Meetings set at Villa Maria to discuss shale-gas drilling
Staff report
VILLA MARIA, Pa.
An educational town-hall meeting on shale-gas drilling in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio is scheduled from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Dec. 8 in Magnificat Dining Hall at Villa Maria Community Center.
Speakers will be Douglas Shields, who represents the 5th Council District in Pittsburgh. Shields, who has served on Pittsburgh City Council since January 2004, also was council president from 2008 to 2010.
This July, Shields introduced legislation in council to add a referendum on the Nov. 8 general-election ballot that proposed an incorporation of a “Bill of Rights” and ban of corporate gas extraction to the Home Rule Charter.
On Nov. 16, Pittsburgh adopted a first-in-the- nation ordinance banning corporations from natural- gas drilling in the city. Faced with the potential for drilling — and the controversial practice known as “fracking” or hydraulic fracturing — within city limits, council unanimously said “no.”
For information, call 724-964-8920, ext. 3331, or visit www.humilityofmary.org.