Harrisburg City Council at tonight’s work session
Hiring an attorney is a top priority for Harrisburg City Council, which met tonight to talk about priorities and goals for 2018.
During council’s first work session of the year, President Wanda Williams said that she planned to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for a contract attorney who would do legal work for council.
“We’ll issue an RFP to get that started,” she said, without specifying details such as expected timeframe or compensation.
Currently, the city’s law bureau does work for both council and the administration. Williams, however, has expressed dissatisfaction with the arrangement, criticizing the quality of communication between the bureau and council, as well as the timeliness of receiving ordinances, resolutions and other legal documents.
City Solicitor Neil Grover tonight said he supported council hiring its own part-time lawyer, a position that he held several years ago during the city’s financial crisis.
Besides hiring an attorney, council members listed numerous other goals for the coming year, including:
* better communication with the city’s small business community
* encouraging more minority-owned businesses
* fighting blight
* encouraging the development of more affordable housing
* renovating the city hall atrium
* making council meetings more efficient
* ensuring better communication between council members
* updating and improving the city’s sanitation processes and enforcement
* focusing more on improving and promoting Allison Hill
Council tonight also heard from Brad Jones, president and CEO of Harristown Enterprises, which wants to undertake two downtown projects.
The first project would convert a long-vacant, circa-1900 office building at 221 N. 2nd St. to an apartment building, with 10 one-bedroom units, two two-bedroom units and a small, 500-square-foot retail space on the ground floor.
If council approves Harristown’s land use plan, the $1.7 million project would begin by March and wrap up by August, Jones said.
For the second project, Harristown would construct a new, six-story office building at 21 S. 2nd St., with retail on the first floor. Harristown recently razed a dilapidated, three-story building in that spot that once housed the Coronet restaurant, which closed after a serious fire in 1994. Once constructed, the new building would be joined via interior connections to 17 S. 2nd St., home of the SkarlatosZonarich law firm.
The $7.1 million project would begin once Harristown secures an anchor tenant for the new building, Jones said.
Council is expected to vote on the land use plans for both of Harristown’s projects at its legislative session next week.
