Greater Harrisburg's Community Magazine
Happy Weekend!
My calendar is decidedly blank this weekend, and if somehow weather permits, I’ll be planting my garden (Sunday?), which leaves lots of time to explore elsewhere until then.
Note: Friday is National Pizza Party Day. Have one.
The Harrisburg School Board will meet next week to elect a superintendent for a minimum three-year term, a letter sent to board directors announced today.
Members of the school board received notice by email late this afternoon that the vote will take place at their monthly meeting, scheduled for Monday at 6:30 p.m. in the district offices at 1601 State St. State school code requires board directors to receive at least five-days notice for such a vote.
The notification letter signed by board secretary Carol Kaufman, as well as an accompanying memo from board President Judd Pittman, were shared with TheBurg this afternoon.
The vote offers the board a final opportunity to re-hire Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney for a period of three to five years.
Before the board votes to offer Knight-Burney a contract, though, it will consider a motion to appoint a search firm to find a new superintendent.
Knight-Burney’s contract with the district expires on June 30. The board voted in March to consider new candidates for her position, then tried to rescind that vote in April in an action that was found invalid under state law.
The debate over the district’s top administrator has fiercely divided the board and its leadership since December. Pittman has consistently voted to consider new applicants for the position, while Vice President Danielle Robinson has pushed for Knight-Burney to be rehired.
The issue has drawn dozens of district residents to board meetings, where they spoke out in near equal numbers to support and oppose Knight-Burney’s contract being renewed.
A memo Pittman sent to board directors today explained that placing the two divergent motions on Monday’s agenda would “honor the diversity of public comment over the last five months,” as well as “the actions and legal obligation of the board as a result of the March 19 meeting” and “Madam Vice President [Danielle Robinson’s] request to hire Dr. Knight-Burney for an additional 3-5 years.”
The resolution that the board passed in March allowed it to consider new superintendent candidates, but it did not preclude board directors from offering Knight-Burney a new contract before her current one expires.
Robinson told TheBurg this week that she hoped the board would offer Knight-Burney another term.
Knowing that Robinson wanted to consider a motion to re-hire Knight-Burney, Pittman decided to place it on Monday’s agenda rather than allow it to rise from the floor, he said.
The two motions the board will consider on Monday carry mutually exclusive outcomes. Since only one director, Tyrell Spradley, has voted inconsistently on the superintendent issue, his vote could decide which one comes to fruition.
Currently, the board is also contending with an $8 million budget deficit, which may require the district to cut more than 30 teachers, administrators and support staff for the 2018-19 school year.
Spradley declined to comment on the vote by phone on Wednesday evening. Robinson could not immediately be reached for comment.
Candidate signs adorn the State Street median in Harrisburg.
It was a tight race, but a Lutheran pastor narrowly bested a four-person field of political newcomers to capture the Democratic nomination in the Harrisburg area’s new congressional district.
With almost all precincts reported, George Scott tallied 13,924 votes compared to 13,376 for Savonnia Corbin-Johnson, 6,912 for Eric Ding and 4,157 for Alan Howe.
“I want to thank Eric, Shavonnia, and Alan for running a positive race focused on the issues and the people of this district,” Scott said in a statement. “I am honored by this victory tonight thanks in large part to the incredible volunteers this campaign has assembled.”
Corbin-Johnson led the field for much of the night, with Scott closing a sizeable early gap to eventually pull ahead. Corbin-Johnson performed especially well in Harrisburg and in Dauphin County, where she beat Scott by 1,540 votes. Scott, however, performed considerably better in Cumberland and York counties.
In the November general election, Scott will face off against incumbent Republican Scott Perry for the 10th -district congressional seat. Perry was unopposed in his race.
“Our Congress is broken,” Scott said after declaring victory. “It has stopped working for working people. We have the most expensive health care in the world, but far from the best outcomes. We are paying more for prescription drugs than any of our allies. The talking heads blame unions and workers for our challenges, but the blame falls squarely on Congress for doing nothing at all to help families during this wageless recovery.”
