Capital Region Water To Weigh DeHart Land Sale

December 15, 2014 | by Paul Barker

The DeHart Reservoir.

Capital Region Water, the city’s water and sewer authority, is contemplating a $1 million sale of land above the DeHart Reservoir, the lake that supplies Harrisburg’s drinking water, authority officials said Monday.

The sale would occur under a conservation partnership that will generate revenue while keeping the property in public hands, said Capital Region Water CEO Shannon Williams.

The sale, to the Pennsylvania Game Commission, would be federally funded through the Department of Defense’s Army Compatible Use Buffer program, or ACUB, which seeks to maintain undeveloped spaces around military installations.

The program would partner Fort Indiantown Gap, a National Guard training facility near the reservoir, with the Conservation Fund, a national environmental charity.

“The military are not good neighbors,” said David Weisnicht, deputy base operations manager at the Gap. “We make a lot of noise, we make smoke, we fly things.”

A sale under the ACUB program would guarantee the base could continue its operations without being encroached upon by future developers, Weisnicht said.

If the sale were to go forward, the Conservation Fund would purchase the 384-acre parcel with ACUB funding and then transfer the property to the Game Commission.

The parcel, at the furthest upstream edge of Capital Region Water’s 8,200 acres in Clarks Valley, would form a bridge between two existing tracts of state gaming lands on either side of the reservoir.

The deal’s structure would provide “one of the best guarantees of protection in perpetuity,” said Kyle Shenk, the Conservation Fund’s Pennsylvania representative.

Ownership by a government entity, as opposed to a private developer, would provide continuity, Shenk said. And the deed would contain language compelling the Game Commission to prevent incompatible development in the future.

Clarks Valley, along the Kittatinny Ridge, forms part of a critical migration corridor for raptors and other birds, Shenk said.

He said the sale would allow Capital Region Water to monetize its land assets without endangering the ecosystem or the pristine watershed.

A map of Capital Region Water land around the DeHart, with the parcel proposed to be sold at right, in purple. Courtesy of Capital Region Water.

A map of Capital Region Water land around the DeHart, with the parcel proposed to be sold at upper right, in purple. Courtesy of Capital Region Water.

Williams, in an interview about the proposed sale last week, said her “gut feeling” was that the deal represented a window of opportunity to ensure preservation while generating much-needed revenues for the authority’s capital projects.

Among those projects are comprehensive evaluations of the transmission mains that bring water to the city from the DeHart and from the Susquehanna River, as well as an assessment of the condition of authority pipes throughout the water system.

The authority will have a projected $5 million in capital expenses on the water system each year for the foreseeable future, with no current funding strategy in place for such projects beginning in 2016, according to Williams.

If the board passed on the current proposal, Williams said, she feared a similar opportunity would not come along again any time soon. And a future authority, under different leadership and facing new financial obligations, might consider an agreement without preservation guarantees.

At the same time, Williams said she wanted to ensure members of the public had adequate time to consider the decision and offer their input at hearings.

“I want devil’s advocates all over the place,” she said.

The proposed sale will appear before the Capital Region Water board at their regular meeting at 6 p.m. this Wednesday, on the first floor of 212 Locust St., Harrisburg.

Wednesday’s meeting is not the first time the sale comes before the board. In July, the board unanimously authorized the negotiation of a preliminary sale agreement.

If the board votes Wednesday to consider the sale, the authority will commission an engineering report and will schedule public hearings before a final vote in February.

Mounds of Dumped Material Mystify Uptown Neighborhood

December 12, 2014 | by Paul Barker

The mysterious mounds at 6th and Emerald.

It almost looks like part of the landscape: a few mounds of soil, stones and tattered black fabric, sprouting tall yellow grasses and dusted with snow.

In fact, it’s the discarded plantings from the State Street median below the capitol, excavated and replaced this fall as part of a $50,000 project funded by county gaming funds and donations from a neighborhood nonprofit.

The debris now sprawls across a few vacant lots at the corner of 6^th and Emerald streets, against a backdrop of bare trees and houses.

