Nasty Little Man

Harrisbug Zero: Mayor Steve Reed

Usually, the Harrisburg Hero and Harrisburg Zero awards are reserved for those in state government. However, today the mayor of Harrisburg, Stephen Reed, deserves the Zero.

There is a dispute at the moment between hiz honor and city council over how much money the city should borrow in order to maintain its budget without layoffs and a minimal tax increase. The council approved a loan but not as much as the mayor suggested. Now the mayor is laying off workers, including police officers and fire fighters.

I'm not going to pretend to know what the best solution is. Few of us actually know who is correct here and whether or not the city can get by on what the council approved. Admittedly, it seems a little strange to borrow money in order to maintain financial health. I'm not sure how you can be financially healthy when you are borrowing money.

But Mayor Reed gets the Zero for his ongoing support of the Harrisburg Incinerator, which is one of the major drains on city resources. I lived in South Harrisburg for five years, about a mile- as the crow flies- from the incinerator, and attended numerous meetings on the issue, some organized by the Stop the Burn coalition and some sponsored by DEP.

In those days, the message residents were sending to the mayor was clear: The incinerator is too damn expensive. Shut it down.

But the Mayor, in a leadership style that would make only George W. Bush proud, refused to listen to and work with these citizens. He plowed forward with the incinerator project, which at that time was spewing fumes into the air 30 times higher than EPA standards. It was only when the state DEP forced his hand and mandated a shutdown that the mayor finally did something about it. And then he and the city council opted for an upgrade- an upgrade that was supposed to launch in January but still hasn't started and is going to cost the city an additional $13 million, on top of the $80 million that has already been spent. The incinerator generates electricity through steam and was expected to put revenue in the city's pocket, but since it has yet to launch, that cash is not there while the incinerator itself is responsible for more than $100 million in city debt.

Built in the 1970s for about $9 million, the problem-plagued incinerator was finally shut down in June 2003 by the state for routinely violating emission standards. Its legacy is $104 million in debt that was rolled over into a new borrowing to be paid off over 30 years, along with $100 million in interest. Reed, with City Council support, gambled that a new incinerator (carrying an additional debt load of $125 million) not only would pay for itself but would also cover the debt on the old one.

The mayor's numbers indicated this was possible. But they also indicated that the incinerator would have to run at near perfection and at full capacity to achieve revenue projections. Given the city's history operating an incinerator, that seemed, even at the time, more than a stretch.

The city is in a serious financial bind that isn't going to be solved by short-term borrowing or juggling the books. The chickens are coming home to roost

Patriot News editorial: Council should authorize loan, take a hard look at budget

Those were heady days when I was going to those meetings. It was when I first started getting active in community issues, and this one was and is important. If the mayor had listened to us then, maybe the city wouldn't be where it is now.

posted by Kinder Gentler Little Man @ 8:49 AM