More Cop Shops: 2 police substations coming to Harrisburg

January 26, 2017 | by Danielle Roth

The sub-station, located at 17 S. 3rd Street, functions as a hub for private security officers contracted by the Downtown Improvement District.

Harrisburg soon will have more police closer to the action, as a new precinct is planned for Allison Hill while a substation opened downtown.

Harrisburg City Council this week took a step toward opening a precinct in Allison Hill, a key aspect of the mayor’s goal to implement a community policing strategy.

On Tuesday, council unanimously approved a resolution to work with SGS Architects Engineers of Carlisle for design and construction management. After a three-month design phase, the construction to complete the renovations will go out to bid, said Mayor Eric Papenfuse.

“This will make response times quicker and community feedback easier,” Papenfuse said.

This Allison Hill precinct on 15^th Street is the second of three “full-time, fully staffed” precincts that the mayor aims to create. The Uptown neighborhood will receive its own precinct next, he said.

A Community Development Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will fund the construction.

Also this month, Harristown Enterprises and the Harrisburg Downtown Improvement District (HDID) opened a Security and Safety Sub-station on 17 S. 3^rd Street near Strawberry Square.

The new “S-5” sub-station serves as a hub for unarmed security officers contracted by HDID to cover the district. Pairs of officers man the sub-station five days per week (Tuesday through Saturday) from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. to supplement the daytime presence of the Capitol Police, said Brad Jones, CEO of Harristown.

“We will have patrol units continue to canvas the DID to look for situations that are unsafe and, when appropriate, call in the emergency,” he said.

These unsafe situations could be a pedestrian in distress, a motorist having car troubles or a streetlight that went out. If an emergency occurs, the private security officers contact the Harrisburg police or the Pennsylvania Capitol Police to respond, Jones said.

“These are all good things that will make the city safer,” Papenfuse said.

Author: Danielle Roth

Weekend Roundup with Sara Bozich

January 26, 2017 | by Sara Bozich

As low-key January marches on, tonight I am skipping my photography class (sorry!) to attend the PPRS event, The Power of Personal Branding Panel Discussion, where I’m joining some fabulous friends to discuss, well, personal branding.

Things are otherwise up in the air, but if I’m in town, we do have tickets to see the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra Pop Series presents The Music of James Bond & More.

What are you doing this weekend?

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Don’t see your event listed? Post it in the comments below. Want to be featured in the future? Submit your events here.

An Easier Cross: Harrisburg takes steps to make 2nd and Chestnut pedestrian friendly

January 25, 2017 | by Danielle Roth

2nd and Chestnut streets will receive pedestrian-friendly improvements.

A busy intersection in downtown Harrisburg will receive a pedestrian-friendly facelift in the coming year, a project designed to ease the flow of traffic and improve safety.

Last night, Harrisburg City Council unanimously approved a resolution to use a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation grant to fund updates to 2^nd and Chestnut streets. Construction will start this summer, said City Engineer Wayne Martin.

“This intersection has a lot of incoming traffic on 2^nd Street which continues onto Chestnut Street to go garages, and a lot of pedestrian traffic walking from garages to places of employment,” Martin said.

Curb extensions called bump outs will give pedestrians a shorter distance to cross the street. A narrower road causes drivers to slow down, Martin said.

These drawings prepared by Wallace Montgomery show the initial plan for 2nd and Chestnut streets.

“Bump outs are a common method for calming traffic,” he said. “It should have that same effect of calming traffic that just got off the highway.”

Councilman Cornelius Johnson said updating this intersection near PinnacleHealth and the Crowne Plaza will play a crucial role in slowing traffic in all of downtown.

“This intersection has always been a constant issue for pedestrians with the influx of traffic coming from the interstates,” he said.

Under the plan, stoplights will be timed so that pedestrians will have a five-second head start to cross the street, which will make them more obvious to motorists.

The new ramps will be accessible to individuals with disabilities per the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“It may not be pedestrian overpasses, but it’s a start,” Councilman Westburn Majors said at last night’s council meeting.

The originally proposed plans included a protected bike lane connecting Riverfront Park’s Capital Area Greenbelt with the Harrisburg Transportation Center at 4^th and Chestnut streets. The project’s funder, PennDOT, citing parking requirements, did not approve the bike lane, which took inspiration from lanes in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Martin said.

The updates to this intersection echo the pedestrian-friendly updates coming to 3^rd Street in April. A portion of 3^rd Street will be repaved for the first time in 20 years thanks to a different PennDOT grant.