Ellen Crist, a member of Camp Curtin Community Neighbors United, an area neighborhood group, noticed the mounds recently and thought the materials looked familiar. So she posted some photos to Facebook and started calling around.

“Uptown should be taken seriously,” Crist later said. “I don’t think they would put this pile in Shipoke or Midtown and get away with it.”

Discovering how the pile got there in the first place, however, turned out to be somewhat more complicated.

The land, Crist learned, is owned by the Harrisburg Redevelopment Authority. She called and spoke to a woman there who said she had no knowledge of the authority having given permission to dump materials on the property.

HRA staff did not answer phone calls near the end of the day Friday. Later that night, however, Bryan Davis, HRA’s executive director, wrote in an email that the city has a “standing agreement” with the city permitting it to temporarily store top soil or backfill on HRA lots.

Crist also called Aaron Johnson, the city’s public works director. Johnson, in a phone interview with TheBurg, said the city wasn’t involved in the dumping. He added that there had been problems with illegal dumping on the site over the summer, and that he was speaking with codes about possibly putting up fencing.

But Wayne Martin, the city engineer, later said the city was aware of the dumping, and in fact had approved it, because the materials were indeed going to be used as fill at a demolition site on Allison Hill.

The lots were being used as a transfer site before city workers took the fill to the demolition project, located near 15^th and Hunter streets. Bethesda Mission, a homeless shelter on Reily Street, had also coordinated with the city to dump materials from a recent renovation there, Martin said.

The State Street replanting took place in late October. Martin, referring to communications with the landscaper, Shaffer Landscapes of Middleburg, said that the project had been scheduled to begin on Oct. 23 and be complete by Nov. 12.

TheBurg photographed the median on Oct. 30, at which time the project appeared to be mostly complete. The materials would have been moved to the 6^th and Emerald site in late October or early November, Martin said.

State Street Improvement Association, a neighborhood nonprofit, spearheaded the project and sought input from residents on its design.

Two local developers, Alex Hartzler and Dave Butcher, led the effort and contributed the bulk of the private funding of the project through their company, WCI Partners.

Hartzler is also the publisher of TheBurg.

Hartzler said Friday that the idea of donating the fill came up at a neighborhood meeting about the project, during which Martin had brought up the possibility of using it at a demolition site.

Hartzler said he and the landscapers were happy to give the material to the city, and that he found the use “entirely appropriate.” He added, however, that he “can sympathize with neighbors who own property next to a vacant lot” and would be concerned to see material dumped there without explanation.

“It’s a positive thing that the neighbors are concerned and would call the city about it,” he said. “If it were me, I would make a similar call.”

Martin said the public works department would be collecting the fill soon, and that it would be “gone within the next week.”

Crist, for her part, reached Martin on Friday, too, and got his explanation. “Just as long as it is moved and Uptown stops being a dumping site,” she wrote TheBurg afterwards, “I am okay with it.”

This story has been updated with comments from HRA’s executive director, Bryan Davis.

TheBurg Podcast, Dec. 12, 2014

December 12, 2014 | by Admin

Welcome to TheBurg Podcast, a weekly roundup of news in and around Harrisburg.

Dec. 12, 2014: This week, Larry and Paul discuss the first 2015 budget hearing, the Pango parking app, the south Harrisburg sinkhole study and Councilman Jeffrey Baltimore’s statement on media coverage and race.

Theme Music: Paul Cooley, Harrisburg resident and host of The PRC Show.

Sinkhole Report: Fractures Extend into Larger Area of South Harrisburg

December 10, 2014 | by Paul Barker

$A site plan from the most recent engineer's report on sinkhole activity in south Harrisburg, showing potential fracture lines and potential voids in the soil underneath the survey area.$

A site plan from the most recent engineer’s report on sinkhole activity in south Harrisburg, showing potential fracture lines and potential voids in the soil underneath the survey area.

A second engineering report of sinkhole potential in south Harrisburg shows additional areas of concern, in a region that a city official described as “fragile, but not unstable.”

The report, prepared by Camp Hill-based engineering firm Gannett Fleming, is based on an expanded survey of the surrounding neighborhood, as opposed to the single city block that was studied in a prior report.

