The past two months have been a whirlwind for Eric Papenfuse.
Since winning the Nov. 5 election, he’s had to pivot quickly from candidate to mayor-elect, setting up a transition office, establishing priorities, deciding on personnel and gearing up to lead Harrisburg, a city itself in transition.
In the midst of it all, he carved out some time last month to sit down with us to answer a few questions. The interview revealed a man who has thought deeply about his role: what it means to be the city’s mayor at this time, what he believes the office represents, and what Harrisburg needs to do to move beyond its troubled past.
It also showed just how fluid the situation here remains. Despite months of headlines on the Harrisburg Strong plan, the city’s multi-year financial recovery really is just starting. Meanwhile, the new administration plans major changes in how city government is run, with significant personnel changes expected, just as receiver William Lynch’s role begins to recede.
We were curious about all these issues—and many others—as Papenfuse met us in his transition headquarters just around the block from his future office on the second floor of City Hall.
TheBurg: What made you decide to run for mayor?
Papenfuse: I decided to run for mayor because I felt that our political discourse was broken. This is something that I had felt actually for a long time, but I was trying, through my efforts as a business owner at Midtown Scholar, to try and correct that, to provide a place where people would come together from throughout the city, diverse in race and class, including people from the West Shore and other parts of Dauphin County, all coming together to discuss the issues of the day. I felt that type of third space did not exist in Harrisburg until we really expanded the bookstore, and that was one of the reasons why the discourse was broken—not the only reason, but one of the reasons.
I also looked at our political leaders, and I felt that there was an opening for someone to run on a platform that actively sought to bring people together rather than to keep the city divided. By no fault of their own necessarily, but I felt that a Linda Thompson/Dan Miller matchup would have split along racial lines and class lines and geographic lines. And it wouldn’t have provided the unity necessary for a real recovery of the city as a whole. So, that’s why I decided to run, and I had hoped that someone else would step up and allow me to support that individual, but it didn’t happen. And I felt that I had an obligation to the community, to my family, to my business, to try and make this city better.
TheBurg: How would you describe what will be your governing style?
Papenfuse: I think it is appropriate that we’re doing this interview today because we’re about to hold the public meeting for the transition process. Tonight, at the high school, I’m bringing together all the various heads of my transition team to field public questions, to try and engage the public really for the first time ever in the transition process, let alone the governance process. I’m hoping that tonight signals two things. One, a new spirit and desire to really engage the public and to not see governance as simply top-down, where your leaders tell you how it must be, and you react. But, instead, the foundation of good government is in civic dialogue and conversation with the public.
So, that is my overarching strategy for how to move Harrisburg forward. It’s to model a new spirit of conversation with the public, to get the public invested. That’s going to be manifested in many different ways in the new administration. You’re going to see a desire to view City Council as equal, as an independent legislative branch that must exist on equal footing with the executive branch. And I’ve already gone out of my way, from a transition standpoint, to invite every member of City Council to be a part of the transition. Even in the inauguration, we are planning one event and opening it up to City Council and their families. It’s not going to be an elite event or an evening event. There’s no inaugural event. It’s going to be a humble event that hopes to signal this new spirit of collaboration.
One of the things we’ve talked about that, hopefully we’ll be able to see very, very early on, is fundamentally transforming the way individuals see government when they come into the city government center. Instead of having a metal detector and uniformed security guard, we envision a help desk. We envision people greeting you, actively fielding phone calls on behalf of the city, mobilizing volunteers—an active, engaged, vibrant, positive place to be, not one that seems somehow walled off from the community or is only a place where you go to pay a bill or something like that.
TheBurg: What do you see as the first order of business on day one?
Papenfuse: I have said that, on day one, I would meet with the attorney general. We’ve already put in a request to Kathleen Kane’s office, and we’ll try to make that happen before the close of business that day, as well.
Recently, I took my first tour of City Hall. Have you ever done a basement up tour? I had my first one. Room after room after room in City Hall are filled with files and documents that are orphaned or abandoned that no one really knows what’s there. We have to find out. We also have to look structurally and spatially about how we reorganize City Hall.
TheBurg: So, you’re saying that there may be documents in there that somehow are relevant to the city’s recent history?
Papenfuse: Yes. And I also think symbolically we need to move City Council out of the basement. They’re in substandard conditions at the moment. I think they deserve a bright, beautiful office where they can conduct business, as well. I’m going to look to do that very early on.
TheBurg: What is your first policy priority upon taking office?
Papenfuse: I’d have to say that the first priority is the reopening of the Harrisburg city budget. Now, there are many priorities, so don’t misinterpret that and say it won’t be focusing on public safety, etc. But it’s all going to be in context of the budget. The budget sets those priorities, and you’ll see an effort to reallocate funds within the budget to reflect the reports of the transition team.
