Primary day is just around the corner, and four candidates for mayor—Lewis Butts Jr., Dan Miller, Eric Papenfuse and Linda Thompson—want your vote on May 21.
To help inform our readers, TheBurg asked each candidate to answer the same three questions. Their answers are insightful and even intriguing. We exercised a light editing hand to capture the candidates’ responses most honestly.
Lewis Butts Jr.
1. What’s your position on the financial recovery strategy being implemented by the receiver? Do you favor or not favor municipal bankruptcy for Harrisburg?
I am not in favor of bankruptcy. To show fiscal responsibility, we must work with the receivership to implement my comprehensive plan that addresses new revenue streams that will satisfy our creditors as well as the receivership. We must create jobs by presenting a vision and plan for the citizenry that benefit the citizenry.
2. If you are elected as mayor, what is one chief community development or anti-crime initiative you would work to implement?
I have a two-tier approach to reducing crime while improving transparency within our city. First, in Wi-Fying Harrisburg, we will create a vehicle of communication, education and security. With a Wi-Fi cloud around Harrisburg, we can erect security cameras anywhere we deem. Our administration will become more transparent. Funding for the cloud will come from Google. Second, to produce more culturally competent officers, we will create a Harrisburg Police Academy in the high school and train cadets who were raised in the city by the city. They will understand the demographics of our city by being a product of the environment.
3. What, in your opinion, does Harrisburg need to better promote economic development in the city?
Harrisburg needs to adopt a new marketing strategy, which integrates easier in the tourism industry. We need to create new tourism attractions. My platform consists of the erections of the Harrisburg International Aquarium (HIA) located at the old Post Office on Market Street. This will attract millions of visitors. The advantages are that it’s on the rail line, and the aquarium will offer more than 500 jobs to the capital city. The hydroelectric dam will create a revenue flow of over $240 million annually, and, by enhancing our natural environment, we will create a new image for our citizenry and visitors. I will create more heritage parks that illustrate our contributions to the Civil War in the Uptown districts. I will also create a PennDOT Plaza; it will have nine eateries and 17 retail shops and will attract patrons of PennDOT, as well as state employees.
Dan Miller
1. What’s your position on the financial recovery strategy being implemented by the receiver? Do you favor or not favor municipal bankruptcy for Harrisburg?
I do not support the Corbett administration’s Recovery Plan for Harrisburg, which has doubled income taxes on residents and offers to sell the city’s revenue-producing assets, such as the parking garages. This punishes citizens and is bad fiscal policy. Why should the city sell what brings in money? Unlike the Recovery Plan, bankruptcy will require shared sacrifices not just from citizens, but also from outside interests such as the municipal insurance company, which guaranteed this bad debt. Bankruptcy will steer Harrisburg towards fiscal revival, whereas the Recovery Plan will not.
2. If you are elected as mayor, what is one chief community development or anti-crime initiative you would work to implement?
Public safety is one of the most important issues facing the City of Harrisburg, and mitigating gun violence is of the highest priority. First, I would establish an Anti-Gun Enforcement Program in the Criminal Investigations Division of the Bureau of Police to give the issue the attention it deserves. Rather than cordon off a small area for a few days, I will implement a proactive policing strategy targeting a long-lasting reduction in gun violence. A top priority will be to make certain that every streetlight in the city is working.
3. What, in your opinion, does Harrisburg need to better promote economic development in the city?
In addition to creating financial stability and promoting public safety, I will strengthen the city’s basic services for lighted streets without potholes and with timely snow removal; as well as for solid water mains and clean, safe parks.
Clearly, Harrisburg’s revival depends on basic city services. A safe, well-maintained Harrisburg would attract businesses and creative, working people to locate here and to enjoy its natural and urban wealth. A safe and appealing city is good for residents and critical to economic growth.
Eric Papenfuse
1. What’s your position on the financial recovery strategy being implemented by the receiver? Do you favor or not favor municipal bankruptcy for Harrisburg?
I do not favor municipal bankruptcy for Harrisburg. Bankruptcy would bring significant negative impacts for both businesses in Harrisburg and residents. I support the receiver’s efforts to negotiate a fair settlement of Harrisburg’s debt, and there are clear signs of success. If the receiver is able to effect a plan to relieve Harrisburg of the massive debt generated by years of mismanagement, the city will be poised for a new era of growth. It will then need solid leadership to restore confidence and trust.