The prior report, released in August, showed evidence of five fractures in the limestone bedrock and several potential voids beneath the 1400-block of S. 14^th Street, where a series of sinkholes opened in March.

For the latest report, engineers surveyed an expanded area bounded by S. 12^th Street to the west, Scott Street to the east, Hanover Street to the north and Cloverly Terrace and S. 13^th Street to the south, a neighborhood encompassing some 200 buildings, most of them single-family homes.

The latest report shows evidence that previously detected fractures extend across the larger area and also introduces evidence of possible additional fractures and voids throughout the neighborhood.

Limestone fractures can contribute to the formation of voids beneath the street surface, as soil subsides into openings in the rock. The voids can eventually migrate towards the surface, causing the street to collapse and sinkholes to open.

On Wednesday, city officials were quick to emphasize that the new report did not significantly change the status quo. “I don’t think the study changes the dynamics at all,” Mayor Eric Papenfuse said.

City Engineer Wayne Martin said that the report showed the area was “fragile, but not unstable,” adding that the city had determined it was safe to keep roads in the neighborhood open.

City Council will hold a public meeting to discuss the new report at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 22, at the public works building at 1820 Paxton Street. Councilwoman Sandra Reid, who chairs council’s public works committee, will host the meeting, council members confirmed at their legislative session Tuesday night.

The August report concluded that the “potential for future sinkhole activity” was “high” in the affected block of S. 14^th Street. The more recent study does not offer a conclusion about the likelihood of future sinkholes, although it does end with a handful of suggestions about ways to prevent them or to mitigate them if they occur.

The August report relied on site observations, drill samples and multi-channel analysis of surface waves, or MASW, a method of creating and measuring seismic waves to detect likely fractures and voids underground.

The latest report relied on site observations and an MASW survey, but did not include drilling for samples. Both reports also tapped historical records, including aerial photographs showing the development of the neighborhood over the years.

Meanwhile, the city has continued its efforts to address the more immediate problems facing residents of S. 14^th Street, where sinkhole activity has continued. Since March, the city has declared 10 homes on the block unfit for human habitation, according to Dave Patton, the city’s codes administrator.

Martin said the city hopes to submit an application this week to the county for $1 million in disaster relief funds. The city has already sent in a notice of intent to apply for an additional $3 million in federal disaster relief funds, he said.

Together, those applications would seek to secure the $4 million it would take to mitigate the problem on S. 14^th Street, according to an estimate provided in a third report by Gannett Fleming issued earlier this year.

The mitigation efforts will likely entail a combination of buying out certain homeowners and reconstructing the street, Martin said.

There was some question as to why Harrisburg officials did not publicize the report until Wednesday, two weeks after it was sent to the city, and only after the topic was raised during public comment at Tuesday night’s council meeting.

The mayor addressed this question Wednesday morning, saying there was “no decision to hold the report,” but that the city was simply “looking for a time to hold a public meeting.”

“It’s complicated,” the mayor said of the report, adding that the best way to inform the public was to have the document explained at a hearing by an engineer.

The choice of date for the hearing was left to the discretion of council’s public works chair, the mayor said. “We would have been happy to have met sooner,” he said.

You can download the complete Gannett Fleming report here: Expanded Sinkhole Investigation, 11/25/14. For the site plan of the neighborhood, click here: Sinkhole Report – Neighborhood Site Plan.

This story has been updated to provide a time and address for the public works committee meeting, which will take place Dec. 22 at 5:30 p.m. at 1820 Paxton St.

For Parkers, Pango Offers Convenience And Coupons—For A Fee

December 9, 2014 | by Paul Barker

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse, center, with scissors, cuts the ribbon at the unveiling of Pango's mobile app service in Harrisburg Tuesday morning.

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse, with scissors, cuts the ribbon at the unveiling of Pango’s mobile app service in Harrisburg Tuesday morning.

Starting today, drivers looking to park their cars in Harrisburg can use a mobile app to do it, thanks to a contract between the city’s new parking operators and Pango USA, a company that offers some form of the pay-by-phone service in several Pennsylvania municipalities.