So, the way the process is working is that the transition team—there are seven transition teams—they’re each going to author a report that will come to me before the Christmas holidays. We’re then going to spend a week or so synthesizing those reports, putting them together into one document, which eventually will become a public document, but which will also be the guiding document that we use to reopen the budget in January. My understanding is that we’ll have two weeks—intense weeks—to reopen the budget and to reallocate funds from one place to another.
We’ve looked through the budget carefully. We don’t see any additional revenue streams. I think the budget is responsible in that it doesn’t over-anticipate too much, but there’s certainly not an additional funding source available. So that means, to the extent that we feel economic development is a priority or something else is a priority, we have to fund that by reallocating funds from somewhere else. And that’s going to be the initial conversation. It’s going to be the initial focus of January, and hopefully there will be very good dialogue on that. I will make it a point to make sure that individuals on City Council—that I’ve had a one-on-one with them beforehand, that there are no surprises in any of the allocations that we’re requesting. Indeed, we’ve asked City Council members to be parts of all the transition teams, so hopefully they’ve had a hand in shaping the recommendations by those teams.
TheBurg: Where would you like to see more money disbursed?
Papenfuse: I will not prejudge the transition team report, but I think there is a consensus around this point that the city—and it’s in the Strong Plan—the city has to have a renewed emphasis on economic development. We really only have one option. Yes, we need to make sure that Harrisburg is a safe place to live. Yes, we have to make sure that the government is functioning well and communicating well, and there’s an emphasis on civic engagement. We have to do all that. But, unless we can expand Harrisburg’s tax base rather dramatically over the course of the next three years— unless we can bring in additional revenues through development, through making Harrisburg a place where people want to come and conduct business—then, ultimately, the Strong Plan will not be successful because it gives the city a finite window of time to rebuild its financial foundation. And the subsidies within the Strong Plan aren’t going to be there forever. So, we have to take advantage of this moment.
TheBurg: My philosophy has been, if you set the groundwork for what a city is supposed to do and make it more attractive through infrastructure improvements and through a more responsive and responsible government, you would have the desired effect of making the city a more attractive place to live and work. I say that as opposed to putting effort into a more directed economic development strategy apart from that.
Papenfuse: I don’t think it’s apart from it at all. I think the strategy needs to be linked exactly to that foundation that you’re describing. It’s not a sort of outside influence coming in. We have to create a desirable environment. We have to create an environment where people will be attracted to want to come and live. And that’s precisely what you’re discussing.
At the same time, we have had no emphasis at all on economic development. So, we have no one out there trying to recruit new businesses to come into the city. We have no one out there trying to look at arts and grants that are available as potential catalysts for other things in our city. We haven’t done that. We haven’t re-made Harrisburg’s image. We haven’t done anything on the marketing side.
So, yes, that requires the real act of engaging the public and hopefully empowering the neighborhoods to foster a sense of pride and engagement. But it also requires government performing its functions well and helping get the word out and helping coordinate, and that’s something that government can do.
TheBurg: Many times, municipalities, and the Reed administration was a poster child of this, find themselves in a situation where the tail wags the dog. So, they ignore or minimize things like good government and infrastructure improvements and focus on economic development initiatives that often go awry. That’s my concern always when we talk about the government getting involved explicitly in the effort of trying to attract and spur business.
Papenfuse: I think that economic development should reflect the priorities of the community. It can’t be something that is top-down. It has to be bottom-up. But I think it can be linked to the comprehensive planning process that will be reignited in the new year. We’re going to be going neighborhood by neighborhood, assessing the needs and the desires, trying to encourage neighborhood organizations to grow maybe where they aren’t and have a network. I think, through that process, we’ll be able to re-establish a new zoning code and economic development will follow. So, it’s not something that is going to lead that conversation; it will follow the conversation. But it’s something that we have to start paying attention to. The city has the capacity for tens of thousands of more residents and, with the large proportion of tax exempt properties, we have to get more individuals contributing financially to the city, if it’s going to be successful.
TheBurg: Speaking of economic development, I—and you as well—have been a vocal critic of this thing called the mayor’s revolving loan fund, which has been revived. What is your position on that?
Papenfuse: I believe in the power of micro-loans. And I believe that there is a role that the city can play in helping lend to individuals who can’t find that opportunity through a conventional bank. So, let’s say you have a small business that is looking for just a small line of credit to help expand, and it’s got a good business plan, and it’s been vetted through a committee that is really reflective of the community, and they just need a line of credit up to $10,000. It’s very hard to find something like that with a conventional bank. In coming from a small business that really has been as successful as it has been primarily because of the ability to access credit, I recognize the limitations of the current system for particular individuals and particular careers. So, I would like to see the revolving loan fund take a different emphasis. It certainly shouldn’t be duplicating a service that can be handled by the current marketplace. I would not support that. But I think there is a role, targeted and strategic, to help support business initiatives that otherwise can’t find financing.
