Balancing Act

May 9, 2014 | by Paul Barker

With receivership more than two months gone, and higher parking prices here to stay, it’s time we addressed an important question: where will Harrisburg’s prophets of doom direct their relentless cynicism?

One likely candidate is the 2014 budget. On Wednesday, during a City Council committee hearing, Mayor Eric Papenfuse announced a temporary hiring freeze, estimating that this year’s budget was more than $1 million out of balance. Given that the receiver’s Harrisburg Strong Plan projected a balanced budget through 2016, and that words like “hiring freeze” call to mind recent years of crisis, the announcement might have been expected to generate some carping about a failed recovery.

The important thing to remember about a budget, though, is that it’s only as good as its managers. The “balanced” 2014 budget, for all the expert advice that helped craft it, is really a mixture of educated guesswork and wishful thinking—revenues may or may not come in as predicted, and surprise events might add unexpected costs. There was also some amount of fudging, as with the $3.9 million “negative expenditure” tucked away on one line item towards the bottom, representing hoped-for personnel savings and as-yet-unfilled positions.

With respect to the revenues, there’s not much the city can do except hold its breath. As Councilman Ben Allatt, the budget and finance committee chair, explained, raising taxes isn’t really an option—residents are already feeling the pain of last year’s hikes. Steven Goldfield, a financial advisor to the receiver, also noted that two important revenue streams, the earned income tax (EIT) and parking system revenues, have been slow to arrive. In the case of the EIT, the problem largely seems to have been that small businesses failed to withhold properly under the new rates. In the case of parking revenues, a long winter, postponed installment of on-street meters and a delay in the consolidation of state parking contracts meant the city didn’t see its first payment until May 1.

Goldfield remained confident that the city would see its full $2 million payment, though he said he’d feel better once the second installment arrived. But in the meantime, the city must decide how to manage the possibility of a shortfall, which is where the expenses come in. Bruce Weber, the city’s finance director, explained that the city can really only control personnel costs: the other major expenses, health care and debt service, can’t be adjusted, at least in the short term.

That’s where the hiring freeze comes in, and it’s a choice that, in a sense, the original budget predicted. Most of the $3.9 million “negative expenditure” consisted of positions the budget hoped to fill, but which the mayor could leave empty at his discretion. It’s true that the city could use more staff (Weber and others have called current staffing levels “skeletal”). But it’s also true that, in the face of slower or lower revenues, it’s important that city officials not make promises they can’t keep.

The city’s budget may not be perfectly balanced, but it’s a vastly closer matching of revenues to expenses than Harrisburg has seen in years. And, Allatt said, one of his takeaways from Wednesday was that elected officials are “working together” to manage the budget as it goes. “Hiring freeze” has a ring of crisis about it, because it sounds like the fiscal distress of prior years. To capture the difference between then and now, a better word might be “prudence.”

Harrisburg Mayor Has “Positive” Meeting with State Education Secretary, Remains Concerned About Academic Benchmarks

May 8, 2014 | by Paul Barker

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse.

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse met Tuesday with acting state Secretary of Education Carolyn Dumaresq, having what the mayor described as a “positive and productive” two-hour conversation with the secretary and two Department of Education consultants working closely on the state recovery plan for the Harrisburg School District.

Karl Singleton, the mayor’s senior advisor for education and youth, also attended the meeting.

According to the mayor, during the meeting Dumaresq and her consultants went “line by line” through the new performance standards in Veno’s recovery plan. Papenfuse had previously critiqued those standards as having lowered the bar from the original plan’s benchmarks. He said he still stands by that judgment after Tuesday’s meeting, though he also said the conversation had an overall “positive” tone and that he believed it was a very important first step in an ongoing discussion about the district. Papenfuse also expressed his appreciation for the meeting, saying the secretary was “very generous with her time.”

The modified academic benchmarks in Veno’s amended plan, made public at a school board meeting in late April, take their lead from a new state system of “school performance profiles,” which were adopted in the fall and provide a more in-depth look at the academic quality of Pennsylvania schools and districts.

On Thursday, Papenfuse said he had a “philosophical disagreement” with the new measures, which rely on assessments of annual growth in addition to students’ raw test scores. Harrisburg schools, though they typically score poorly on standardized tests, score better on the growth measures. The district’s overall growth score in mathematics, for example, is reported as 100 percent on its performance profile, meaning district students, on average, are making or exceeding a year’s worth of progress in one year of schooling.

The mayor expressed doubts about the merits of the growth measures in assessing the quality of Harrisburg’s schools, saying that “improvement is not the same as success.”

Papenfuse also said he still has questions about what will happen to the district if it doesn’t meet the benchmarks in the amended plan. The original plan explained that, if district schools didn’t meet the academic targets laid out through 2016, Veno and the state would be authorized to “take the necessary steps to transfer District-educated students to schools under external management.”

The amended plan appears to incorporate this language. But, Papenfuse said, when he asked Dumaresq about the consequences of missing Veno’s benchmarks, she told him she wasn’t sure. The mayor said he was “very surprised” she did not have an answer, though he did say she promised to provide one soon. Repeated inquiries last week by TheBurg to the Department of Education’s press office and to Veno about this same question have not received replies.

On April 3, following a private February meeting with Veno, state Sen. Rob Teplitz and state Rep. Patty Kim, Papenfuse had publicly called for Veno’s resignation. He remains committed to this request, he said Thursday, saying he believes Harrisburg needs a “new recovery officer with expertise in urban education reform.” As of this writing, Veno had not responded to calls.

This story has been updated with an additional quote from Papenfuse about school assessments.