The app, which is free to download, will require customers to establish an account and to register a method of payment. Once the account is established, a customer can purchase parking with a few taps of the thumb.

For each transaction, Pango will charge customers an additional 14 cents on top of the regular cost of parking. The service is optional and will not replace the city’s meters, Neil Edwards, president of the company’s U.S. operations, said.

Pango unveiled the new parking service Tuesday morning, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony inside and on the street outside Arooga’s along downtown Harrisburg’s restaurant row.

The choice of a restaurant was deliberate, as the app will include coupon and parking validation features that Pango says should help entice customers, offsetting the increase in hourly rates that many businesses fear are driving people away.

Businesses will be able to purchase bundles of validation codes, Edwards said, which can then be passed on to customers as a reward for making a certain amount of purchases. They can also submit coupons that will be exclusively available to Pango customers, and only redeemable while a car is actually parked, he said.

Though the app is free, customers will also be able to add extra features, such as an automatic alert by text 15 minutes before parking expires, for a monthly fee.

At Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting, Mayor Eric Papenfuse touted Pango as a “new and wonderful app” that would “make it both easy and fun to park” while simultaneously providing a benefit to local businesses.

Papenfuse said that his own business, the Midtown Scholar Bookstore, would be offering validations good for one hour of free parking on purchases of $25 or more.

As of Tuesday’s ceremony, the mayor’s bookstore was one of only two businesses offering validations, though Edwards said there would be “four or five” with similar offers by the end of the day and, he hoped, “30 or 40 by the end of the month.”

As an incentive for drivers to sign up for the service, Pango is also offering five hours of free parking to new customers for each car they register.

An individual account can be attached to multiple users and cars, Dani Shavit, Pango’s executive vice president, said.

Customers without smartphones will also be able to use the service, either by calling a hotline or by sending a text. Details about the various ways to use the service are available at the company’s website, Mypango.com.

Standard Parking, which became the new operator of Harrisburg parking after a long-term lease was signed last year as part of the city’s debt solution, had originally contemplated contracting with a different company, Parkmobile, for a version of the pay-by-phone service.

But Pango was able to offer a lower price and a wider range of features, Edwards said, and was ultimately selected out of a handful of possible providers.

Harrisburg’s 14-cent transaction fee is higher than Pango’s price in at least some other Pennsylvania municipalities. In the city of Butler, for instance, where Pango is available in two garages, Pango charges 10 cents per transient parking transaction and $1 for processing the purchase of a $50 monthly permit.

In Scranton, where Pango is available for on-street parking, drivers are not charged any transaction fee at all, since the city opted to pay Pango 5 percent of all receipts, forgoing the option of a 10-cent fee charged to drivers altogether.

“We didn’t want to ‘penalize’ parkers for the use of the system,” David Bulzoni, Scranton’s business administrator, said in an email.

Edwards said the company hoped to have between one-fifth and one-quarter of all parking customers in Harrisburg purchasing parking through Pango in the first year. In Scranton, where the service became available in May 2013, the app was used in about 16 percent of transactions, he said.

Pango USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pango Mobile Parking, Ltd., a venture-backed company headquartered in Israel.

The company website claims the service is available in “over 59 cities,” with “more than 1 million active accounts.” Its operations have recently expanded into Brazil.

According to a 2013 company press release, the Pango system is based on patents registered in several countries, among them a U.S. patent awarded in 1999.

A drawing accompanying that patent application details a rudimentary network connecting a customer—by way of mobile phone, payphone or computer terminal—to a central database that subsequently relays information to law enforcement.

The drawing, which predated mobile apps by a decade, is far from imagining a world where a driver could purchase parking by tapping an icon with her thumb. And it doesn’t make any mention of coupons like the Midtown Scholar Bookstore discount which, as of Tuesday, was one of only two coupons available to Harrisburg parkers.

“The mayor is a small-business owner,” Edwards said of Papenfuse, who owns the Midtown Scholar, in a phone interview prior to Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting. “I really connected with him on this level. The ability to have coupons or give free parking—that’s a real benefit. It turns parking into an asset instead of just a necessary evil.”

