ordered their group to pay the court fees earlier in 1977. True, the group still had litigation pending but to this point Oxford had gotten almost everything it had wanted it. Still they felt harassed but many in Pine were confused.

More confusion arose when it came to light that Oxford had not paid its fees to Pine Township. Any construction project will have fees attached to it but Oxford owed the township more than $3000.

And then it happened. A new mall was proposed in Ross. In 1978 the Old Gumbert School property (McIntyre Square) was the home to McIntyre Child Welfare Shelter which housed 1,000 children each year.

The new shopping center or mall would be built on 60 acres and would be across the street from Northway Mall. Now the area had some thinking to do. Could the area support two large shopping malls (Northway and Pine) plus this new shopping center (Ross)? Could the developers build another mall for a total of three? Would Pine Mall be built at all? After all, it was five years now that Oxford had been fighting for the mall.

The residents of Ross, probably because they were already accustomed to a mall were much more receptive to the idea of new shopping center. The opposition came from the county instead. The McIntyre Shelter was an undesirable property for most communities and it was deemed easier to leave it there rather than find it a new home.

Nancy Mantia, township supervisor pounced on the news. At a supervisors meeting she said Pine was ideal for the children’s shelter, reminding residents that it was not a home for criminal children and at any one time it only housed 140 – 150 children. Her ally, E. Stuart Savage agreed, although they did not vote on it. Oxford’s statement was that the new proposal in Ross had no impact on their plans to build in Pine.

In May 1978, Oxford Development submitted plans to reconfigure their mall to include five department stores rather than just four. The new plan needed to be approved by the township supervisors which was comprised of a majority anti-mallers, as they had come to be known. The approval was delayed until July when it was approved 3 – 1.

Things again seemed to move forward, especially after U.S. District Court Judge Maurice Cohill signed a consent decree essentially ending all the legal battles in Pine Township.

The PTCA agreed to drop their lawsuits against the township and Oxford agreed to drop their lawsuit against the PTCA and all parties agreed to not sue each other for five years.

Finally, the groundbreaking began. The construction of a temporary retaining pond was being excavated before they began work on the permanent retaining pond that was required before they could actually excavate and prep the land for the mall. But a shortage of materials and a bad winter weather made the progress slow. Oxford had to have the land prepped for gas lines which could only be installed in May and October because of gas company policies. But the winter of 1979 was particularly harsh and Oxford was not able to make enough progress to get the gas line work done. That meant they would lose an entire construction season, pushing the opening of the mall to spring 1982.

In the fall of 1980, Ross Township approved a proposal by Frank Nascone to build a $65 million, 750,000 square foot mall on the old Schramm Farm property. The new Ross Park Mall proposal complicated the Pine Mall project. Multiple lawsuits and seven years later the Pine Mall was still not under construction. Only a temporary retention pond had been built but the project was on hold until the spring of 1981.

In the spring of 1981 a fancy announcement in a trade magazine, Shopping Center World, announced that Pine Mall was looking for tenants and would be opening in 1983.

Then in the fall of 1981 Oxford said they were facing adverse economic conditions and would be delaying work until next spring with an opening in the fall of 1983.

April 1982, supervisor Gerald Weaver assured residents the mall project wasn’t dead.

May 1983 Oxford announced they were delaying the construction of the mall until they learned what happened with Ross Park Mall.

Ross Park Mall opened in the summer of 1986 and somewhere before that the Pine Mall died.

The land cost $2 million to acquire. Oxford spent an unknown amount of money on fees and lawsuits. The drama played out in hours of public meetings and hearings and in the newspapers. And more than ten years passed.

And then, the most amazing development.

In 1990, Wexford Mills – the Wondermall was announced by Oxford Development. The location was to be in the now Village of Pine plaza. The newspapers celebrated the plan. Businesses supported it and the supervisors declared it great for the township. The jobs and the tax revenue!

But as with the first mall saga the residents fought. The Pine Resident Association (PRA) filed a lawsuit due to the rezoning that took place to accommodate the mall. It was over in 1993.

Another mall was proposed in 1995 near Cloverdale Estates this time by a different developer. The residents won. No mall.

