How many terms should a Harrisburg mayor serve?
Council President Wanda Williams believes that the city would be better off if the mayor could only serve two terms. She has a point.
As the old saying goes, “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and a person who serves term after term after term in a powerful position like the mayor of Harrisburg is bound to accumulate tremendous power.
Of course, city residents don’t have to look back too far to find an example. Former Mayor Steve Reed, in office for 28 years, took Harrisburg’s “strong mayor” form of government to the literal extreme, consolidating power to such an extent that few checks and balances remained to stop his most reckless actions, which plunged the city into a profound financial crisis.
According to Williams, her legislation would prevent a recurrence, and the ordinance language, which cites Reed’s tenure, makes it clear that Harrisburg’s past continues to weigh heavily on its present.
Current Mayor Eric Papenfuse, who stands for election next month for a second term, partly agrees with Williams. He does not oppose term limits, he said, as long they also apply to council.
But, to the mayor, debating term limits is a bit like dousing a raging house fire with a garden hose. It might help a little, but, in the end, your house still burns down.
Therefore, says Papenfuse, the city should address term limits, but in the context of a Home Rule charter, a way to fix the many problems that have seeped into the governing system over the years.
Papenfuse’s primary aim is to retain the city’s extra taxing authority once, a few years hence, it is forced out of Act 47, a state program for financially distressed municipalities. But, along the way, other tweaks could be made.
And that’s exactly what concerns Williams.
If Harrisburg goes the Home Rule route, almost everything is on the table. The charter commission, for instance, could decide to strip power away from a future mayor or even a council president. Harrisburg might end up being run by a city manager—i.e., someone not “from here.” Then who knows what horrible things could happen?
However, as they say, all that is commentary. Most importantly, Home Rule would allow the city to retain increases in its earned income tax and local services tax (LST), which acts as a form of commuter tax. Does it really matter if Harrisburg has a council/mayor or council/manager form of government if it can’t afford to pick up its trash or police its streets? Are you ready to defend your strong mayor at the cost of skyrocketing property taxes or a return to state receivership?
Philosophically, what I most like about Home Rule is that it gives Harrisburg a chance to take charge of its own destiny. Freed from many of the structural requirements imposed by the legislature, the people can decide for themselves what works best for their city.
In my opinion, that’s a far better option that the current plan of hiring a lobbyist to beg the commonwealth for more money or to maintain the LST. First of all, the cash-strapped, GOP-controlled legislature is unlikely to comply with the Democratic city’s wishes. But, secondly, supplication only deepens residents’ dependence on a dysfunctional, fickle and politically motivated state government—the exact opposite of what needs to happen.
Home Rule also gives the city a chance to reboot. A system of government is a bit like a piece of complex software. Over time, small errors are introduced and imperfections accumulate. The governing system may even become outdated and obsolete. Over decades, as times change, it may need to be rethought and replaced.
So, yes, Home Rule offers Harrisburg an opportunity to remain fiscally sound, to maintain the remarkable progress it’s made in recent years to balance its books and provide services to its people. But it also gives the city an opportunity to sit back, think about what has worked and what hasn’t worked and make corrections.
Therefore, term limits could be on the table, as Williams wants, but so could the way Harrisburg elects council members or collects its taxes or drafts its budget or involves its citizens, among dozens of other things. If the city does decide to go the Home Rule route, it would have plenty of company, as voters in more than 70 municipalities statewide have approved Home Rule charters.
In this space, I don’t typically advocate as much as describe and critique. However, more than a year has been lost since the idea of Home Rule was first suggested. Time now is running short before Harrisburg is booted out of Act 47, losing the extra taxing authority that comes with the designation.
But, besides that, Home Rule is a once-in-lifetime chance to decide for ourselves what we want to be, how we want to govern ourselves. The strong-mayor form of government, creaky at nearly five decades old, hasn’t worked too well for us. So, now, we have a chance to decide what might.
Lawrance Binda is editor in chief of TheBurg.