Pango will be hosting an additional information session about its app at Arooga’s tomorrow, Wednesday, Dec. 10, from 5 to 7 p.m.

All The World Shall Park

December 5, 2014 | by Paul Barker

This week, Standard Parking, Harrisburg’s new parking operators, announced the creation of four distinct districts to help drivers keep track of the city’s new rates and hours. The system relies on multi-space meters whose brand, LUKE II, shares its name with the Biblical chapter about the birth of Jesus. At first, we thought it was just a coincidence. But then we found this dusty old scroll…

Luke 2: The Birth of the Parking Districts

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Standard Parking, that all the parking spaces in Harrisburg should be divided into districts.

And all the Harrisburg drivers went to park their cars, every one into his own district.

Some of them went into the Central Business District, stretching between Chestnut and Forster, and between Front Street to the west and North 7^th Street to the east.

And the ones who drove into this district were either great with hunger, for there were ranged along this district many a maker of food, or great with anger, for they worked for the state and yet, somehow, did not qualify for a space in one of the garages.

Parking in this district was $3 per hour. And lo, the color-coding of this district on the maps was lime.

Other parkers drove to the north and south, into the border districts. One such district was to be called Old Midtown, extending to Verbeke in the north and N. 2nd to the west.

And the parking in this district was to be mainly in front of homes and apartment towers, and the fee was to be $1.50 per hour. And the reason for the fee was to capture those parkers who sought to avoid paying fees in the other district, whom the decree did not exactly call “cheapskates” or “freeloaders,” although it sort of said it without saying it.

And lo, the color-coding of this district on the maps was salmon.

The other border district was to be called “South of the Central Business District,” and the hourly fee in this district was also $1.50. And the drivers who parked in this district looked upon its name and said unto themselves, “Yea, and by this logic, shall we now also christen our Commonwealth ‘West of New Jersey’?”

And lo, the color-coding of this district was up for debate. Some said it was aqua, and others said it was cyan, and still others said it was glaucous. And while they were debating, an angel came before them, saying:

“Why do ye doubt the color scheme of Standard Parking? Ye shall call it steel blue!”

And the parkers called it steel blue, and were sore afraid.

And the final district was almost no district at all. It was a narrow stretch along North 3^rd Street, extending from the Midtown Scholar Bookstore to Harris Street.

And some of the places along this district were cafes and boutique stores, but many of the places were vacant buildings and empty fields, except towards Harris Street, where there was a church and an apartment building for the elderly.

And the fee for the privilege of parking in these places was to be $1.50 as well, but the first 15 minutes of the parking was to be free.

And the elderly folk looked at one another and said, “Let us get out of this district, and go somewhere our grandchildren can visit us for free!” But they could not, because the apartment bus service came once in the morning and once in the evening, and it was only 1 p.m.

And the name of this district was “New Midtown,” and the boundary this district shared with Olde Uptown was the source of much consternation. Some said it should be called “Olde Middleupton,” while others said the parts should cancel each other out, and it should simply be called “Town.”

And lo, the color-coding of this district was lavender.

And it came to pass that a reporter with questions about these districts referred to a portion at the bottom of the decree, which directed him to a “media contact” named Chris Sherman, Senior Vice President of Standard Parking.

And the reporter called the number provided for Mr. Sherman, and it took him to a central switchboard, which put him on hold.

And while he was on hold, the reporter heard a heavenly choir, and the music from the choir was upbeat, in an inoffensive, sanitized sort of way.

And after some minutes, the music ended, and a woman named Alicia answered, in Tennessee. And Mr. Sherman was unknown to this woman, who said she was to direct all media inquiries to another number, which was based in Chicago.

And the man in Chicago was out of the office until Dec. 10, according to his voicemail. And the reporter emailed Mr. Sherman instead, in the hopes of asking, “Why hast thou dealt thus with us?”

And lo, upon the close of business Friday, the email had not been answered.

TheBurg Podcast, Dec. 5, 2014

December 5, 2014 | by Admin

Welcome to TheBurg Podcast, a weekly roundup of news in and around Harrisburg.