Scott, 56, was raised on a cattle farm southwest of Harrisburg and served for 20 years in the U.S. Army before becoming an ordained Lutheran minister. He is on leave from Trinity Lutheran Church in East Berlin.
In the Harrisburg-area race for General Assembly, incumbent Democrat Patty Kim will face Republican challenger Anthony Harrell in the general election for the 103rd legislative district. Both ran unopposed in the primary.
In the 104th district, both Democrat Patricia Ann Smith and Republican incumbent Sue Helm ran unopposed in their primaries and will face off against one another in November.
In the 105th district, Democrat Eric Epstein will run against Republican Andrew Lewis for an open seat. Epstein was unopposed, while Lewis beat challenger Adam Klein.
Local Philadelphia Eagles fans may have thought that it got no better than this year’s Super Bowl win.
But it may have just gotten better.
Quarterback Nick Foles is slated to visit Harrisburg’s Midtown Scholar Bookstore late next month to sign copies of his book, “Believe It: My Journey of Success, Failure and Overcoming the Odds.”
According to the book jacket, “Believe It” chronicles Foles’ unlikely journey from second-string quarterback to Super Bowl MVP, “and the faith that grounded him through it all.”
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Nick Foles to Harrisburg,” said Alex Brubaker, Midtown Scholar’s manager. “There’s tons of Eagles fans throughout central Pennsylvania that often don’t get the opportunity to meet players or go to games. Once we heard Nick Foles was coming out with a memoir, we knew we had to get him to Harrisburg.”
Foles’ appearance will be a ticketed event. The cost of the ticket, plus one copy of the book, is $30.
“Foles will go down in franchise history as the first-ever quarterback to bring home a championship to Philly–and to do it over Tom Brady and the Patriots? That’s special,” Brubaker said. “He’ll always hold an iconic place in the memories of Eagles fans for what he was able to accomplish during that playoff run. As a long-time Eagles fan, I’m kind of freaking out. It’s going to be a really cool experience.”
Nick Foles will appear on Friday, June 29, at Midtown Scholar Bookstore, 1302 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg. Doors open at 2:15 p.m. The book-signing begins at 2:30 p.m. and will run until 4:30 p.m. For more information and tickets, click here.
The job board for the Harrisburg School District currently lists 76 open positions, but you won’t find superintendent among them.
Two months after the board voted to consider new candidates for its top administrative post, its leadership remains divided on whether to retain or replace Sybil Knight-Burney, who has served as superintendent since 2011.
Board members confirmed this week that the nationwide search to replace Knight-Burney has yet to begin. Before it can, the board must vote to hire a search firm.
Board President Judd Pittman hopes that vote will take place at the board’s next session on Monday, May 21. But the board’s vice president, Danielle Robinson, hopes the board will vote to retain Knight-Burney for another term of three to five years.
Whichever action the board takes will likely be the final referendum on Knight-Burney’s contract, which expires on June 30.
“It’s still up in the air,” Robinson said after a budget and finance committee meeting on Monday, where board directors and administrators fielded questions about the district’s $8 million deficit.
Robinson said that the district would have to consider the cost of a nationwide search for a new superintendent. The Pennsylvania School Board Association offers recruiting services for about $5,000, but an outside headhunting firm could cost at least twice as much.
What’s more, Robinson isn’t confident that the board can conduct a thorough search for a new superintendent in just six weeks. If Knight-Burney’s contract expires before a replacement is found, the district will have to retain an interim superintendent while the search continues.
“We’d get a big game of musical chairs, and that’s not what we need right now,” Robinson said.
Pittman is hopeful that the board will come to a consensus at next week’s meeting and retain the services of a search firm.
He favors hiring the PSBA and was not concerned about the $5,000 rate for its services.
Pittman previously said that he received inquiries about Knight-Burney’s job from interested prospective applicants, even though the job has not been publically advertised. He said that he asked the district’s human resources manager on Monday to post the job listing to the district’s website.
The board has vacillated on Knight-Burney’s tenure since December, when the resolution to consider new applicants for her job first appeared on a meeting agenda. The board tabled that item every month until March, when it passed by a 5-4 vote.