2. If you are elected as mayor, what is one chief community development or anti-crime initiative you would work to implement?
Fighting crime in Harrisburg must focus on its root causes, as well as on details like increasing street lighting in our neighborhoods and neighborhood policing. But the single most important thing we can do to impact crime is to improve Harrisburg’s schools. We will focus our efforts on exploring innovative ways to improve education, including helping to provide parents options in where they send their children to school. I propose keeping school libraries open late so that students have a safe haven for the evening hours. And we must work with non-profits to create after-school and mentoring opportunities. I will launch a task force to research what is working in other parts of the nation and provide recommendations for what will work in Harrisburg.
3. What, in your opinion, does Harrisburg need to better promote economic development in the city?
Harrisburg needs a mayor who will cooperate and welcome business interests into our city. The city presently does not even have an economic development official. The mayor is the prime ambassador for the city and establishes the image that is reflected throughout the region, country and the world. I would move to immediately improve Harrisburg’s image as collaborative and cooperative with neighboring areas and with business interests.
I have a comprehensive plan to encourage economic development that includes the following priorities:
- Creating an economic map of the city, neighborhood by neighborhood, to determine needs for small businesses and services.
- Supporting smart use of tax abatements to spur new commercial development and to support improvement of residential real estate.
- Creating a Business Incubation Plan to assist small businesses.
- Supporting smart and effective use of KOZs to stimulate development in the city.
- Partnering with CREDC, the African American and Latino chambers to support their initiatives, possibly offering office space in City Hall to strengthen cooperation between city and small business.
- Rebranding the city as a warm, friendly and progressive city that is open for business.
Mayor Linda Thompson
1. What’s your position on the financial recovery strategy being implemented by the receiver? Do you favor or not favor municipal bankruptcy for Harrisburg?
I have supported the receiver’s plan and worked closely with the receiver and his team to implement the plan. I have said bankruptcy is an option of last resort if needed to leverage participation in the debt solution, which would be done in cooperation with the receiver. Implementation of his plan, which is very similar to the original Act 47 plan and my Act 47 plan, requires significant work beyond the day-to-day operations in City Hall. We are focused on a solution to the debt crisis, but also working to improve city services to Harrisburg residents. We’ve had our challenges, but I feel we are making real progress for our residents. Some have advocated filing bankruptcy without a plan. This would have been catastrophic for the citizens of our city. The cooperative approach with my administration, the receiver, City Council and the county is working. The city will soon complete the monetization of the incinerator and the parking facility, which would eliminate all related incinerator debt.
2. If you are re-elected as mayor, what is one chief community development or anti-crime initiative you would work to implement?
The city administration has instituted the Neighborhood Safe Zone Initiative in several neighborhoods in the city, and it is an excellent way to focus resources on a stressed neighborhood to implement police actions, ordinance violations and other social services, which clamp down on street crime, while we build community stability and local cooperation with our police and social service programs. We are arresting criminals in our city, and we are taking firm action to right blight.
3. What, in your opinion, does Harrisburg need to better promote economic development in the city?
This administration continues with our strong message that Harrisburg is open and welcoming to business. We are growing our tax base and creating job opportunities for our residents. Since 2010, we have issued 1,800 new business licenses and created 1,442 new full- and part-time jobs. Promoting economic development starts with the same things city residents want: a safe city; an efficient, well-run city government that provides information and is timely with permits; one that encourages investment; and a solution to the debt problem, which has created many false perceptions about the city. Progress is taking place in all areas. Solution to the debt crisis will send a positive message about the stability and the costs of doing business in our city. These are basic things that businesses and developers interested in developing in our city need to know. When we are successful with development, it demonstrates certainty about the future. Reasonable city fees and taxes, competency and cooperation of the city administration and public safety are key. We need younger and older professionals living in our city to increase the city’s tax base, and who will support our local businesses and grow additional businesses that produce income for the city, so we can focus reinvestment in our more distressed neighborhoods. Offering more incentives, like the LERTA and KOZ program that I have proposed and state tax credits, will help promote economic development.
