Etna Borough belongs in District 21!

I am a nine-year resident of Etna Borough and a Pittsburgh native. An attempt to move Etna Borough from its current District 21 to the proposed suburban District 33 is a huge mistake that dilutes our neighborhood interests and separates us from our more local neighbors. With families and children at the core of many interests, we would be the only part of Shaler School District not in the same House District as our school-related neighbors. For many years, we have aligned ourselves with our neighboring Millvale and Sharpsburg Boroughs to create the Triboro Ecodistrict, which has successfully built community across borough-boundaries, and lobbied for grants and funding for projects. These boroughs are of similar size and with many similar concerns (aging infastructure, dense urban living, and concerns about stormwater and flooding) and allowing us to continue to be represented within one district is a more effective use of our collective voice. Our borough's ECO (Etna Neighborhood Organization) recently signed a memorandum of intent with Millvale Community Library as we intend to work with them to create a neighborhood library and community center of our own. Again, being in the same district as our immediate neighbors allows our voices to be united under the leadership of one representative, not two. I am very proud to be a constituent of our District 21 House Representative, Honorable Sara Innamorato, who attends community events, who has a responsive local office, and who genuinely cares about our neighborhood issues. I feel extremely skeptical that a politician representing such a large suburban area as is District 33 will have the same political interests and fear being lost in the shuffle and our issues not being considered as thoroughly and cohesively. It isn't often that we can unite with our City of Pittsburgh neighbors across the Allegheny River, and the concerns of our neighbors in Lawrenceville, Morningside, and Bloomfield are similar to ours as we all have common interests in sustainable transportation, biking and mass transit research, racial equity, and support for small businesses and local main streets. Finally, the newly proposed district map just looks wrong! Why take districts that are currently evenly shaped and sized and working well and instead annex Etna Borough into a new district? Visually we look like a sad, weird appendage on a conventionally-shaped district, and I can't help but wonder if our proposed District 33 representative would feel similarly about taking on our specific concerns and instead ignoring them to focus on more universal suburban concerns with their current constituents. Please don't disenfranchise us and dilute our Etna voices!