The holidays offer time for reflection and giving thanks. They also are a time for thinking ahead about change and progress in the coming year.
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving for its low-key, non-commercial nature, Mom’s home cooking, football and the promise of a four-day weekend. Since I don’t participate in “Black Friday,” opting for the couch and/or some walks instead, it is always the low-stress holiday in our home. Of course, I also greatly enjoy Christmas and New Year’s for their symbols of birth, re-birth and the promise of a brighter future for those who choose to believe.
Whereas last year I took stock of all the people and things I am thankful for in Harrisburg (December 2013, p. 7), this year I’m putting together my wish list for 2015. Thus, in the American spirit of renewal and on the premise that things that cannot be imagined cannot be achieved, here are some things, both big and small, I’d like to see happen in the coming year.
- Our new Gov. Tom Wolf, new Senate Majority Leader Corman and House leaders Turzai and Smith work together, across the aisle, to move our state and city forward on such things as education funding formulas, pension reform, liquor privatization, extraction taxes and so forth.
- N. Second Street, between Forster and Division streets, is finally restored to two-way traffic and an important neighborhood is reclaimed for the residents who live there—a mere 60 years after the street and neighborhood were ruined in the name of progress and suburban flight.
- Front Street installs one new lane for bikes and one fewer lane for cars, as we have been promised.
- Entrepreneurs and restaurateurs continue to find Harrisburg a viable and vibrant place for business.
- Non-profit organizations of all stripes in Harrisburg realize that paying their municipal real estate taxes for police and fire protection is simply the right and moral thing to do and that the failure to do so makes them “free-riders” and “takers” from the rest of us who pay for them.
- People who own property in the city care enough and have pride enough to maintain their property or sell it to others who will.
- City Council works with the mayor in a spirit of cooperation for all residents and dispenses with the “us vs. them” references that divide us.
- That we find some new voices on City Council after our elections next year.
- Our suburban paper of record goes one year (OK, one month) without a sensational headline or article that disparages our city.
- No new sinkholes open around the city.
- The “land bank” gets implemented and the city and county are able to sell vacant land for productive use.
- All Harrisburg streetlights receive new energy efficient bulbs, those bulbs work and the city saves money, as we have been promised.
- The state of Pennsylvania realizes that it must invest in its capital city in much the same way and at a similar scale as the federal government has invested in Washington, D.C.
- All of our Community Publishers and advertisers in TheBurg renew for 2015.
- Many new Community Publishers and advertisers choose to work with TheBurg in 2015.
- Hundreds of new residents and dozens of new businesses decide to live and/or locate in Harrisburg in 2015.
- There is no “polar vortex” this winter.
- Penn State wins a bowl game, any bowl game.
- Local playwright Paul Hood gets his play “Brighton’s Green Street” produced.
- The Broad Street Market is fully leased to fresh food vendors.
- People stop walking across the beautiful new landscaping on State Street in front of the Capitol (paid for in part by private donations) and instead use the convenient crosswalks.
- Standard Parking reduces parking rates by half between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. and thus potentially increases its overall revenue by attracting additional parking in the evening.
Lastly, I’d like to make the most important holiday wish of all. I wish all of our readers a happy and healthy new year.
J. Alex Hartzler is publisher of TheBurg.