As of now, there is no mall in Pine.

As I did research for the schoolhouse article and I learned how to use the newspaper database I saw many articles about Pine Mall which gave me the curiosity about the mall. After all, initially I saw dozens of articles, some of which were about the construction of the retention ponds. I needed to know what happened and why the mall wasn’t built. In the end, I printed more than 50 articles before I gave up printing. I read close to 200 articles and spent 60 to 70 hours.

The most frustrating part was the lack of information from 1980 on. The drama was high and then there was nothing. There were tons of editing to make the story understandable and then there was no information about how it ended. It was very anti-climactic.

I cannot express how glad I am this article is at an end. : )

Pine Mall: Part Two

Dora Morris, a resident of Pine wrote a letter to the paper (News Record, Wednesday, April 10, 1974), before the mall decision was announced, that the Pine Township Civic Association disbanded because of “poor attendance and apathy of the people.” Seems unbelievable given the uproar of the township because of the mall.

When the township supervisors decided against the mall, all they did was reject the request to rezone. The 160 acres was zoned for many different uses but not for the mall. Oxford Development was told to come up with a plan that already complied with the zoning.

And they did.

The new plan included a mobile home court, single family development on lots smaller than one acre, garden apartments, townhouses, high-rise apartments, and commercials strips.

Nine curative amendments needed changed to accommodate Oxford’s proposal. (A curative amendment simply challenges an ordinance because it does not have enough mixed land use available.) Oxford may have been counting on the fact that the Pine Township ordinances did not explicitly say the words mobile home as their basis to legally challenge the ordinances. The Supreme Court had ruled several times that municipalities had to accommodate all types of housing.

At the supervisors meeting, 150 people crammed into the municipal building. The mobilization of the township did not cease with the rejection of the mall proposal but many residents were questioning if the initial rejection of the mall was the best decision for the township. Maybe a mall would be better than a mobile home court some thought. Four hundred residents signed a petition asking to have the mall proposal reconsidered.

A public hearing, mandated by law, was set for June 13, 1974 at the Pine Junior High School. Residents would be allowed to present evidence but would not be allowed to express their opinions. They would also be allowed to have legal representation and to cross-examine witnesses. Oxford would bring their lawyers and be allowed to cross-examine if they wanted.

Oxford said that if the proposal did not pass it would appeal the Common Pleas Court.

Divisions in the township were apparent when the Pine Planning Commission, the organization that approved the mall initially only to have the supervisors reject it, was defending their importance to the community. In a newspaper article the commission declared their importance to the township and at their insistence there was no rivalry or hard feelings with the township supervisors.

Interestingly, ahead of the public hearing, Oxford reminded the community that they would still like to build the mall but they were looking all over the North Hills. Jack Szolis, president of the Pine Township Citizens Association was quoted as saying, “The new plan was proposed as a threat. It is blackmail. They have no intention to work with the community. They want to change the laws and build as they please.” Supervisor Gerald W. Weaver said, “It has no doubt occurred to Oxford that the new plan is unpalatable to many people in Pine.”

It did seem Oxford wanted to convince the people of Pine of the merits of building the mall. In the June 8^th edition of the News Record, an article about the benefits of building a mall, specifically, an Oxford Development mall, was published. The president of Bethel Park Chamber of Commerce explained there were many benefits to the community with the only detriment, if one really wanted to find something to complain about, was the increase in traffic. He quickly added that the roads had been expanded.

The article praised the increase in taxes, increased employment, and the new community feel since people no longer needed to travel to the city to shop.

On June 13, 1974 the first public hearing began with problems. The court reporter was late saying they couldn’t find the rural school. Then the microphone didn’t work.

Finally, Oxford began its attack on the township. The first blow was a public shaming of the Pine Planning Committee for not having their recommendation prepared. The Planning Commission said they had not finished looking at the issue. David W. Craig, attorney for Oxford Development, declared they would not close the hearing because they didn’t have the recommendation but they really felt it necessary.

