Sometimes press conferences answer questions, and sometimes they raise new ones.
Two weeks ago, after the stabbing of three police officers during a confrontation in an Oxford Street home, the newly promoted chief, Thomas Carter, gave an example of the former. His debrief of the incident told reporters just about all they could want to know, right down to the name (Kiki) of a dog in the home.
The same day, a conference celebrating a Harrisburg baseball team did the latter. During what should have been an easy victory lap for the recent inter-league champions, a coach went off-road and began defending himself against charges that he had packed the inner-city team with out-of-city players. Many of the reporters, unaware such charges existed, raised their eyebrows and started scribbling.
And sometimes conferences do the latter inadvertently while trying to do the former. That was the case this morning, when Mayor Thompson called a conference to discuss the updated plan for the city’s state-shepherded recovery, submitted by receiver William Lynch Monday afternoon.
The implicit question was who deserved credit for the comprehensive plan. The answer, as in many Thompson conferences, was that credit was mostly due to one person: Mayor Thompson. She began the conference by reminding listeners that in October 2010 she had “requested financial protection for the city of Harrisburg” under Pennsylvania’s Act 47, the 1987 law delineating a program of state assistance for distressed municipalities.
“I stand here today to say that if I had not done that, if I had not stayed the course and placed us under Act 47, who knows where we’d be today,” Thompson said.
She took credit for the ideas to sell the incinerator and lease the city’s parking lots—she advocated for these things, “long before the receiver came on board,” in town hall meetings and “numerous press conferences.” She was sensitive to the perception that “the mayor has been pushed aside and the receiver is the king in the room,” and asserted that, to the contrary, anyone who reads the plan “will know that we worked together as a team.”
She didn’t claim to be the only figure deserving gratitude. She also thanked key players, including Governor Corbett, DCED Secretary Walker, Lynch, the county commissioners and City Council. But lest the list of acknowledgements crowd the frame, she concluded by thanking God “for using me to get the job done.”
Setting aside, for the moment, the fact that the job is not done—it requires approval by the Commonwealth Court, and depends upon legislative action by City Council—this mea facta from the mayor is a bit off-key.
The recovery plan, renamed the “Harrisburg Strong Plan” in its current incarnation, is indeed impressive. Its scope includes the sale of the city’s incinerator and the monetization of its parking assets, the injection of immediate funds to balance the 2013 budget, and a pledge to balance city budgets through 2016. It promises to reduce debt and projected deficits by way of several “reworkings”: of the city’s labor contracts; of its obligations to creditors; of its plan for funding the apparently roofless cost of healthcare for retired city workers. It also includes an increase in residents’ earned-income tax to 2 percent, more or less forcing City Council to reverse a promise that the hike would only last a year.
To what extent was the mayor responsible for any of this? In claiming credit, she has placed herself in a curious position. Beyond the jump in the income tax, none of the plan’s major pieces required Act 47 to get done. Entering receivership bought the city expertise and, to some degree, extra bargaining power. But the mayor’s need for these things in the first place is a testament to her inability to navigate the political labyrinth on her own. She has asked to be lauded for, essentially, acknowledging what she could not do.
Throughout the long months of announcements that the plan was around the corner, the mayor and the receiver were a study in contrasts. Both spoke of imminent steps towards recovery. But where Thompson was profuse, Lynch was guarded. At times, he was distressingly silent on topics of critical interest to city taxpayers: he would not even hint at the expected hit to the city’s creditors, saying that to reveal anything could hurt negotiations. Some began to wonder how the state-appointed receiver could possibly be an advocate for residents of the city.
The plan, at last, speaks where Lynch did not, and promises significant concessions from all sides. But where the residents’ tax hike will be sealed with legislation, the concessions from creditors—at least for now—are backed by little more than Lynch’s good word. But whom else can Harrisburg put its faith in? Its primary elected advocate, despite whatever credit she publicly takes, had next to nothing to offer in the way of specific areas where she had affected the final plan.
When asked whether she had ever pushed back at Lynch on behalf of the city, she responded, “You better believe I made some rumblings in those rooms.” She was pressed for examples, but provided none.
“I don’t think that’s important,” she said.