Dec. 5, 2014: Larry and Paul chat about the arrest of city Councilwoman Sandra Reid, the zone-ification of Harrisburg’s street parking, Paul’s story on the fall of the T-Mart convenience store and the resurrection of the Millworks building. There also may be a rant or two.

Note: This podcast was recorded prior to an interview with Councilwoman Sandra Reid, during which she provided comments on the week since the arrest. You can read the story from that interview here.

Theme music by Paul Cooley, host of the PRC Show podcast.

Councilwoman Reid On Her Arrest: A “One-Sided Conversation”

December 5, 2014 | by Paul Barker

City Councilwoman Sandra Reid, left, and Council President Wanda Williams.

The story of Harrisburg City Councilwoman Sandra Reid’s arrest will remain a “one-sided conversation” for now, Reid said Friday afternoon, during an interview in which the councilwoman declined to give her version of the events leading up to her arrest last week at a city gas station.

She did, however, partially dispute the description provided by District Attorney Ed Marsico yesterday as part of his announcement of a disorderly conduct charge for Reid, a lesser charge than the obstruction of the administration of law for which she was arrested after allegedly interfering with the work of Harrisburg police.

According to Marsico, Reid had “repeatedly berated” officers who were detaining a man allegedly involved in a harassment incident at the City Gas & Diesel station in the 1500-block of State Street.

Reid, who said she received law enforcement’s description of her actions for the first time yesterday, said it was “not completely accurate.”

She declined to elaborate further, however, saying she had been instructed by her attorney not to discuss an “open case.”

Reid spoke to two reporters for just under an hour Friday afternoon in a quietly arranged meeting at the abc27 studio on Hoffman Street uptown, in what was her first on-the-record interview since her arrest.

Although she declined to discuss the incident, the councilwoman did address her perception in the media, her interactions with officials since her arrest and her frustration with reactions from members of the public.

She also discussed her on-camera reference to the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in city hall earlier this week, as well as several outstanding warrants she faced for a number of previous minor offenses.

Reid, upset by the intensity of reactions to what she emphasized was only a summary offense, said the past week has been “traumatic.” “I’ve been villainized as if I’ve committed murder,” she said.

She also said her experience had left her with a feeling that she was “guilty until proven innocent,” and described the events since her arrest as “one of the most trying things” she has been through.

Reid appeared calm and collected throughout the interview. She was not accompanied by her lawyer or any other party.

She said she had wanted to give a statement to the district attorney, but that her lawyer had advised against it. First Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo confirmed Thursday that Marsico’s description of the incident relied solely on testimony from the police officers and video footage collected from both police dashboard cameras and surveillance cameras at the store.

Reid said she had not spoken since her arrest with Mayor Eric Papenfuse because he was the “CEO of the police department” and it would be a conflict to discuss an active case with him.

She acknowledged speaking with the police chief, Thomas Carter, in the days following the incident, but said they had not talked about it since the case was referred to the district attorney’s office at the end of last week.

She also said she had not seen the brief statement Papenfuse issued late on Thursday, which described her arrest as “an unfortunate incident that escalated too quickly.” Presented with the statement Friday, she declined to say whether she agreed or disagreed, saying that would be tantamount to making a statement about the details of the incident itself.

Reid also addressed a set of outstanding warrants she faced for a variety of low-level offenses, which had been featured in several news reports and which she claimed to have learned about for the first time following her arrest.

Three of the warrants were for unpaid fines for failure to file a local income tax return in 2002, 2007 and 2008. A fourth related to an unpaid 2012 parking ticket, while a fifth related to having been in Negley Park in Lemoyne late at night in violation of a park ordinance.

Reid said she paid the fines on all five warrants, which totaled around $250, earlier in the day on Friday.

An employee in the district court of Judge Marsha Stewart, where four of the five warrants were filed, confirmed on Friday that Reid’s fines had been “paid in full.” An employee in the Cumberland County district court, which held jurisdiction over the warrant for the Negley Park incident, also said Reid had paid her fine.

