What would you like your city to look like a few years from now?
This month, you’ll have your say, as seven Democratic candidates vie for four, four-year seats on Harrisburg City Council. Successful candidates will need to address some very important issues over the coming years—from finances and taxes to issues of development and justice.
Therefore, we asked the candidates—incumbents Ben Allatt, Shamaine Daniels and Wanda Williams and challengers Jeremiah Chamberlin, Ausha Green, Angela Kirkland and Dave Madsen—to explain their goals by answering one question.
We printed the candidate responses in full, editing lightly for grammar and, in some cases, word count. The primary election is May 16. So, please learn about the candidates by reading about their positions and maybe even attending a debate or two.
Candidate responses are listed in alphabetical order.
Q: What do you think is the greatest challenge Harrisburg faces, and how would you address this issue if elected to Harrisburg City Council?
Ben Allatt (incumbent): Harrisburg’s greatest challenge is that it remains in a state of financial insecurity. This has a direct impact on our ability to meet the current and future needs of the community. Our city has an obligation to provide adequate public safety, maintain and update an aging infrastructure, manage blight and so much more. Harrisburg has come a long way from when it first entered state receivership under Act 47 but remains a work in progress.
I would like to continue building on the work I have already done by:
- Passing the Debt Policy and General Fund Balance Policy I have introduced. This is a collaborative effort between the administration, the controller’s office and myself and will ensure that Harrisburg never participates in high-risk borrowing ever again.
- Advocating for Harrisburg’s interest at the state level to give Harrisburg the ability to become self-sustaining by:
- Addressing the high percentage of tax-exempt property in the community; the state represents 42 percent of the property but contributes $5 million (currently 8 percent of the city’s revenue).
- Lobbying for tax reform that will enable our city to thrive without giving deference to select localities.
- Reforming the Act 47 process to allow struggling municipalities to fully recover and come out of Act 47 with a clean bill of health.
- Building on our current process of identifying both the needs and the priorities within in the city’s capital improvement plan. Harrisburg just introduced its first capital improvement plan and this was initiated upon my request. This is a significant step to help reverse years of avoidance and neglect.
These steps can help Harrisburg continue down a path of sustainability and long-term viability while addressing the needs of all the residents of our community.
Q: What do you think is the greatest challenge Harrisburg faces, and how would you address this issue if elected to Harrisburg City Council?
Jeremiah Chamberlin: The single greatest challenge that Harrisburg faces is continued financial health. Without a sound financial base, we cannot address other pressing issues such as crime or crumbling infrastructure. Swift action must be taken to address the expiration of Act 47. If not, Harrisburg will face increased taxes and drastic cuts in already stretched services.
When I am elected to council, I will work to bring Harrisburg under home rule, work to remove roadblocks for business, work to increase home ownership and grow the city’s population.
Home rule will allow citizens greater authority on how our government is run and how revenue is generated. Holding property taxes and home values steady for current residents makes it possible to grow our tax base.
While I appreciate the hard work that the current administration has accomplished, we must make it easier to start businesses within the city and remove restrictions on businesses that are no longer relevant.
The Harrisburg region is growing; the city needs to capture its share of new residents. There is a lack of affordable housing and a glut of vacant and blighted homes. Often, blighted and vacant homes are owned by speculators, making it difficult for those who would like to renovate and invest in our neighborhoods to purchase affordable properties. I will work to develop policies that will encourage redevelopment.
Q: What do you think is the greatest challenge Harrisburg faces, and how would you address this issue if elected to Harrisburg City Council?
Shamaine Daniels (incumbent): Harrisburg faces many challenges: high poverty rates, lack of affordable habitable housing, a stagnant job creating environment and the pressure to provide services to many with a very small tax base. I have worked for the last four years to try to ensure more affordable, habitable housing for residents. An unhealthy housing stock shortens life expectancy for residents; reduces equity for owners that could be used for college tuition or for small business loans to open businesses; and deters good landlords from investing here. You cannot compete fairly as a good landlord when your competition is saturated with slumlords. Our lack of habitable, affordable housing is the greatest challenge to the economic development of Harrisburg’s residents.
But the truth is that none of Harrisburg’s challenges could be overcome by leadership that lacks integrity. Over the last four years we have seen leadership continue to rely on Reed-era accounting practices to artificially inflate budgets; contracting gimmicks that favor campaign donors and supporters; department directors misrepresenting data ensuring their continued employment with this administration. We saw the statement that Harrisburg’s housing code standards were higher than the Housing Authority’s only to confirm, after the death of a worker, that our standards are in fact lower, something that council members and the administration knew because they had both codes, but both ignored because integrity takes work.
I will continue to research issues before council, ask the questions other council members are afraid to ask. The decisions I make will continue to be based on verifiable information. I will continue to identify solutions to our problems. When residents identify a problem, I will not pretend it doesn’t exist, and in spite of the bullying, I will remain unbossed.
Q: What do you think is the greatest challenge Harrisburg faces, and how would you address this issue if elected to Harrisburg City Council?
Ausha Green: One of the greatest challenges currently facing the City of Harrisburg is efficiently resolving the City’s financial recovery for the best interest of all the citizens of Harrisburg. I plan to achieve this by incentivizing home ownership in the city through encouraging programs to help citizens purchase and repair vacant properties in the city. This will not only put these vacant properties back on the tax roll and increase revenue, it will also beautify the city and address the blight that our city faces. Most importantly, it gives the citizens of the city a chance to invest in the city they love. I believe it will also reduce the crime rate in the city by creating more cohesive long-term communities of homeowners. Doing this will not only create immediate revenue over the coming years; it will work as a long-term revenue stream for the city.