I have talked to the members of the committee. Right now, while it was revived, they haven’t awarded any funds, and they’re open to the concept of a different mission for that. Look, we can only loan funds to the extent that we have access to the money. But my understanding is that there is some money available. The question is, how do we want to lend it?
I’m also in favor of re-invigorating the effort to track down and find payment for the loans that were made under the previous fund. I don’t understand why that hasn’t been a priority up to this point. To the extent the records are missing, we will open up an active investigation into where those records are.
TheBurg: I’ve heard that there are many records missing, and the ones that exist are fragmentary. The Thompson administration did make some effort to recover funds, but it seems to have been episodic.
Papenfuse: I think the public has a right to know what was leant, what is still out and who owes what and who has paid what. I don’t know if those records have been made public. We’ve heard snippets and parts. I understand that those records may not be located at the moment, but they went somewhere. We have an opportunity, I think, to rebuild the city archives and establish a pattern of recordkeeping for the city of Harrisburg that really hasn’t existed for a long time. These are public documents. This was public money. To the extent that that money can be reclaimed and reinvested into the fund to support better, vetted projects that really could have a community impact, I’m all for that.
TheBurg: There are many resource constraints in this city—everyone wants to do more than they actually have the ability to financially support. How do you expect to maximize the resources that are available as per your priorities?
Papenfuse: There are finite resources available, and we are going to use that transition report as a guiding document for the budget reallocation process. I’ve established a budget committee. I’m going to be right there trying to have the budget reflect the priorities as best we can.
The larger question is how do we access additional revenues and additional funding streams because we are relatively limited in what we can do. There are little things. For instance, the city doesn’t even have a list of sponsorship opportunities. For instance, maybe some know what the fireworks cost on the Fourth of July. Others may not know that this fire station needs some new equipment or we could really use something else to help make the housing department more efficient. Who knows? I’d like to develop a list of sponsorship opportunities and to help publicize that, to begin working to try to create public/private funding sources that could help the city. By the same token, I’ve looked into reviving the Harrisburg Parks Partnership, which existed in the Reed administration and was a private foundation means of getting funds donated to help support our parks. That sort of has gone by the wayside. That should be reinvigorated.
So, there also should be a renewed emphasis on grant writing. There are a lot of opportunities there that aren’t fully tapped. So, I think you’ll see, at least in the initial budget document, we will be somewhat limited in what we can do. We’re not going to be asking for new money that isn’t somehow already there. We’re just going to be reallocating. But, all of our department heads—everyone will be focused on developing alternative and additional revenue streams over the course of the next year or so, so that, perhaps by 2015, we’re in a position to do a little bit more here or a little bit more there.
Plus, we’re going to be establishing these new siloed-off nonprofits that will be part of the Strong Plan. If that money is spent wisely—and, by wisely, I mean if it’s used to leverage more money as opposed to being used once and gone or used to balance the general fund or however else it might be used. If we can make sure that that money is really invested wisely, and that means generating additional funds, we’re going to be better off. And you’ll start to see that take effect, I imagine, by the end of 2014. So, hopefully, we’ll be in a new position by 2015.
TheBurg: How will your administration be different from what Harrisburg has known recently?
Papenfuse: We have covered some of that. I think it’s going to be that commitment to engaging from the grassroots and not simply having a top-down style of leadership, but one that’s more bottom-up, or at least one that’s founded upon dialogue. I think you’ll see that reflected in the relationship with City Council, at least I certainly hope. I’m working hard on that. Also, just in the very ability to access City Hall and to get information. I know that the communications transition team has been working diligently on the issue of the phone system, the need for a new website. These are very much on the forefront of everyone’s minds now. How much we have in the way of resources to do this is another question. But, if we can muster volunteer support, that’s really going to be the key. I’m not against having volunteers help answer the phones in City Hall if we can do it. And that will be different, I think, than past administrations. I want to build connections to the surrounding municipalities and the West Shore and everywhere else.
I was told just recently at an event I went to in Camp Hill that I was the first mayor of Harrisburg ever to come to this event in 20 years. I think, for too long, we just had a very insular focus on the city, and we haven’t seen it in relation to the rest of the region. If we start doing that, we’ll be able to tap a much wider array of resources than we’ve ever been able to bring to bear in Harrisburg before.
TheBurg: Harrisburg would really benefit from a greater perception that it is not just this island, but is a central part of an entire region.
Papenfuse: That’s right. And it goes both ways. The county, for instance, continues to somehow still talk about the city as being distinct from the County of Dauphin when, in reality, we are part of the County of Dauphin. We vote for our county commissioners the same way that we vote for our City Council representatives. These divisions—I will put the blame on the city over the past 30-plus years for fostering this sense of itself as an island unto itself. But these divisions have to be healed, especially as we look at the regionalization of other services, whether it’s issues of public safety or parks or you name it.