The board attempted to rescind that action in April, and a change of heart from board newcomer Tyrell Spradley allowed it to pass a rescission vote 5-4.
Board Solicitor Samuel Cooper ultimately found the rescission attempt invalid under state law.
Given the presence of at least one swing vote on the board, Pittman can’t say for certain what will happen at Monday’s meeting.
“It’s going to take some serious political pressure to line up votes,” he said.
The board’s next meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, May 21, in the district offices at 1601 State St.
Teachers from Foose Elementary School attended the school board budget and finance committee meeting tonight in support of their vice principal, William Hicks, who may be transferred under proposed budget cuts.
Harrisburg teachers worried about impending budget cuts brought their concerns to the school board tonight, where they asked board directors to trim fat from the district’s administration before eliminating educational and support staff.
At least 30 teachers were joined by members of the public and district parents at a budget and finance committee meeting, where public comment ran for more than an hour.
Teachers said that the proposed cuts to classroom staff and school administration offices would hurt students and disrupt school operations. They also questioned the salary expenditures in the district’s central administrative office.
The most recent budget proposal from the district business office calls for the elimination of 31 employees across the district, including assistant principals, counselors, security personnel, teachers and district administrators.
The cuts would narrow the district’s projected deficit from $8 million to $5 million for the 2018-19 school year, assuming the board authorizes maximum tax hikes.
Tonight, teachers implored the board to prioritize salary cuts in the district’s central administrative office rather than in school buildings.
Suzanne Williams, a veteran teacher at Downey Elementary School, said that the teachers, security guards, school counselors and food service personnel who interact with students every day should not have their jobs in jeopardy.
“Each year, we’re faced with more problems than the last, and everything is cut from the bottom, nothing ever from the top,” Williams said.
Another teacher said that the cuts would unfairly strain administrative and educational staff in schools. She contended that central administrative offices are fully staffed, pointing as an example to the six employees in the district’s human resources office.
“None of the people at 1601 are expected to work alone, without assistance, but our principals, secretaries, security personnel are,” the teacher said, referring to the district’s central administrative offices at 1601 State St. “These cuts directly affect the academic climate of our schools.”
Business Manager Bilal Hasan said that the proposed budget would cut some central administrative positions. He said that every department in the district’s administrative building was asked to identify one position to eliminate.
The budget proposal also calls for eliminating assistant principals at buildings with fewer than 500 students, which includes both Downey and Foose elementary schools.
More than a dozen teachers from Foose appeared at the board meeting in support of the school’s vice principal, William Hicks, who may be transferred to another building due to the cuts. Teachers said that Hicks has formed a formidable duo with Principal Alexis Wertz, and they urged the board not to separate the administrators.
“Breaking up the team will reinforce the trauma our students already know, which is that people they love will go away,” said Kayla Mini, a music teacher at Foose.
Teachers also called out specific salaries and spending choices by the district. Angela Holmes, an elementary school librarian, wanted to know why $7,100 had been taken from the district’s library funds to pay for a high school excursion to an amusement park.
Many teachers questioned the district’s $280,000 grant-funded budget for consultants, and more than one commenter remarked on the $100,000 in annual salary and incentives for Hasan, the business administrator.
The final comment of the night came from district parent Kia Hansard, who asked why Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney was not at the meeting.
“She needs to be here. It’s her responsibility to help figure this out,” Hansard said about Knight-Burney, who was notified in March that her contract will not be automatically renewed when it expires on June 30.
The school board will hold its monthly meeting on Monday, May 21 at 5:30 p.m. in the district administration building at 1601 State St. The budget and finance committee will next meet on Monday, June 5.
Theatre Harrisburg has named a local theater veteran and central PA native as its new executive director.
Effective today, Stosh Snyder took the helm of the 92-year-old organization, replacing Allison Hays, who served in the position for about a year.
“Theatre Harrisburg holds a special place in my heart,” Snyder said in a statement. “I am truly honored and excited to take the reins of something that has brought me great joy ever since I was a young kid.”
