Lola Lawson took the oath of office following her appointment to the Harrisburg school board on Monday.

He had a standing ovation, an endorsement from a union president, and the support of former students – but it wasn’t enough to land Cornelius Chachere a seat on the Harrisburg school board.

Harrisburg’s eight-member board on Monday night passed over Chachere, a nonprofit executive, and two other candidates to appoint Lola Lawson, a former board director, to serve a term through 2019.

Lawson replaced board director Tyrell Spradley, who resigned his seat in July without explanation. Spradley was just appointed to the board in February.

Members of the 70-person audience reacted immediately to the appointment, exasperated by what they perceived as an opaque selection process that favors friends of the district administration.

Lawson was the second board veteran appointed to the body in the past month. Former board director Patricia Whitehead-Myers was appointed to a vacant seat last month.

Lawson has almost a decade of experience as a board director, but Chachere, who has worked as a substitute teacher at Harrisburg High School’s John Harris Campus, was the apparent crowd favorite. He garnered applause during his questioning before the board, and more than half the room gave him a standing ovation when his interview concluded.

But the board still voted 5-3 to appoint Lawson. After votes were tallied, young district alumni led a chant calling for justice, and one resident brandished a poster board sign saying, “We Call BS.”

Even though Chachere had wide public support, many residents said they were not surprised by the vote.

“Clearly this is the outcome of collusion,” said Charla Plaines, co-founder of the citizen-led school reform group C.A.T.C.H. (Concerned About the Children of Harrisburg.) “It does not reflect the will of the public. Once again, this board has proven it has no desire to do the right thing.”

One board member joined the residents voicing frustration over the appointment process. Before the board began interviewing candidates, director Brian Carter accused his colleagues of accepting bribes before filling a vacant seat last month.

“There were several conversations where board members were trying to bribe other board members to vote for certain candidates,” Carter said, without identifying any of his colleagues by name.

Carter declined to comment on his accusation during a recess, but reiterated his claim at the end of the meeting. He said that board members tried to persuade their colleagues to vote for Whitehead-Myers and Lawson.

But board solicitor Samuel Cooper said that political lobbying is not necessarily bribery.

“Unless there’s some transfer of money or promise of future gain, there’s no bribery,” Cooper said.

Along with Whitehead-Myers, Lawson was among the first members of the re-formed school board that wrested the district back from mayoral control in 2010. Former Mayor Stephen Reed had taken direct oversight of the school district in 2000, the first arrangement of its kind in the commonwealth.

Mayor Linda Thompson assumed Reed’s role briefly following her election in 2010 before community members reconstituted the elected board of directors.

Lawson declined to seek re-election for her seat in 2013 but was appointed back to a vacant seat the same year.

In her interview before the board tonight, Lawson touted a long history of public service, which she said started with her first sit-in demonstration at age 14.

“My heart is in the right place,” Lawson said. “I’m a strong, independent thinker. You can’t sway me… but I’m still willing to collaborate with people.”

Lawson was president of the board that terminated superintendent Gerald Kohn in 2010 and replaced him with Knight-Burney. Kohn later filed a wrongful termination suit against the district that ended in a $2.4 million settlement in his favor.

Lawson and Whitehead-Myers also voted with three of her colleagues to strip former school board president Roy Christ of his leadership title in 2011.

A retired broadcast personality and media consultant, Lawson served alongside current board directors Whitehead-Myers, Ellis Roy, Melvin Wilson and vice president Danielle Robinson until 2016, when she declined to seek re-election for her appointed seat. They all voted for their former colleague on Monday, along with director Lionel Gonzalez.

Board president Judd Pittman and directors Carrie Fowler and Brian Carter voted for Chachere.

Claude Phipps, a former business executive, and James Thompson, an architect and former board director, also applied for the vacant seat but did not receive nominations.

Phipps, Thompson and Chachere all applied for the vacant seat that Whitehead-Myers took in July. At the July 28 selection meeting, teacher union president Jody Barksdale urged the board to appoint Chachere.

Community members continued to advocate for Chachere in the public comment period at the end of tonight’s meeting.

“When you look at this man, how could you sensibly make the decision that you did?” said Joelle Ewing. “It looks suspicious, like you don’t want anyone who will go against the grain. I don’t understand it.”