TheBurg: That seems to be where the future is moving. It’s reversed course from this psychology that you need to have smaller, standalone entities.
Papenfuse: Harrisburg has exacerbated its own problems by sort of taking a pride in that and not encouraging individuals to contribute when maybe they could have, not seeking to bridge that. So, we’ll be working on that. That’s another difference between myself and the past administrations, I think.
TheBurg: Numerous times, I’ve written that I’ve perceived the mayor as essentially an administrator who is charged with delivering a group of services to taxpayers. Can you share with me whether you share that perception or if you see the mayor as something else?
Papenfuse: That’s a really good question. It gets to different individuals’ philosophical views of what government should be and what government can be. There’s no question there is an important administrative aspect of the next mayor. By the same token, the Strong Plan has established the COO position, which is essentially supposed to be the chief administrator of the city of Harrisburg. How that person relates to the mayor and relates to the department heads—that has yet to really be worked out. It hasn’t been worked out yet, and maybe it wasn’t able to be worked out until we were at the point where we could at least start with a balanced budget and have the specter of bankruptcy removed, and now we really can begin to see it.
I actually see the mayor as being much more than an administrator, and I have to say that I have felt this already with the weight of the transition and the importance of the transition—I’ve had a chance to really deal with that in my own mind. I think there is a symbolic role for the mayor, and there is a role of being the custodian of the aspirations and the hopes of the community. And it has to be somebody who is able to give voice to the voiceless, connect the disconnected and embody through one’s actions the hopes and spirit of where we want to go from here. That’s not just an administrative function. It’s something of a visioning function.
I think we’ve maybe disagreed in the past over this very issue, in part because, at one point, I think you wrote that you didn’t want your mayor to inspire you. You just wanted the trash to be picked up on time. I want the trash to be picked up on time, so don’t think I’m discounting that. But I do think that there is a healing that has to happen, a reconciliation that has to happen in Harrisburg because we haven’t had a strong connection to the mayor’s office for too long. So, I’m going to just, I think, disagree philosophically on that. I also feel that we have an opportunity to re-market and re-brand the city and emphasize new things.
Don’t underestimate the degree to which individuals relate and look to the mayor as the embodiment of their aspirations for where they want to be. This is a very weighty thing. I’m hoping that I can live up to that. But I certainly feel the pressure of the moment. I believe there is more goodwill and more consensus and hope for Harrisburg’s future now than at any other moment that I’ve known in Harrisburg. It’s going to be up to the mayor in conversation and in collaboration with everyone else, but fundamentally to access that goodwill and turn it into something positive.
TheBurg: It will be interesting to see how the power structure shakes out between the mayor, the COO and the receiver. It still seems fluid.
Papenfuse: It will continue to shake out. I think the receivership will disappear in the short-term. How short, I don’t know, but I’d say it’s extremely likely to happen before the end of the year, and that will further redefine roles and expectations. I have to choose a new COO for the city of Harrisburg. That is something that I am reluctant to do until I’ve established my other department heads, and I have had a chance myself to really assess city government. So, I consider myself the acting COO and chief of staff, at least in the initial run here, so that I can properly assess what needs to happen. So, there is going to be a lot of change, and some of that is certainly beyond the control of the mayor’s office.
I believe that we have been very fortunate in Harrisburg to have had two receivers, both with very different styles, but who fundamentally weren’t interested in taking power away from the mayor’s office to do the day-to-day operations of the city. Whether you consider that to be an administrative function or representative function, as I sort of do, they don’t want that, and they have resisted that at every turn. So, I think we will have something of a seamless transition away from receivership, and that’s because the receivers themselves have seen to it that they didn’t really overstep their bounds, even when it could have been fairly easy to do so.
TheBurg: I would agree with that. When Harrisburg entered receivership, I thought it would be a certain type of thing, and it ended up being quite different, and for the better.
Papenfuse: I would admit to feeling similarly. I was skeptical, and I think the skepticism was warranted. Having gotten to know receiver Lynch now much better, we’re really fortunate to have him. I think he has the best interests of Harrisburg at heart.
TheBurg: Last question—if you had one wish for the people of Harrisburg for 2014, what would you wish for?
Papenfuse: My wish for the public of Harrisburg is that they will feel a renewed sense of pride and prosperity and connection to their government for the first time in a long time. And that they’re going to want to get involved in a call for action that we’re going to lead as we go through neighborhood by neighborhood. And that, for the first time really, hopefully, feel inspired to hear that call to work in collaboration with the new administration.
Eric Papenfuse will take the oath of office as mayor of Harrisburg at a ceremony on Monday, Jan. 6, that begins at 10 a.m. in the lobby of City Hall.
