Peoples Natural Gas is finding support in high places for their gambit to partner with the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. 

Since the company announced its wish to build a water treatment site in O’Hara Township, Pittsburgh activists, lawmakers and the authority itself have held growing concern about the prospect of the partnership. 

City Controller Michael Lamb blamed the city’s increased realty transfer tax for sluggish revenue numbers in the first half of 2018 Tuesday.

“It was an unnecessary increase that has been counterproductive to affordable housing,” Lamb said at a press conference. “We’re fighting to keep families in this city and the tax is an added hurdle in the way of enticing new people into town.”

A tiff between Uber and their former ally, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, opened up last week as the rideshare giant announced they were closing down testing of self-driving cars in Arizona — while gearing up to restart testing in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Sacramento.

The company came under scrutiny after the fatal crash that involved one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona, in March. In the aftermath Uber voluntarily halted its testing and government entities such as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation proposed safety measures to prevent similar instances. Uber remains under investigation for the accident.

With signs demanding transparency, community investment, and their very own ‘Alexa’ more than 20 community organizers and concerned residents gathered in front of the Pittsburgh City-County Building to ask that elected officials release their much discussed Amazon HQ2 bid to the public Wednesday.

Pittsburgh along with Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, and over a dozen other cities, is competing to land Amazon’s second headquarters. 

Motley Rice, LLC, a national plaintiff litigation firm, was selected after a request for qualifications went out from both municipalities last December, according to a press release.