She expressed frustration at how the warrants were characterized in news reports and comments on news sites, saying people had treated her as if she was “some kind of criminal” out of proportion to the size of and reason for the fines.

Reid also explained her state of mind during an on-camera exchange with reporters in city hall earlier this week, in which the councilwoman said, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” in reply to a question about her arrest.

The remark was a reference to the series of protests this fall following the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson, Mo., in which the phrase “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” was often used to invoke the image of excessive police force, particularly against minorities.

“I was frustrated at the time,” Reid said of her use of the phrase. She said the national conversation about relations between police and minority communities was important, but declined to relate it to Harrisburg police in particular, saying they were a party in the case over her arrest.

Councilwoman Charged With Disorderly Conduct

December 4, 2014 | by Paul Barker

Harrisburg City Councilwoman Sandra Reid and Police Chief Thomas Carter at a May 9 press conference in city hall.

Harrisburg City Councilwoman Sandra Reid and Police Chief Thomas Carter at a May press conference in city hall.

Harrisburg City Councilwoman Sandra Reid has been charged with disorderly conduct following her arrest last week outside a city gas station, the Dauphin County district attorney’s office said Thursday.

Reid, 45, “unnecessarily inserted herself in an active arrest and ignored numerous requests to allow the police to continue their work at the scene of the arrest without interference,” according to the release.

The district attorney’s office has been reviewing possible charges since last week, including a misdemeanor charge of obstructing the administration of law, which a Harrisburg police log listed as the reason for Reid’s arrest.

Upon completing a review of the incident, however, Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico said he determined her actions only warranted the lesser charge of disorderly conduct, a summary offense.

The obstruction charge would have required “proof of force, violence or similar unlawful act” and there was no evidence of such actions in the case, Marsico said.

The review of the incident incorporated surveillance footage from the gas station, City Gas & Diesel in the 1500-block of State Street, and video footage from police patrol cars, as well as descriptions from the officers involved.

It did not include statements from Reid, store employees or the man with whose arrest Reid allegedly interfered, according to First Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo.

The footage was video only, and did not contain audio, Chardo said.

According to the release, police officers had arrested and were detaining a man who had been involved in an incident inside the convenience store at the station, allegedly preventing a woman from leaving, when Reid arrived in her car.

The man, Alain Ebele Dejin, 29, had no connection to Reid, Marsico said. He was charged Thursday morning with making terroristic threats, false imprisonment, defiant trespassing and harassment.

As she pulled up, Reid’s headlights “shone into the face of the arrestee,” Marsico said. Police asked Reid to turn off her lights, which she did “after a few requests.” She then “turned them back on, before finally turning them off again.”

Reid then allegedly asked the officers to move Ebele Dejin into the store, “presumably on account of the cold.” The release notes that the temperature at the time was 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and that Ebele Dejin “seemed comfortable and was cooperative with the two officers there.”

During her interaction with police, Reid allegedly demanded the name and badge number of one of the officers and “repeatedly berated” the police.

Reid “ignored numerous requests from the police to stop interfering” with Ebele Dejin’s arrest, Marsico said. After she was arrested, he said, she told police she was a member of city council and “indicated an intention to call the chief of police.”

The incident began late in the evening on Tuesday, Nov. 25. Both Reid and Ebele Dejin were arrested and released sometime after midnight on the morning of Nov. 26.

The police log and Ebele Dejin’s criminal docket list the arresting officer as Jeffrey Clark, a Harrisburg policeman. The district attorney’s description does not indicate whether Clark or another officer provided a name and badge number to Reid, nor does it identify Clark or any other officers involved.

Asked whether Reid was within her rights to ask for a name and badge number, Chardo said it depended on whether doing so interfered with an ongoing arrest. “It’s a matter of context,” he said.

Chardo also said the district attorney’s office would not be releasing the video footage, because he did not believe they were permitted to. If the charges against Reid go to trial, however, he said they would likely become an exhibit and would therefore be a public document.

Marsico also said in his release Thursday that his review included reading a report of a prior incident in which Reid allegedly interfered with a police investigation.

