My name is Eric Papenfuse and I am pleased to announce today that I am running as a Democrat for one of four at-large seats on Harrisburg’s City Council.  I am running because now, more than ever, we need thoughtful and creative legislators who will work to guide our City through a time of economic uncertainty.  Now, more than ever, our next Mayor will need wise counselors who recognize the need for fiscal responsibility and are prepared to exercise judicious oversight of all city departments and programs.

In November of 2007 this City had a choice.  We could have sold the Harrisburg incinerator before doubling its total debt burden to where it now stands, at nearly three quarters of a billion dollars.  We could have rejected a flawed operating agreement with Covanta that effectively precluded other interested parties from offering competitive bids to purchase the incinerator.  We could have developed a financial strategy to deal with a finite and manageable amount of stranded debt as would have resulted from the incinerator’s 2007 sale rather than simply pushing the burden onto future generations.

I resigned from the Harrisburg Authority in protest of the lack of a comprehensive financial plan.  We still have no plan for how to address the 10 to 20 million-dollar deficit – per year – that will exist for the rest of my lifetime.  The Chairman of the Harrisburg Authority and one Mayoral candidate say we shouldn’t raise trash rates on City residents.  I agree, but that is not a financial plan. 

In fact, the so-called comprehensive plan they pushed in 2007 called for re-payment of the debt burden almost entirely through rate increases – the bulk of which, by no coincidence, are to come after this May’s elections.  Our incumbent Mayor says – finally – that we should sell the incinerator – now that we have doubled its debt, eliminated the possibility of a competitive bidding process, and are actually likely to get less in return than we would have in 2007.  That is not a financial plan and it is not the easy solution now that some may wish it to be.

I showed the correct judgment in 2007 when the new Harrisburg Authority Board – in the only decision it had before it that really mattered – voted to accept the exact same borrow-now, pay-later plan that the old Board had advocated.  One political agenda replaced another and the status quo – not real, meaningful change – won.  I resigned from the Harrisburg Authority the night City Council voted to double the incinerator’s long-term debt without having the ability to pay for it down the line.  I recognized then, as I do now, that the financial burden of the incinerator is for future City Councils to solve.

Let’s begin now, with this election:  I pledge to solve the burden placed on the City budget by the Harrisburg Authority’s failed fiscal management, through the necessary sale of certain City assets, a careful elimination of wasteful City spending, made possible to achieve through the enactment of a line-item budget, and the generation of new City revenue through a reversal of the mass exodus of businesses and families from Harrisburg, which is the true narrative of the recent years of failed civic policies.

But, there was a second reason I resigned from the Harrisburg Authority, and, I suspect, that is likely why many of you in the media are here today.  At the time, I was cooperating with the FBI in a wide-ranging corruption investigation of numerous City officials – that had begun with an examination of the failed Barlow retrofit and continued into the Mayor’s illegal use of the Harrisburg Authority’s Special Projects Fund to purchase artifacts and, indeed, reimburse himself and others to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

Some of you may recall that, in the fall of 2007, I went public with newly released documents from the Harrisburg Authority’s archives showing that the Mayor had illegally used funds from City-sponsored financing projects to bankroll his multi-million dollar acquisition of artifacts, including personal reimbursements for thousands of dollars of items that had poorly documented receipts and whose locations were unknown.  The public corruption unit of the FBI immediately contacted me, said they were already investigating such forms of corruption related to the incinerator, and asked me to let them handle the investigation and not go to the state Attorney General.

For many months – including during my trip to the auction in Dallas – I cooperated with the FBI by providing them with mountains of Authority files that proved, in my judgment at least, a pattern of personally-enriching criminal activity regarding the finances of the Harrisburg Authority.  I relate to you tonight, for the first time, that it was confirmed to me that this was an active public corruption investigation, and that for many months I met with a variety of agents in unmarked cars and on street corners throughout Harrisburg.  I was given a code name and asked at one point to wear a wire.  I provided documentation from the Authority archives and supplied background on numerous Harrisburg officials.  The night of my resignation, I had been directed by the US attorney to keep a low profile and avoid the media spotlight, which I tried to honor by not discussing my involvement publically until now.

And why am I speaking up now?  Because, ultimately, there are two ways of fighting public corruption.  One is through indictments, and the other is though the ballot-box.  After more than a year of gathering evidence and assisting the FBI in silence, I do not feel I am harming their investigation and I cannot let the moment pass when we may restore honor and integrity to City government through new elections.

Now, more than ever, we must end the practice of pay-to-play in this city that rewards those who make political contributions in exchange for opportunities to profit, often at the public’s expense.  We live in a community that is dived by race and cleft by the burdens of poverty.  Unless we coalesce around the common goal of creating a better future for all our residents – not simply the privileged few – I fear that the potential polarization of this election cycle may split us asunder.

In Harrisburg today, the failed Mayoral takeover of the School District continues to separate us into the haves and have-nots.  We must establish new priorities that value schoolbooks over buildings and children’s whole lives over Administrative salaries.   We must rethink our insistence on simply training workers and instead empower new leaders. Effective training in the liberal arts, and not merely a science-centered curricular strategy, is essential.  Encouraging parents and relatives to take active roles in their children’s educations is equally important – and this, ultimately, is why we need a School Board that is popularly elected, because the community must be directly connected to those making decisions regarding educational policy.  I am under no illusions as to the ease of this solution, but City Council can and should do much more to inspire an active and engaged citizenry.

Only an open and transparent government will be able to do this.  We must not settle for the acceptance of mediocrity in our City departments.  If we want clean streets, we must demand that our Public Works Department do better than simply assuming that certain neighborhoods will always be littered with trash.  If we want fewer blighted properties, we must insist that our Codes Department enforce violations and not merely accept that blight will always exist despite their efforts.  If we want safer neighborhoods, we must insist that our police force doesn’t give up on enforcing crimes such as drug-dealing and prostitution.  We must direct our Police Chief to hire officers who look like the communities they are policing.  They must get out of their cars and into the streets; we must require that they work and live among us as the role models they intrinsically are and should be.

If we want commercial-free parks, we must insist that out Parks Department be subject to a public planning process.  If we want more taxable properties, we should insist that our Redevelopment Authority relinquish its wide-ranging holdings.  If we want more businesses moving into the City and creating new jobs, we should make sure that our Building and Housing Department does more to advertise Harrisburg’s merits while making it easier for small businesses to get started.  If we want modern, more business-friendly zoning regulations, we should insist that our Planning Department re-write the outdated zoning code.

Harrisburg can do better! 

Our City Council can exert its proper oversight authority.  Rather than lament that citizens do not come to meetings, we should take the meetings to them.  Channel 20 should be directed to broadcast school-board meetings and other neighborhood events – not simply Mayoral ribbon cuttings.

I ask for your support, because we will need it in the months to come, to build a coalition of all those who say we can do better – all those who say we can work together to tear down the barriers that divide us.  Our best days are yet to come. 

Thank you.

                                                                        Eric Papenfuse

                                                                        Harrisburg, PA

                                                                        February 2009