Capital Region Water may use the 2^nd and Chestnut project as an opportunity to implement a portion of its Community Greening Plan, a citywide beautification project that manages storm water, Martin said.

“A drainage analysis is being done to see if there is an opportunity to provide for community greening,” he said.

Author: Danielle Roth

Burg Blog: Strong Message

January 24, 2017 | by Lawrance Binda

Steve Reed talks to the press after yesterday’s plea deal was announced.

“This sends a strong message about public corruption.”

So said Rebecca Franz, the deputy attorney general who led the state’s case against former Harrisburg Mayor Steve “Careless Packer” Reed.

And I immediately thought, ah yes, the old “message” word, the last refuge of a prosecutor trying to blow sunshine up a failed case—and save face for her office.

Yesterday, Reed, claiming he accidentally took home about $18,000 worth of historic documents while packing up his office years ago, agreed to a plea deal. Come Friday, he’ll likely be sentenced to probation, which led me to wonder what Franz meant by, “This sends a strong message about public corruption.”

What’s that strong message exactly? To do it?

Engage in a multi-decade abuse of power? Treat the people’s money as your own? Carry out crazy financial schemes? Mobilize a government to satisfy your bizarre fixations? Drive a city into a fiscal abyss? Get caught red-handed with your purloined old-timey treasures?

Do it—you’ll get off lighter than your average shoplifter.

However, afterwards, I actually discovered a silver lining to this profound lack of justice. Talking and texting with city residents, I found some outrage out there—and rightly so. But, for the most part, people seemed to greet the news with a collective, bemused shrug.

How is this good news?

The people of Harrisburg have moved on. Time doesn’t stand still and, while, for some, Reed’s 28-year reign may seem like yesterday, it’s practically ancient history to many others. Since Reed’s 2009 primary loss, Harrisburg has changed so much that it’s no longer his city, and we’re all the better for having been freed from his obsessive control and smug paternalism.

Now, we endured quite the ordeal to get here. When a dictator falls, power lies in the streets, as the saying goes. And, while Reed’s successor, Linda Thompson, couldn’t do much with it, she knew enough to step aside and let the professionals handle the catastrophe. Their solution was hardly perfect, but it was OK enough to help stabilize the city, which allowed the far more competent Papenfuse administration to carry on with reconstructing the municipal body.

But, really, Harrisburg never stood still. As the public sector imploded, the private sector stepped up, even during the city’s darkest days. So, Harrisburg today hardly resembles the top-down Reed era of grand, destructive projects and tacky tourist attractions. It’s being rebuilt from the bottom up, preserving what remains of its historic character, by developers and businesspeople looking primarily to repopulate the city and grow the market.

Since Reed left office, Harrisburg has become more youthful, vibrant, welcoming and diverse. Businesses have moved in, the economy is deeper, and the recovery is more sustainable. We can go forward with bettering our lives without needing to bow low to a city hall strongman and under the constant threat of bone-crushing debt. Yes, there’s always something to argue about around here—it’s hardly nirvana. But the trend is positive, and it seems maintainable.

On Friday, Franz may well repeat her vacuous statement about “sending a message.” She might even add what I half-expected to hear yesterday—that tired old cliché that, “It’s now time to move on.” However, she needn’t say that. In Harrisburg, we already have.

Author: Lawrance Binda

Reed Guilty: Longtime Mayor Pleads to 20 Theft-related Counts

January 23, 2017 | by Danielle Roth

Former Mayor Stephen Reed gives his statement with his lawyer, Henry E. Hockeimer.

Former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed today pleaded guilty to 20 counts of receiving stolen property, ending a decades-long saga that began with one man’s ambitious vision for a series of museums throughout the city.

To a surprised courtroom, Reed’s lawyers announced that he had accepted a plea bargain with the state that dropped most of 112 criminal counts in exchange for pleading guilty to two felony and 18 misdemeanor counts. The proceedings lasted less than an hour.

“He’s charged with misappropriating public tax dollars and using them for his own personal gain,” said Deputy Attorney General Rebecca Franz, the lead prosecutor. “This sends a strong message about public corruption.”

This story began back in the 1990s, when Reed and several associates began buying and shipping back to Harrisburg thousands of artifacts for a series of museums he wanted to build in the city. After Reed left office, the city auctioned off most of the items. However, in June 2015, state investigators found some of the artifacts in Reed’s Cumberland Street home and in a nearby storage facility.

A month later, the state charged the seven-term mayor with almost 500 criminal counts, including charges of theft, bribery and evidence tampering. However, the court threw out most of those, determining they violated the statute of limitations because they had occurred too long ago.