Harrisburg’s mayor is seeking state permission to levy an augmented commuter tax for the next three years, he said on Thursday, as the city enters its final chapter of Act 47 and prepares for a future with smaller revenue streams.

Mayor Eric Papenfuse has vowed that he will not adopt the measures outlined in a July report from the city’s Act 47 coordinator, which recommended doubling property taxes to prepare for Harrisburg’s Act 47 exit in 2021.

He’s now asking the state-appointed coordinator to consider an alternative: a 2 percent non-resident Earned Income Tax (EIT) on everyone who works in the city.

The tax would replace the city’s augmented Local Services Tax (LST), which is $156 per year for all Harrisburg workers. But Papenfuse said it would generate millions of dollars in additional revenue during Harrisburg’s final three years in Act 47, a state oversight program for financially distressed municipalities.

“We know how many commuters work in the city, and while we don’t know exactly where they live, we can get that data,” Papenfuse told TheBurg. “But it would be much more.”

The proposal is bound to inflame Harrisburg’s 30,000 commuters. But Papenfuse hopes that exercising one of the last options available to Harrisburg under the Act 47 law will spur state lawmakers into action.

A bill expected to go before the house in September would allow Harrisburg to keep its current LST rate and exit Act 47 for good. If legislators are faced with a massive tax hike on their own income, through a higher EIT, Papenfuse hopes they’ll be more likely to support the legislation.

“My hope is that the region would see that it’s much more onerous than a local services tax,” he said. “I stand by what I’ve said before: I don’t see viable long-term future for Harrisburg without the legislature assisting us. We need the ability to have our revenues match our expenditures, and we’re not trying to spend on anything other than core government functions.”

Under the mayor’s proposal, the city’s LST would revert to its pre-Act 47 rate of $52 per year. Meanwhile, everyone who works in Harrisburg would start paying a 2 percent tax on their income.

Since Harrisburg residents already pay that rate, their EIT burden would not change. But commuters who work in Harrisburg would pay the difference between their hometown’s EIT rate and the city’s 2 percent rate, with the balance going into Harrisburg’s coffers.

For example, a commuter who lives in Susquehanna Township may earn a $50,000 salary working in Harrisburg. She currently pays the $156 local services tax in Harrisburg, as well as Susquehanna Township’s 1 percent EIT rate—$500 per year based on her income.

Under the new tax, her EIT bill would double to $1,000, with $500 going to the city of Harrisburg. She would pay $52 per year in local service taxes.

Papenfuse knows that the tax hike would sting. His goal isn’t to squeeze commuters, he said, but to spare Harrisburg the massive property tax hikes proposed in last month’s draft Act 47 exit plan.

“Do we really think legislators care that Harrisburg residents would have to pay double property taxes?” Papenfuse said, letting the question go unanswered. “Will they care if they themselves pay an increased EIT? Maybe.”

Harrisburg has one of the highest EIT rates in the region. Only a handful of municipalities—including Camp Hill, Swatara Township, Dauphin Township and Lower Paxton—levy the same 2 percent rate, according to a DCED database.

Excluding those municipalities, EIT rates range from 1.4 to 1.65 percent in Cumberland County and 1 to 1.7 percent in Dauphin.

The tax would expire when Harrisburg exits Act 47 in three years. But, with the revenue it would generate over that time, Harrisburg could pay down general obligation debt and trim its expenditures from 2021 onward, Papenfuse said.

In the meantime, the city would continue to lobby for its enhanced LST privileges. Papenfuse also hopes to initiate the proceedings for a Home Rule charter, which would preserve the city’s resident EIT rate.

If the state-appointed recovery coordinator Marita Kelley complies with his request, the commuter tax will be included in the final exit plan she presents to city council.

A DCED spokesperson declined to comment on the contents of the final exit plan today. She said that DCED was in the process of revising the plan based on the feedback received during the public comment period.

Papenfuse said Kelley’s team was “willing to consider” the proposal. City officials submitted the commuter tax proposal to DCED as part of a formal comment on the exit plan.

Council vice president Ben Allatt said he’d support any exit plan that doesn’t increase the tax burden on Harrisburg residents. But he’s not sure a hefty commuter tax would aid Harrisburg’s long-term lobbying efforts.

“As a negotiating tactic, it could backfire,” Allatt said. “I worry about any move that would alienate us from the legislature.”

