Oh, the comments.
Yesterday’s blog post, “Fire Inflation,” generated enough email and tweets that I thought I’d revisit the topic today: the surprising $5 million the city received from the state in fire protection money for the Capitol complex.
First off, I feel I should give credit where it is due.
I stand up and applaud our local state lawmakers, Sen. Rob Teplitz and Rep. Patty Kim, for achieving what I thought was impossible: getting the state to finally take financial responsibility for the city services it consumes. Credit also goes to receiver William Lynch, who convinced Gov. Tom Corbett and Republicans in the legislature to boost Harrisburg’s initial ask of $4 million by another $1 million. The $5 million appropriation is double the amount received in the 2012-13 budget.
The problem I have is not with the amount, which finally approaches what the state might pony up if it paid taxes on its vast property holdings. My issue is that, apparently, we’re all supposed to nod our heads and go along with the convenient, official fiction that this windfall is exclusively for protecting the Capitol complex from fire.
Yes, I know that there are arguments and calculations that support the $5 million figure, which makes up the majority of the Fire Bureau’s $8.4 million budget. I’ve seen them and heard them. But, in my mind, there is simply no way that 60 percent of the bureau’s resources go to supporting about 1 percent of Harrisburg’s buildings that sit on about 5 percent of its land.
For me, however, there’s an even larger, related issue. By focusing just on fire protection, we ignore all the other services the city provides to support the state. Let me offer an example.
In the 1950s, Forster Street, Front Street and N. 2nd Street were all turned from two-way, neighborhood streets into urban highways so that state workers could zip at high speed between their city jobs and their suburban homes. As a result, thousands of cars fly down these roads each day, making the blocks near where Forster intersects with Front and N. 2nd streets very hazardous.
At least once a week, I personally witness cars that have crashed or see the remnants thereof: broken glass, sheared-off bumpers, fragments of plastic, downed lights. Last year, a truck plowed into a house at Forster and Green streets, while a horrific crash at the foot of the Harvey Taylor Bridge took out the Miller’s Mutual sign and the pedestrian traffic signal. Just last Saturday, a driver lost control of his Honda, destroying an old-fashioned-style light fixture and ripping up the turf near Kunkel Plaza.
None of these accidents occurred on the Capitol complex, yet they all consumed vast quantities of city resources, which the people who live here pay for. When accidents occur, police, fire and EMTs rush to the scene. After the vehicles are removed, city workers clean up the mess, such as oil slicks and glass and debris, so the streets can reopen. Often, roads, curbing and sidewalks have to be fixed. Downed poles, streetlights, trees and landscaping must be replaced at tremendous cost. If a car goes into a park, the city has to rectify the damage inside the park.
Even absent traffic accidents, roads need to be paved, bridges maintained, lights kept on, police trained and deployed. Sure, city residents consume some of these services, but many are vacuumed up by the 50 percent of Harrisburg’s daily population that does not live here. In other words, the expense to the city of hosting the state is tremendous, far in excess of what it costs to make sure that the 40 buildings that make up the Capitol complex don’t catch on fire.
So, I guess what I’m asking for is a dose of honesty. I’m delighted that the state finally is recognizing its obligation, and I understand that slotting the money into the existing “fire protection” line item may be the easiest, least politically contentious way to allocate it. Still, I just can’t bring myself to repeat what I regard as a convenient fiction.