The first issues examined at the hearing were the housing practices of the township. Oxford argued that if all housing developments were required to have one acre or more, people were being excluded because they couldn’t necessarily afford the land prices. The Pine Township Citizens Association (PTCA) argued that Allegheny County had a declining population but Pine was increasing, therefore, the one acre plus plots were not pricing out people.

The first evening was three and a half hours long.

The second hearing was on July 5^th and the drama of the Pine Planning Commission’s lack of recommendation continued. David Craig demanded an answer as to why the commission had not prepared their recommendation despite having been asked in May. The commission said they had not finished despite the original request for a recommendation in May. This was the first instance of Oxford being annoyed by the slow pace.

After the second meeting, Oxford got their wish but they may not have appreciated the answer. The Pine Planning Commission released their recommendation. Unanimously, they did not recommend the township accept Oxford’s new proposal. “No. The recommendation is that a couple of them are all right. We were unanimously opposed to the plan in principal.”

Ms. Dora Morris may have predicted a trend when she reminded the township of its tendency to apathy. The fervor that surrounded the Pine Mall and the new proposal was dying. Only fifty people attended the third hearing and with hearings expected to stretch at least into September fewer would probably attend. The delays were beginning to show cracks in the patience of Oxford Development who argued that “the township has to run more than two days a month.” By the fourth meeting only thirty people attended.

Oxford Development laid its legal groundwork by saying they believed the supervisors would reject the plan.

The main argument they had was that they followed the master plan that was developed in 1962. For example, one of the housing developments that Oxford wanted to develop was next to the Starlight Drive-In on Route 19. The master plan had planned on developing the land around the drive-in but of course it was now being argued against. It may have been that the residents were opposed to any development in the township but they may have also still harbored ill will over the mall.

By October, with hearings still occurring, and in reaction to the 400 signatures asking for a reconsideration, 686 residents signed a petition to block the construction of the mall. Jerry Richey, president of the North Hills Area Chamber of Commerce wrote a letter asking Pine to build the mall. They also called into question Pine’s commitment in building the North Hills. Richey believed that if the North Hills was to thrive every community needed to do its part and accept development.

After months of hearings, hours of testimony, countless editorials, and a crack in the township unity, Oxford Development submitted a new plan. If the township agreed to build the mall, they would develop low-rise apartments, garden townhomes, and single-family houses on one acre of land. A few small scale commercial properties will also be built but approximately 120 acres will be left as open space.

And it would start all over again. A public hearing to consider Oxfords new proposal would begin on February 19, 1975.

Ahead of the new public hearing, Pine Township Citizens Association hired a law firm, Tobias, Viola, Fastuca to represent them in their campaign to “Save Pine Township.” They raised the question of whether the supervisors were rezoning the township in a legal manner.

At the February 19^th hearing, after four and a half hours, the supervisors, in a 2 – 1 vote approved the mall. They agreed that the mall probably wouldn’t be so bad.

Jerry Weaver, one of the Pine Township supervisors who changed his vote to allow the construction of the Pine Mall said that he was seeing the ugly side of politics. He received hate mail with swastikas drawn on it and rumors that he was paid to change his vote. He explained that during the original vote he was 51 – 49 against the mall and over the last few months he changed his mind. Weaver went on to explain that he liked that Oxford gave some concessions such as building an overpass but that he was scared that Cranberry Township would build the mall and Pine would suffer from the development and gain none of the benefits.

Oxford moved forward with more approvals and detailed planning and they also had to contend with multiple lawsuits. One lawsuit questioned Pine’s changing of zoning laws with creating a new master plan. Another alleged illegal conduct by the supervisors. Rocco Viola Jr. alleged that “Pine supervisors met “secretly and clandestinely with Oxford officials, some of the meetings taking place in the solicitor’s office.””

As if the Pine Mall controversies were not enough Pine had a hotly contested election. The supervisors were expanding three seats to five and many of the members of PTCA ran.

Election day was hectic with reports of voter intimidation alleged against PTCA members. Rocco Viola Jr. complained that election judges were instructing people how to vote. In the end, two PTCA members, E. Stuart Savage and Nancy Mantia won.

With the election over, two new anti-mall supervisors, and many lawsuits and petitions in progress, 1976 was setting up to be one contentious year.