Reed called the proceedings “gut wrenchingly humiliating.” He stuck to a script with defense lawyer Henry E. Hockeimer of Philadelphia-based Ballard Spahr by his side. Reed said he personally purchased similar items when the city purchased artifacts. These items got mixed up while moving out of the mayor’s office, he said.

“How they got into some box when moving out seven years ago? I still do not know,” he said. “My guess is that they were thrown in with a bunch of similar things in the haste of getting everything packed.”

He said he takes responsibility for these 20 counts.

The artifacts, valued at more than $18,000 total, included documents, letters and other Wild West relics connected to Native American groups and famous figures such as Buffalo Bill.

A $3,500-value brochure about Geronimo, a late-1880s Apache leader, landed Reed one of two felony counts. A $2,500-value letter from a Missouri convict earned him another felony.

Items worthy of misdemeanors included a check that Oklahoma outlaw AJ Jennings signed and a photograph of an infantry group from Montana. None of the 20 items appear to originate from Pennsylvania.

Reed’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Friday afternoon. He could face up to 101 years in prison per standard issuing. However, his actual sentence will range from probation to nine months in a county jail, Franz said. Reed, 67, has stage 4 cancer, but appeared healthy at the trial.

City Solicitor Neil Grover said Harrisburg will submit a formal written statement to the prosecution outlining their request for the sentencing length.

“The city is a victim of the crime,” he said.

Reed’s attorney said they still seek the return of the artifacts that Reed did not plead to. Franz said the Office of Attorney General will not return the artifacts.

Franz said the plea deal came together over the last couple of days.

“The fact that the defendant came into court today and entered a plea of guilty achieves justice,” Franz said.

Author: Danielle Roth

Sister March: March, rally in support of women’s rights slated for Saturday in downtown Harrisburg.

January 19, 2017 | by Lawrance Binda

Marchers will take a route that will take them by the state Capitol.

From time to time, national issues play out on the streets of the Pennsylvania state capital in the form of protests, rallies and speeches.

Saturday will be one of those days, as the Women’s March, Harrisburg, will offer support and show solidarity with marchers in more than 600 cities around the world, including the Women’s March on Washington, which inspired the local events.

“My co-organizer and I couldn’t make it to the Washington, D.C., rally, and we looked online to see if there was one in Harrisburg and there wasn’t,” said Elizabeth DeKok of Harrisburg.

So, two days ago, DeKok and her friend, Emily Hibshman, registered the Harrisburg event, the 12^th affiliated march just in the commonwealth.

Marchers will assemble at 10 a.m. at Kunkel Plaza at State and Front streets for a rally. They’ll then walk a route that includes Front Street, Market Street, N. 3^rd Street and back down State Street to the plaza. DeKok said she expects several hundred people to march based on RSVPs on the main march website and responses from the Facebook event.

DeKok said that she felt the need to participate based upon what she sees as misogynistic statements by President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated tomorrow.

“When you have a man say horrible, degrading things and then become president, it unleashes the inner rage in you,” she said.

Harrisburg resident Anne Chappelka said that she and her husband, Roger, will be among the marchers on Saturday. She said that they felt compelled to march because the future seems so uncertain and “frightening.”

“I’m distressed at Washington right now,” said Chappelka, 83. “I’m worried about healthcare and social security. It’s everything.”

In Pennsylvania, marches are slated for a dozen cities, including, in central Pennsylvania, Lancaster, Selinsgrove and Lewisburg, in addition to Harrisburg. As of this afternoon, organizers say that more than 1.3 million people have registered to participate in “sister marches” worldwide outside the main event in Washington, D.C.

According to the main website, the marches were established in direct response to the divisive presidential campaign and are intended to “send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.”

“Marching for civil rights took a long time, but it worked,” said Chappelka. “I think we have to do that again now.”

For more information about the Women’s March, Harrisburg, visit the Facebook page: Women’s March on Washington-HBG Sister March (https://www.facebook.com/events/674557009371234/), www.womensmarch.com or email [email protected].

This story has been updated to include a change of meeting place and route.

Author: Lawrance Binda

Weekend Roundup with Sara Bozich

January 19, 2017 | by Sara Bozich

We’re continuing a low key January, and I don’t have much for plans but there are some things on my to-do list.

I’d really like to get out to see Gamut Theatre’s Choose Your Own Adventure The Play: Space Vampire at some point (performances Friday through Sunday).

Friday, of course, is 3rd in the Burg, and we’re double-dating to Alvaro’s for a low-key evening of great Italian food (BYOB of course). Saturday is the highly anticipated Lyrical Gangster release at Zeroday, so I’ll need to stop there for sure.