DCED’s exit plan could land before city council as early as Wednesday, Aug. 8. If council does not approve it, the state DCED secretary will ask Pennsylvania’s governor to declare a fiscal emergency in Harrisburg, which could put the city back into receivership.

The future site of the State Archives building at N. 6th and Harris streets in Midtown Harrisburg.

Vacant lots on Harrisburg’s 6th Street will soon get a new building filled with some very old décor.

The state Department of General Services got the first stamp of approval for its new State Archives facility, a four-story, state-of-the-art structure that will also create a permanent home for Harrisburg’s record collections.

DGS representatives presented the preliminary land use proposal to the Harrisburg Planning Commission on Wednesday night. They plan to develop 2½ vacant acres on N. 6th Street between Harris and Hamilton streets with a modern, glass-and-brick structure, a public plaza and a below-ground parking area.

Although project leaders shared preliminary renderings at Wednesday’s public meeting, they refused to allow TheBurg to photograph them.

With unanimous approval from the commission, DGS will now seek approval from Harrisburg City Council.

DGS first announced plans to build the archives at 1681 N. 6th Street in 2016. The state hopes to put the project out to bid in spring 2019 and break ground in the summer, according to Daniel Vodzak, an architect at the Lemoyne-based firm Vitetta. He expects construction will last two years.

Much like the federal courthouse that broke ground last month, the long-awaited archives building is expected to spur development on Harrisburg’s struggling 6th Street corridor.

Harrisburg officials and history enthusiasts are also relieved that the city’s archives will have a safe, accessible home after languishing for years in substandard storage.

“This is a great win for the city,” Mayor Eric Papenfuse said. “We have all of these fragile, aging and decaying documents, and we want to put them in a place where they can be preserved.”

Harrisburg’s archives, which include death and tax records, city directories, historical photos and other memorabilia dating back to the early 19^th century, are currently stored in a mansion in Reservoir Park. They were housed in a Parking Authority office in Strawberry Square until the city privatized its parking assets in 2014.

When state officials announced their plans to build a new archive facility, Papenfuse lobbied for them to carve out space for Harrisburg’s collection.

He later convinced the Wolf administration to scrap plans to build the archive facility in Susquehanna Township and helped them select a parcel of vacant lots on 6th Street mostly owned by Susquehanna Township-based Vartan Group.

“This idea of putting the archives in a research park where they’re less accessible to the public didn’t sit well with me,” said Papenfuse, whose father served as the Maryland state archivist for 30 years.

Members of the public can’t access Harrisburg’s archives in the current location in Reservoir Park. The aging facility also isn’t climate-controlled, leaving the documents vulnerable to mold, moisture and temperature fluctuation.

“A lot of people don’t know the archives even exist,” said Calobe Jackson, Jr., a historian and lifelong Harrisburg resident.

Jackson hopes the new facility will encourage more residents to explore the city’s history.

“It’s necessary to increase the size, and I think combining the city archive with the state will be great for everyone,” Jackson told the Planning Commission last night.

The proposed archive building will feature a “self-service zone” where visitors can access digitized archives from the state and the city’s collections. Patrons can also view original records and artifacts in a separate, climate-controlled viewing room.

Preliminary renderings call for a modern, glass-box building with a concrete frame and brick siding. A solar shade atop the building will filter out sun, since UV light can degrade paper records.

The temperature and humidity in the facility must be precisely calibrated to preserve the aging paper records. The main storage facility will be windowless, but the reading rooms, processing rooms and staff offices will have natural light thanks to UV-resistant glass windows.

The extensive HVAC apparatus will be housed in an enclosed equipment courtyard outside. The campus will also feature a landscaped public plaza along 6th and Harris streets.

Harrisburg will retain ownership of its records when it transfers them to the new archives facility, but the memorandum of understanding it signed with the state historical office waives storage and management fees.

The city does not currently employ an archivist. Plans to hire one stalled when the city declared a hiring freeze earlier this summer.

But with an expected three years before the project is complete, Harrisburg will have plenty of time to prepare its archives for transfer, Papenfuse said.

The state archives are currently housed in a tower at 3rd and Forster streets on the grounds of the Pennsylvania State Museum. Andrea Lowery, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission, said that the state is conducting a feasibility study to decide how to reuse the structure.