In his new position, Snyder will be responsible for the overall operations of the theater, which frequently stages productions both at Whitaker Center in downtown Harrisburg and at Theatre Harrisburg’s own Krevsky Production Center.
Snyder is a graduate of Central Dauphin High School and, as a child, took acting classes at Harrisburg Community Theatre, the original name of Theatre Harrisburg, according to the organization.
He’s also a graduate of Shenandoah University in Virginia, returning to the Harrisburg area in 2004. He has performed frequently at Theatre Harrisburg and at Hershey Area Playhouse.
Snyder’s many roles have included Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” George Gibbs in “Our Town,” Phil Davis in “White Christmas” and Lt. Cioffi in “Curtains.”
“We are thrilled to bring Stosh aboard,” said Solomon Krevsky, chairman of the board of directors of Theatre Harrisburg. “He is greatly respected in the capital region arts community for his talents and dedication to theater, and his keen business acumen will serve us well.”
For more information about Theatre Harrisburg, visit www.theatreharrisburg.com.
For the second year in a row, Harrisburg residents claim that a local collections agency is improperly slapping them with delinquency charges.
And, for the second year in a row, that agency denies any wrongdoing.
Keystone Collections, the firm that assesses Harrisburg City School District’s annual occupation tax, has come under fire from taxpayers who say they received penalty charges for their 2017 tax bills, despite never receiving initial invoices.
The district’s $120 occupation tax is levied annually on any city resident who holds a job. It’s separate from the city’s Local Services Tax, which takes $3 a week from any employee in Harrisburg, including commuters.
Fulton Street resident Lynn Schaufelberger received a $180 invoice from Keystone Collections on April 25, charging her $60 for fees and services on top of the $120 flat tax rate. She’s certain she never received any first notice of the tax bill, which Keystone claims was issued to her in July.
Schaufelberger receives Social Security disability payments because chronic illness prevents her from working. She knew she couldn’t afford the hefty fine on her fixed income and was also adamant that she shouldn’t be taxed for a job she doesn’t have.
“I got nowhere trying to argue the fine,” Schaufelberger said, after calling Keystone’s offices to explain her circumstances.
In neighborhood social media groups, almost a dozen residents have leveled the same charge as Schaufelberger—Keystone billed them a late penalty without sending an initial tax notice, they claimed.
The pattern is consistent with complaints from last year, when dozens of taxpayers said that they received delinquent charges from Keystone without ever seeing their first bills.
Following the Money
Keystone representatives stand by the agency’s system for recovering delinquent taxes. They insist that everyone who was fined a penalty in April was on a mailing list for tax bills they sent out in July 2017.
“Beginning in January, Keystone cross-checked the tax year 2017 payment data against the original mailing list,” Keystone said in a written statement. “Those on the original mailing list who did not pay the tax on time were sent a delinquent notice in April 2018.”
The company offered a nearly identical explanation last summer, when a Burg reporter inquired about missing notices in Harrisburg.
In April 2017, Harrisburg residents Annie Hughes and Timi Lesperance appeared at a Harrisburg School Board meeting to request an investigation into Keystone’s billing practices. They presented the board with a list of almost 30 taxpayers who believed they’d been unfairly assessed a penalty.
Bilal Hasan, the district’s business administrator, said that the district investigated the charges against Keystone last year and found no evidence of wrongdoing by the collections firm. He said the district is looking into the matter again after receiving a fresh round of complaints from residents.
Financial statements that the school district provided in response to a Right-to-Know request show that Keystone did collect 71 percent of its occupation tax revenue between July and September of last year. All told, the tax generated $554,866 for the district between July 2017 and January 2018, after Keystone withheld $50,000 for it mailing costs and commission fees.
According to the district’s contract with Keystone, the company is compensated $1 for each tax bill it mails, plus reimbursement for postage. Since the statements do not itemize Keystone’s costs, however, it’s impossible to isolate the commission payment to determine how many bills the agency mailed each month.
