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E-mailMayor to use grant money to rid city of rat problem
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Jeremy Boren can be reached via e-mail or at 412-765-2312.
In a letter to City Council on Friday, Murphy said he would use unspent Community Development Block Grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to pay an "appropriate vendor" to perform rodent control.
It was unclear how much money would be spent or why it was left over, apparently from a grant in 2000. Murphy's office did not return a call for comment.
Murphy also renewed his vow to scrap a plan City Council approved last week to transfer $30,000 from an Office of Municipal Investigations account to pay a private contractor to work on rat control for the remainder of the year.
Murphy's plan calls for rat control efforts in the city's poor neighborhoods, which are eligible to receive CDBG money. Wealthier neighborhoods would be covered by several animal control officers working for the Department of Public Works who would be reassigned. Murphy did not say how many workers would be affected.
Murphy laid off the city's three-member rodent control squad in 2003 as part of extensive budget cuts designed to avoid imminent bankruptcy.
An effort by City Council in March to send the city's eight animal control officers to an eight-week certification course to learn how to bait rats safely failed when several officers refused to pay an upfront $60 fee for the final certification testing required by the state Department of Agriculture.
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