And Sunday is reserved for Steelers football, of course. This week’s menu will feature South Philly Hoagies because I am tired of cooking!

What are you doing this weekend?

Thursday

Thankfully its Thursday – Free Tastings and $3 Craft Beer at Spring Gate
Dogfish Head Tap Takeover at Funck’s Restaurant
Crossfire3 Live Music! at Grain + Verse.
Old School Dance Night w/ DJ Darklord at River City Blues
Tremors Drunktrax at JB Lovedrafts
Wednesday 13, Bourbon Crow (Unplugged) at Stage on Herr
CPAFE January Happy Hour at Ever Grain.
Theatre Harrisburg presents The Whipping Man at Krevsky Production Center
The Elixir, Winter Cure at Elementary Coffee Co.
Madhouse Oyster Dinner at The Mill in Hershey.
3rd Thursday Wine Down at Hello Gorgeous

Friday

3rd in the Burg!
- 3rd in the Burg HAPPY HOUR at Stage on Herr
- 3rd in the Burg: Music & Art; Friends of Midtown Happy Hour at Zeroday
- Artist Reception: Thom Kulp at Cafe 1500
- Art at Downtown Amps for January
- Rocky – Oscar Series at Midtown Cinema
- Burg On Board fundraiser reception at Gallery @ Second
- With All Due Respect book launch with Jeff Coleman at The State Museum of Pennsylvania
- The Band of Rivals @ Midtown Scholar
- 3rd in the Burg at Dalicia Bakery
- Doug Morris Hard Travelin Duo at The Vegetable Hunter/ Crave and Co.
- Third in the Burg, at the Market
- 3rd in the Burger at The Harrisburger.
Jazz Fridays Happy Hour in The Gallery Steve Rudolph & Tony Marino at HMAC
Yin Yoga Series (5 weeks started 1/20/16) at H2L Studios.
Genesis Lorraine & Her 8-Track Mind at River City Blues Club
Michael Ray Concert at Joe K’s Brewhouse.
Andromeda at Stage on Herr
Beer Busters Podcast Recording at Tattered Flag Brewery & Still Works
Inauguration Day Vigil for Democracy at Pennsylvania State Capitol
Oshian / UnderTheMoon at The Champ
CeLeBRaTeARTS Week Presents: Night of Magic at the Capitol!
Alt Ed at Chick’s Tavern
Appalachian Gypsy Tribe at The Abbey Bar at Appalachian Brewing Co.
Theatre Harrisburg presents The Whipping Man at Krevsky Production Center
The Forum Welcomes Jo Dee Messina
Chili & Beer Nights at The Vineyard at Grandview: Liquid Hero is pairing up with Killer Kitchen VS Mad Chef Craft Brewery. Live music by Fiddle & Fret
Choose Your Own Adventure The Play: Space Vampire at Gamut Theatre.
Nugget Nectar Firkin Party at Arooga’s Hershey

Saturday

Saturday Morning Art Club – Winter Session at Susquehanna Art Museum.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – Faulkner Honda Family Film Series at Midtown Cinema
AUDITIONS FOR “REEFER MADNESS” at HMAC.
January 2017 Dart Tournament at River City Blues
Sweet Sweet Comedy at The Vineyard & Brewery at Hershey
Smooth Like Clyde Concert at Joe K’s Brewhouse.
The Highballers w/ Up Pops The Devil at Stage on Herr
Don Johnson Project at River City Blues Club & Dart Room
SPIEL-BURG’s Saturday Solution: First Dose at JB Lovedraft’s
It’s Time. – Lyrical Gangster release at Zeroday.
ZooAmerica’s Free Community Weekend
Hibrewnation: Gettysburg
Earl David Reed Live at Champs
Ladies Night – #2 at Armstrong Valley
Box Of Rain Essential Grateful Dead 68-74 at Chameleon Club
Classic Movie Night! at The Vegetable Hunter/Crave and Co.
Live! at The Mill – Corinna Joy.
Phipps & Friends at The Abbey Bar at Appalachian Brewing Co.
Theatre Harrisburg presents The Whipping Man at Krevsky Production Center
The Popcorn Hat Players Present The Brementown Musicians
Market Square Concerts presents 35th Anniversary Concert: Directors & Friends at Whitaker Center.
Choose Your Own Adventure The Play: Space Vampire at Gamut Theatre
York Symphony Orchestra to Perform Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with Classical Classics
H*MAC Flea Artist Market
Kristin Chenoweth @ American Music Theatre
Free Zumba Saturdays at H*MAC at Stage on Herr