Under state tax law, the district does not have to compensate Keystone or reimburse postage for delinquent tax bills. Rather, both entities split proceeds from fees. A $12 “statutory penalty” goes to the district, and a $13.20 “cost of collection” goes to Keystone. The contract does not say who gets the $25 late filing fee.
Delinquent occupation taxes netted the district $216,369 in 2016 and 2017, and $178,683 in the ongoing 2017-18 billing period, according to financial statements.
Stalemate
Despite Keystone’s reassurances, some taxpayers remain adamant that their delinquent notice was the first communication they received from Keystone during the 2017 tax cycle.
Ed Nielsen said he didn’t pay his occupation tax in July 2017 because he never received a bill from Keystone. He got the penalty notice in April and paid it shortly thereafter to avoid a fight.
“If they are sure they sent it, and I am sure that I didn’t receive it, it’s kind of a stalemate in terms of who has the responsibility,” Nielsen said.
Like Neilsen, Hughes and Lesperance begrudgingly paid their penalty fees last year, even after contesting them with Keystone.
Hughes said she’s disappointed, but not surprised, to see the collections agency zealously assessing penalties again. She stands by her assertion from last year that the school board ought to commission a third-party audit of the collections firm.
“I feel like they’re failing the community,” Hughes said. “An audit is a reasonable request, and it would really assure us that our taxes are being collected fairly.”
School board members could not immediately be reached for comment.
Hughes filed a complaint against Keystone last year and urged other residents to do the same if they felt they’d been unfairly penalized.
State Attorney General spokesperson Joe Grace said that the state’s consumer complaint bureau has received 58 complaints against Keystone Collections since 2010. The AG’s office cannot comment on the existence of any investigations.
The district’s contract with Keystone expires in June 2019.
Keystone Contract by Lizzy Hardison on Scribd
Keystone Financial Statements by Lizzy Hardison on Scribd
This may come as a surprise, but there’s an election next week.
Regular Burg readers may know that I’m a little obsessed with local political campaigns. I write about them frequently, unfortunately often discussing how terribly they’re run.
Over the years, I’ve pointed to the incompetency, laziness and invisibility of many (though not all) of the campaigns for Harrisburg mayor, City Council and school board. I even took a shot last year at Democratic candidates in Dauphin County, amazed that Democrats can’t manage to win a single countywide office in a majority-Democratic county.
And now comes the race for Pennsylvania’s new 10th congressional district.
The primary is on Tuesday—and please raise your hand if you’ve personally met any of the four candidates running for the Democratic nomination: Shavonnia Corbin-Johnson, Eric Ding, Alan Howe and George Scott.
I assume that few hands went up.
The primary is literally five days away. Where are these people?
In case the candidates aren’t aware: Harrisburg is the largest city in your district, with the greatest concentration of Democratic votes. For the past two months, you should have been pounding the pavement in Harrisburg and York, practically camped outside the Broad Street Market and Central Market on market days, pressing the flesh, asking for votes.
But I haven’t seen you out here. No one’s seen you. No one knows who you are. You’ve never served before in elected office and have almost no name or face recognition. So, how do you expect to win the primary, much less mount a credible challenge to the entrenched Republican incumbent, Scott Perry?
Of the four, Corbin-Johnson seems to be running the closest thing to a race. She has an office in Midtown Harrisburg, and I can’t seem to log onto Facebook without her campaign ad popping up in my newsfeed.
Facebook ads, however, do not a campaign make. I’ve met Corbin-Johnson once, and she struck me as caring and intelligent, if quite young (she’s 26). But I met her only because I proactively went to the single event I received a press release for—her endorsement last week by Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse. I was the only member of the press there. I gave her campaign manager my business card, and I haven’t heard from him since.
But, to Corbin-Johnson’s credit, that one press release is 100-percent more than I’ve received from all of her three opponents combined, from whom I’ve received nada, zip, zero, nothing. To be credible, campaigns need to aware of and in touch with all local media, including a news source—TheBurg—that covers local politics and is really the only publication with widespread distribution throughout the entire 10th district.