During that incident, which occurred on August 27 near the councilwoman’s home on Liberty Street, Reid is alleged to have confronted an officer whose police vehicle was parked on the street with its lights flashing.

Reid allegedly “ordered the officer to move his car,” Marsico said. When the officer told her he was investigating a car theft, Reid allegedly threatened to call the police chief and asked for his name and badge number.

She subsequently let the officer continue his investigation, upon learning from him that her neighbor’s car had been stolen, according to the release.

Late in the day Thursday, Mayor Eric Papenfuse’s spokeswoman sent out a press release that included a comment from Papenfuse on Reid’s arrest, which he called a “most unfortunate incident that escalated too quickly.”

The comment came at the end of an announcement for a planned series to air on WHBG Channel 20, in which the mayor will host discussions with various guests about easing tension between law enforcement and minority communities. The series is expected to begin this month and continue through next year.

Reid, who is one of seven members of Harrisburg’s City Council, took office in January 2012 and chairs the public works committee.

Prior to Thursday’s announcement of charges, Reid had told reporters she was waiting to make a statement until the district attorney had made a decision.

Asked about a statement Thursday afternoon, she wrote in a text message that she had no comment.

This story has been updated with comments from Mayor Eric Papenfuse.

Video Footage of Councilwoman’s Arrest May Factor In Charges

December 3, 2014 | by Paul Barker

City Councilwoman Sandra Reid, left, and Council President Wanda Williams.

Video footage taken at the State Street gas station where Harrisburg City Councilwoman Sandra Reid was arrested two days before Thanksgiving is among the evidence the district attorney’s office is using to determine whether to file charges, First Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo confirmed Wednesday.

The footage includes video from both police dashboard cameras and store surveillance cameras, Chardo said.

The store’s footage, from cameras with views inside and outside City Gas & Diesel at 15^th and State streets, was collected by law enforcement the day after Reid’s arrest, according to Nirmal Singh Gill, a man who identified himself as the business owner.

Gill said he was not present during the arrest and had not viewed the surveillance footage. He did not make available any employees who might have witnessed the incident at his store.

So far, few details have surfaced of the circumstances leading to the arrest of Reid, a first-term councilwoman with an often fiery demeanor who has actively campaigned to remove trash from city streets and crack down on illegal dumpers.

Since her arrest, late in the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 25, Harrisburg police have referred questions about the incident to the mayor’s office. Reid, meanwhile, has declined to give her version of events, saying she would wait to release a statement until after the district attorney had made a decision on the charges.

Most of what is known about the incident comes from a police log, available for download on the city’s website. The log records the arrest of two people close to midnight, one of them a 29-year-old black male and the other Councilwoman Reid.

The log is generated automatically from details entered by officers at the time of an arrest, said Paula Trovy, the police department’s public information officer. In the log, Reid is identified as Sandra Greene, a name from a previous marriage. Both Trovy and Chardo said that was consistent with the police records system, which logs subjects by the name under which they are first entered into the database.

According to the log, Reid was arrested for obstruction of justice, which Chardo said took place during the arrest of the other suspect. The man was arrested for making threats, physical harassment and false imprisonment, as well as for remaining on private property in defiance of an order to leave, the log says.

Officials have “no reason to believe” Reid and the man knew each other, Chardo said, but he added that he couldn’t be sure.

The counts against the man could be charged as three misdemeanors and one summary offense, Chardo said, while the count against Reid could be charged as a misdemeanor. As of midday Wednesday, no charges against either had been filed.

On Wednesday, the city denied a right-to-know request for the surveillance tapes, citing an exemption in the law for materials involved in either a criminal or noncriminal investigation.

Chardo later affirmed the exemption, saying the tapes formed part of the investigation. He did not say whether his office would release the tapes on its own, and referred to a law that restricts dissemination of investigatory materials to non-law enforcement entities.

He did say, however, that the tapes would likely be an exhibit in any case resulting from the investigation, at which point they would become public documents.

This story has been updated with information that an alternate surname identifying Councilwoman Reid was from a previous marriage, and to clarify a point about the names recorded in Harrisburg police logs.

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