I will also collaborate with the business community to encourage revitalizing vacant commercial properties instead of looking to build new properties outside the city. It is important to encourage the revitalization and re-use of vacant commercial buildings by potential businesses because this encourages them to move within city limits and put existing infrastructure back to use.
It is important that we emphasize our diverse population here in Harrisburg and work to bring in new businesses and build existing businesses to fulfill the needs of this diverse population. As a member of the City Council, I would ensure that we reach out and give all the citizens and businesses of the city a chance to give input and shape the future of Harrisburg.
Q: What do you think is the greatest challenge Harrisburg faces, and how would you address this issue if elected to Harrisburg City Council?
Angela Kirkland:
*On April 25, Angela Kirkland suspended her campaign for City Council. Due to print deadlines, we still ran her response in our May issue. We are running her answer here to stay consistent with the May issue of the magazine.
Harrisburg’s greatest challenge is its segregation and willingness to embrace the alienation and displacement of people of color. I find the disparities in overall conditions between certain neighborhoods to be untenable. Local publications and institutions indulge in white liberal hand-wringing on these issues while at the same time failing to adequately represent people of color on their staffs and in their pages, and promoting businesses and events in areas that are majority-white. It’s distressing, yet understandable, to see and hear such apathy from some people of color here about local politics. A common opinion is that elected officials here don’t care, don’t listen, don’t even pretend to serve them beyond a campaign.
I recently learned about transactional vs. transformational organizing. Transactional has an agenda already in place, aiming for signatures and votes. Transformational, on the other hand, is about creating long-term relationships and long-term change through individualized outreach.
Whether or not I am elected to council, my mission is to serve the people that need me most—those from the blocks that would have birthed me had Harrisburg been my hometown. As an activist who still has much room for improvement, I admit that I have not yet done my fair share of reaching out to fellow black people and other people of color in this city. But I am changing that. I will make sure as many people as possible know me and my dedication to uplifting them and making a more level playing field for all as a result. What exactly that looks like, I have yet to detail. That comes from building relationships and ensuring that there is trust in me to be an advocate who is truly on their side.
Q: What do you think is the greatest challenge Harrisburg faces, and how will you address this issue if elected to Harrisburg City Council?
Dave Madsen: The greatest challenge Harrisburg faces is getting more young people to raise their families in the city.
When I’m knocking on doors in the community, one of the hardest things to hear is when a young family says they’re planning to move because of high taxes and the state of our schools. While school board is primarily charged with the school district, there are things council can do to make young people want to raise a family here. If elected to council, I will make sure our tax dollars go toward improving our infrastructure, public safety and the image of our city.
We need to revitalize our city and make every neighborhood an attractive place for families. Some of our neighborhoods need council’s serious attention. Blight and trash deter people from buying homes and investing in our neighborhoods. We need families moving into these neighborhoods, not absentee landlords who prey on low-income renters and don’t invest in our city.
Public safety should be a top priority. I want to modernize our police and fire departments and make sure they have a diverse staff and adequate funding. We need police officers walking the beat and interacting with residents as members of the community, not just responding to emergencies. Regular foot patrols would not only deter crime, but it would build a sense of trust between the police and the community.
Our city’s aging infrastructure needs serious work. I will push to provide efficient, safe and reliable infrastructure in all communities. I will explore investing further in Riverfront Park, the Greenbelt and Reservoir Park, and other important community areas that provide a safe environment for youth and families.
I believe focusing on these initiatives would make Harrisburg not only an attractive place for young people to raise families, but a place that better meets the needs of community members from all walks of life who call our city home.
Q: What do you think is the greatest challenge Harrisburg faces, and how would you address this issue if elected to Harrisburg City Council?
Wanda Williams (incumbent): The greatest challenge facing the City of Harrisburg is the ability to have continuous revenue forthcoming.
With the city presently under Act 47, the courts have granted Harrisburg the authority to increase the local service tax (LST) and the earned income tax (EIT).
Prior to the court order, the city received $2 million per year from the LST. With the increase, the revenue has tripled to $6 million. The EIT percentage was at 1 percent with .5 percent going to the Harrisburg School District. Revenues were $3.5 million to $4 million per year. The increase of this tax generates $7.5 million to $8 million for the city.
The City of Harrisburg is attempting to be self-sufficient and, although it generates revenue from sanitation, parking, incinerator, taxes and fees, Harrisburg has not reached that goal. It is crucial for the city to continue the increased revenues from the LST and EIT to maintain financial stability. Without the increases, the city would lose between $11.5 million to $13 million in revenues and place the City of Harrisburg back in the same financial debacle.
During the budget hearings, the administration requested to hire a lobbyist for the city. The Pennsylvania Municipal League presently lobbies for the city, but an additional lobbyist would be beneficial.
That individual would need to advocate and attempt to influence our legislators at the state Capitol to allow the city to extend the increase of the LST and EIT.
Harrisburg is like all other municipalities under Act 47 that are facing and experiencing financial challenges. Also, like Harrisburg, cities are looking for the means to keep their revenues stable while providing the best services possible to their residents without placing the burden of increased taxes.
Author: Danielle Roth