Nor has anyone called me or visited our extremely visible and open office. Corbin-Johnson told me she’s walked past it a few times.
I did a Google search for each campaign, which I had to do because the candidates never told me how to find them online. Only one website—Scott’s—had a list of appearances, though most seemed to be small fundraisers or pre-scripted “forums” organized by other groups. In the crucial month of April, 10 days passed without a single event listed on his website.
Howe’s online calendar was completely blank—not one event was listed for April or May.
I went to Ding’s page, where I found no area at all for campaign appearances. So, I hit the button that said “press” and discovered that the page was last updated on March 28.
Do these candidates actually want to win? And, if so, how exactly do they plan to do that?
Knowing your local media, publicizing your events, hitting the ground hard, engaging voters, shaking every hand, making yourself visible, campaigning every day for months—these are the basic building blocks of a credible effort. They demonstrate fundamental knowledge, competency and hard work, and they mostly don’t cost a cent.
Politics—like nature—abhors a vacuum. In this field of unknowns, a little hard work could have made all the difference, boosting one candidate over the others. However, most voters who turn out on Tuesday will stand inside the voting booth, stare at the slate of candidates and have no idea who these people are or why they should select one over the other.
Common wisdom has it that Democrats have a real chance this year in the new 10th district, since their partisan disadvantage is down to a few points, and Democratic voters generally seem energized. However, beating an incumbent congressman is damn hard work and, so far, I’ve seen nothing to indicate that any of these four are willing to do the tough, time-consuming, on-the-ground campaigning that it takes to win.
Harrisburg’s historic Zembo Shrine is back on the market after a contract with a potential buyer fell through.
Earlier this year, Harrisburg officials announced that Beaty Capital Group, an Arkansas-based development firm, would buy the Zembo Shrine almost a year after the property went up for sale.
But Mike Brown, Beaty’s vice president of acquisitions, confirmed today that the deal is no longer under contract.
“While we remain interested in the property, we were unable to get entirely comfortable with the economics associated with the way that property would integrate into the entertainment market surrounded by the developed markets of Hershey, Baltimore and Philadelphia,” Brown said in an email.
The property is listed for $950,000 by the Bill Gladstone Group at NAI CIR, a commercial real estate firm in Lemoyne.
Through its subsidy TempleLive LLC, Beaty planned to operate the 65,000-square-foot shrine at Division and N. 3rd streets as an entertainment and events venue. The company owns and operates other historic shrines across the country, including ones in Cleveland, Ohio and Fort Smith, Ark., according to its website.
Bill Gladstone said Beaty would have been an ideal buyer for the shrine, but ultimately encountered roadblocks from partners in the entertainment industry.
“They were going to have a tougher time than they anticipated getting the acts they wanted to come to Harrisburg to come here,” Gladstone said.
When the sale was announced, Harrisburg officials were hopeful that new ownership would make the shrine a cultural destination and bring tourism to Harrisburg.
Today, mayor Eric Papenfuse said that city officials are committed to finding a new buyer.
Echoing Brown’s statement, he claimed that the sale to Beaty fell through because of dynamics within the entertainment industry.
“The company remains very bullish on Harrisburg,” Papenfuse said.
Gladstone said he is prepared to aggressively market the property to find a fitting buyer. Given what his firm learned through the ill-fated Beaty deal, he isn’t certain that the property will be developed as an entertainment venue.
The space could be developed as an educational or religious center, Gladstone said, though he “isn’t ruling out” another buyer from the entertainment industry.
Any sale must be authorized by Zembo’s governing board, which is comprised of members of the Shriners, a fraternal organization affiliated with the Free Masons. The Shriners continue to meet at Zembo today, but the group’s declining membership, coupled with the building’s high operating costs, forced them to put the historic property up for sale in 2017.
Built in the 1930s, the Moorish-style building features interior arches, hand-painted motifs, and ornate stone detailing. It houses large meeting rooms and a theater with a 2,500-seat capacity.
Zembo neighbors Italian Lake and the former William Penn High School, which is also currently for sale.