Voting is now open through December 31^st for your favorite decorated houses.  Click on the link to see the houses and cast your votes. ForestHillsPa.gov/survey

Thank you to everyone who joined us this Friday for the Holiday Neighborhood Car Cruise.  It was a wonderful  evening of touring Forest Hills and enjoying the holiday decorations.

If you were unable to attend you can still take your own self conducted tour.  Click this link to download a copy of the Holiday Neighborhood Car Cruise Tour Route. The houses that entered the Holiday House Decorating Contest are also listed. Note: the tour route may not pass all houses but you are encouraged to visit them and vote in the online poll here available starting December 21st.

Mayor Frank Porco

Beginning in 2025, Wilkinsburg Penn Joint Water Authority (WPJWA) will be assuming the sewer billing duties for the Borough of Forest Hills.  As a resident and/or rate payer, this means that:

1. You will no longer receive green postcards and will not be able to pay new sewage bills at the Borough office.
2. Your bill will now be integrated with your monthly water bills.
3. Any late or missing payments for bills dated January 1, 2025 forward will be handled by WPJWA
4. Any payment plans or arrangements made with the Borough for bills prior to January 1, 2025 will be handled by the Borough.

Because of a delay in the Borough billing process, Forest Hills will not be issuing a 4th quarter bill, which would normally be mailed in February.  WPJWA will bill the 4th quarter spread equally in the January-April (4) billing cycles.  Beginning in May, 2025 the sewage portion of your bill will immediately reflect the actual use.

The Borough has launched a new online bill pay portal, the Citizen Action Center (CAC) to better serve our customers.

Some of the new features include:

• Saving payment information for future use.
• Setting up recurring payments.
• Opting in for e-billing.
• Registering multiple billing accounts to a single CAC account.

The Citizen Action Center accepts both card and E-Check payments.

For this transition, all customers must create a new online profile to access the updated portal and new features. Please refer to the most recent copy of your bills for the 10-digit account number.

https://foresthillspa.citizenactioncenter.com

Prevent dangerous trash fires and protect the environment by properly disposing of batteries. For lithium batteries, go to call2recycle.org or earth911.com. For common batteries and other items not permitted in your normal trash, Forest Hills residents should use our convenient At Your Door Special Collection program. Details found at foresthillspa.gov. or at https://wmatyourdoor.com/residential/residential-request?zipcode=15221

Forest Hills is pleased to announce our new online Membership and Class Registration Program. Click Here to apply for Pool Memberships, Pool Passes, Tennis Memberships, Pickle Ball Memberships, Swim Team Memberships, and Classes. Over the next few weeks online Facility Rentals will be added to the program. This replaces the old paper, phone, and email process.

Council business meetings are held in person at the Forest Hills Borough Building, 4400 Greensburg Pike and open to the public. Meetings are also live-streamed on the borough’s YouTube channel (Tree City TV).

If you have an issue that you would like council or the Mayor to address but cannot attend a meeting, please click here.

Please Take Note To Ensure Your Payments Are Received By The Correct Department

Refuse, sewage, fire payments and local service tax (LST) should be placed in an envelope and mailed to (or placed in the drop box located at the main entrance):

Borough of Forest Hills
4400 Greensburg Pike
Pittsburgh, PA 15221

Starting in January 2024 school and borough real estate taxes must be mailed to:

Jordan Tax Service,
102 Rahway Road,
McMurray, PA 15317

Please do not drop off or mail Tax Collector payments to the Borough of Forest Hills.

On September 18, 2023 a public meeting was held on Deer Management. The meeting video can be viewed on Tree City TV by clicking here .

The county has launched a new Recycling Drop-Off Finder. The new tool is available online and includes a searchable database, with map, to help residents identify drop-off places for disposal or recycling, including hard-to-recycle items. The collaboration between Health, Sustainability and Information Technology recently went live at https://alleghenycounty.us/recyclingfinder.

The new Recycling Drop-off Finder does not contain information on curbside pickups but provides support to residents searching for what to do with items like batteries, electronics, or tires. These items are typically ones not accepted in curbside programs.

Thank you to all who participated in this survey.  The results are available here.   A subcommittee is reviewing the data and will submit recommendations to council sometime in the new year.  Those recommendations will be posted to the website when they become available.

The Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) measures air quality every day using monitors throughout the County, and the readings of those monitors are classified on an Air Quality Index (AQI). If the AQI is forecasted to be over 100 on a given day, ACHD issues an Air Quality Watch. If the AQI is measured at over 100, ACHD issues an Air Quality Warning. This information is then communicated over the Allegheny Alerts system.

If you would like to receive alerts go to www.alleghenycounty.us/alerts and enter your contact information. When an alert is sent on a topic you’ve chosen, you’ll receive it on the devices you’ve selected. Get an email at work, text on your cell and call at home – as many or few as you want. There’s even an app for it. You can add, delete and change your devices and topics any time. It’s all up to you.

To understand more about our air quality and the index check out the brochure here.

Forest Hills is now using Savvy Citizen, a notification system which allows municipalities to easily and effectively communicate with their residents via push notifications, text messages or e-mails. Savvy Citizen is more than a notification system as it allows Forest Hills to keep up to date on community events, helpful information, road closures, alerts and much more.

Available on Android, iPhone/iPad and desktop, residents of Forest Hills can choose to receive notifications with push alerts on their smart phone, or they can browse in-app for a full listing of their notifications, alerts and community events. Those without smartphones can sign up via www.savvycitizenapp.com/signup and select to have text notifications or e-mails sent to them.

Whether it is a road closure, a change in trash or recycling pick up due to a holiday, a fun local event or significant municipal meeting, Savvy Citizen has a complete scheduling system that allows municipalities to communicate with residents of Forest Hills.

Adagio Health is dedicated to providing prevention services to hard to reach resident populations – especially crucial cancer screening services such as mammograms via voucher program. For more information on the Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program call 1-800-215-7494.

The Allegheny County Sanitary Authority has created the Clean Water Assistance Fund to help families pay their sewage treatment bills. This program serves low-income homeowners in the 83 municipalities that ALCOSAN serves. It is administered by Dollar Energy Fund.  Learn more here.

For a limited time only, the Allegheny County Vacant Property Recovery Program will be accepting applications to acquire vacant properties for side yards to an owner-occupied primary residence or blighted structure remediation at a reduced cost to the applicant. Under the 2020 Side Yard and Blighted Structure Program, we will waive our standard parcel fee of $3,000 for applicants for a side yard to their primary residence and applicants proposing to demolish a blighted structure. We will reduce the fee to $1,400 for applicants proposing to rehabilitate a blighted structure. All applicants will also be responsible for the appraised value of the property, a good faith deposit, and closing costs. The application, which contains additional details about the Program guidelines, can be accessed at our website: www.alleghenycounty.us/VPRP. We are excited to announce that we will now be accepting electronic submissions to VPRP@AlleghenyCounty.us, as always, all required materials must be submitted at time of application.