Harrisburg city hall
Harrisburg has publicly released a scathing email allegedly from the city’s former communications director that criticizes several key officials, as well as a refutation of those charges.
On Friday evening, the city’s business administrator, Antonio Megna, publicly released an email entitled “Things Council Needs to Know,” which former communications director, Mischelle Moyer, allegedly sent to City Council on June 17.
The email made numerous charges against city officials, including Mayor Wanda Williams and Deputy Director of Public Works Dave West. Most of the claims involved the city’s inability to spend all the money in a grant for parks improvements, as well as the alleged granting of raises to several officials, which the city denies.
Other charges against city employees in the email include an alleged altercation, unprofessional behavior and favoritism.
“I am not asking you to believe all of this, I am asking you to check it all out,” the email states. “You will find out if it is true, or find out a lot of lies to cover it all up.”
The city included its own response to the charges, saying that the claims were false, inaccurate, “snarky” and vulgar. Moreover, it said that the email was sent to council by “an anonymous” source from outside the city, but that it later was traced to Moyer, who then was fired.
“All of that says more about its author than anyone else,” stated the city’s response.
The email has been the subject of numerous right-to-know requests from media, but the city stated that it did not release the email because of those requests.
“The city’s legal determination was made that the document does not qualify as a public record under the Right-To-Know Law. It is being released anyway, at the direction of Mayor Williams, as its contents have been the source of reckless speculation,” the city’s response stated.
In its unsigned response, the city calls the email a “diatribe,” a “rant” and “gossip.” In publicly releasing the email and the city’s response, Megna states that “the city has no further comment at this time.”
The email makes several claims that undeserved raises were granted to certain city officials, including those in charge of the park project, which resulted in the city needing to reallocate $1.9 million to complete the project.
“. . . what is their reward? A RAISE!” the email states.
In its response, the city denies that.
“Raises were proposed for some of the named employees, but ultimately were not approved,” according to the response.
The parks and rec department faced a funding shortage for construction at 7th & Radnor, Gorgas, Wilson and Reservoir parks after the timeline to use a $13 million state grant expired. By not completing work at the parks by the deadline, which was extended several times, the city could not use about $2.8 million in the grant money.
Additionally, state officials said that, because construction was not complete at Reservoir Park by the deadline, the $2.3 million spent on Reservoir must also be returned, because the grant requires parks to be usable.
Click here to read the full email to the city clerk: Things Council Needs to Know
Click here to reach the city’s full response; City Statement_Things Council Needs to Know Letter_7.24.2026
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