It didn’t have to end up this way. “It” is the mountain of debt that has buried Harrisburg, a burden that has led to bankruptcy filing and a state takeover of municipal finances.
That was the underlying message that emerged from a forum held last month marking the 20th anniversary of Harrisburg 13, a group of citizens who, in 1992, attempted to halt what they believed was the unauthorized spending of the former Reed administration.
“For me, it was just my small attempt to make government work the way it was supposed to work,” said Wendi Taylor, a plaintiff and former Patriot-News reporter.
Midtown Scholar Bookstore hosted the forum, which included several members of the original 13, plus their attorney, Steven Schiffman.
“We knew that Steve Reed’s creative financing would come tumbling down, just like a house of cards,” said Evelyn Daniel Warfield, who, like several of the panelists, started out as a Reed supporter.
The group explained how, in 1992, residents banded together to sue the administration after it began spending $7 million—gained by selling the city’s water system—without the approval of City Council.
The action, they argued, violated a Commonwealth Court decision that stated that the council had to approve contracts on behalf of the city.
“The sale of water system to the Harrisburg Authority was just a way of getting hold of money,” said Schiffman.
The group won its suit—eventually. Five years passed before Dauphin Country Judge Joseph Kleinfelter issued his ruling for unauthorized spending and the council, controlled by Reed loyalists, for allowing it to happen.
By then, though, the money was gone, spent in a variety of ways, including to establish the now-infamous revolving loan fund, which leant public money to private businesses, many of which later went bankrupt and/ or never paid it back.
Another chunk of money went to demolishing the landmark Warner Hotel and for financing a field for an indoor soccer team.
Meanwhile, the administration’s reckless spending continued in other ways, the panelists said. Money was diverted from utility funds to pay for pet projects, such as buying artifacts for a series of planned museums.
And, every four years, City Council was refreshed with a new crop of priorities, including a retrofit of the city incinerator, a debacle that has pushed Harrisburg into insolvency.
Therefore, in the end, the group seemed to agree that their efforts were largely futile.
“I think the people in Harrisburg were afraid,” Taylor. “They were afraid of living without Steve Reed, and they were afraid of living with Steve Reed.”
They feared living without him because, though 28 years as mayor, he did help spark a revival of bars and restaurants downtown. However, the revival, they said, came at a great cost, as insufficient funds were spent rebuilding neighborhoods. Also, much money was borrowed or used in questionable ways—with one man controlling how it would be spent, they said.
Indeed, former receiver David Unkovic himself said the city “has been mismanaged for 20 years.” Several panelists pointed the blame beyond Reed to others—professional service firms, Dauphin County, the state, which even allowed Reed to take over the city’s school system, now collapsing under its own massive debt load.
“It wasn’t just Mayor Reed,” said Harrisburg 13 plaintiff Rebecca Myers. “I think it took a lot of people to make this happen. There was a lot of collusion.”