Grant Money Announced for Green Projects in Harrisburg (And A Brief History of Where It Comes From)

May 7, 2014 | by Paul Barker

Harrisburg’s Environmental Advisory Council is calling for applications for up to $100,000 in grant funds for environmental projects across the city. The EAC will use the applications as the basis for recommendations to City Council and the mayor, who will ultimately decide how to appropriate the funds. Bill Cluck, the EAC’s chairman, said that applications will be evaluated on the criteria of environmental benefit, community benefit and sustainability.

Applications are due May 31, and can be picked up in the city clerk’s office, at 2 N. Second Street, or can be downloaded here.

The funding for these projects comes with a bit of history. The grant money will be provided out of so-called host fees the city receives as the site of the Susquehanna Resource Management Complex, also known as the Harrisburg incinerator. In the 1980s, as part of a comprehensive bill to improve waste management and recycling in Pennsylvania, the state legislature created the “host municipalities benefit fee,” a form of recompense for local governments with a landfill or trash-burning plant within their borders. But the fee—$1 for every ton of solid waste received—didn’t apply if the host municipality owned or operated the facility.

Harrisburg operated its incinerator until December 2006, when the Harrisburg Authority appointed a new private operator. The city would have started receiving its host fee the following year, but then-Mayor Stephen Reed engineered a different form of compensation, as permitted by the law. Under the agreement, instead of passing along a cash fee, the Authority would make certain facilities on the incinerator grounds available to the city rent-free, along with providing these facilities with free heat. Among the facilities were the city’s vehicle maintenance center and storage for certain city possessions, including artifacts Reed collected for his hoped-for Wild West museum.

In 2012, David Unkovic, the city’s first state-appointed receiver, updated the city’s recovery plan to include the restoration of cash host fee payments from the incinerator. The plan called for the money to be used for environmental projects in the city, and it encouraged the formation of an advisory group to help guide the use of the funds, which led to the reestablishment of the EAC.

The total in host fees to the city should now be between $290,000 and $300,000 per year, according to Jack Lausch, director of administration at Capital Region Water, which was formerly the Harrisburg Authority. Before April 2009, Lausch said, any fees would have been significantly less, because the plant was not fully operational. Lausch estimated the value of the heat provided by the Authority to city facilities in lieu of host fees at between $90,000 and $100,000 per year.

Bruce Weber, the city’s budget and finance director, said the city has so far received $355,000 in host fees—about a year’s worth of back payments by the Harrisburg Authority, plus just over $125,000 from the incinerator’s new owner, the Lancaster Solid Waste Management Authority. The fees are held in a separate deposit fund, established last October and advised, Weber said, by the controller and finance department of the previous administration, who thought that would be the “most transparent and accountable way to do it.”

This story has been updated to include figures provided by Capital Region Water about the value of the host fee and in-kind payments in prior years.

City Releases List of 12 City Council Hopefuls

May 7, 2014 | by Paul Barker

Susan Brown-Wilson, foreground, and other members of City Council at council's legislative session, Tuesday, Feb. 11.

Susan Brown-Wilson, foreground, and other members of City Council at a legislative session in February.

The city has released the names and resumes of applicants to an open seat on City Council, left vacant by the death of Councilwoman Eugenia Smith in April.

The list of 12 city residents includes current and former state workers, former city employees and two former members of council. Also represented are a local landlord, several consultants, an attorney, an accountant and one self-identified former “free lance political operative.”

The candidate who is chosen will serve until the next municipal election, in the fall of 2015. Members of council are paid $20,000 per year.

Council will conduct two-minute interviews with each candidate tomorrow, Thursday, May 8, at 5:30 p.m., during a public meeting in city hall. Following the interviews, council members will anonymously cast paper ballots to winnow the list of applicants and then perform a second round of interviews with the remaining candidates. Next Monday, May 12, council will vote to appoint their newest member.

Council most recently completed this process in December 2012, after then-Councilwoman Patty Kim was elected to the state House of Representatives. During that process, Bruce Weber was selected out of a field of more than 30 candidates. Weber now works as the city’s budget and finance director.

TheBurg has compiled this list of candidates, along with brief biographies, based on information the candidates reported in their applications.

The 12 council hopefuls are:

Jeffrey A. Baltimore, a postal worker and former deputy director in the office of economic development under Mayor Stephen Reed.

Michelle Blade, a retired conference facilitator for the Metanexus Foundation, a Philadelphia non-profit studying science and religion.

Ron Burkholder, a landlord and self-identified “solar energy pioneer,” and a former employee of the Department of Labor and Industry, where he reviewed unemployment compensation claims.

John Downs, a security officer and driver at Harrisburg Auto Auction in Mechanicsburg and a former city employee in the office of insurance and risk management.

Stanley Gruen, CEO of the Gruen Group, a local consulting firm, and a former “free lance political operative” consulting on the campaigns of Democratic candidates in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Matthew Krupp, an attorney with the Department of Labor and Industry and a board member at Historic Harrisburg Association.

Rhonda Mays, a former budget analyst in the state Department of Public Welfare and the president of RE Mays Funding Solutions, which provides research and grant-management services to local non-profits.

Alex Reber, a senior accountant at Miller Dixon Drake and a member of Harrisburg Young Professionals.

Ellis R. Roy, Jr., a retired Harrisburg police lieutenant who currently serves on the Harrisburg Civil Service Commission.

Kathy Seidl, a research analyst with the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Democratic caucus, and a member of the Governor’s Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities.

Patricia Stringer, a retired state employee, former Harrisburg City Council member and former human relations commissioner for the city.

Kelly Summerford, an arts management consultant with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts who served on Harrisburg’s City Council from 2010 to 2014.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that council members would hold a “closed-door caucus” to narrow the original 12 applicants down to a smaller number of finalists. Council members selected finalists by using anonymous paper ballots.

Impermanence in Midtown

May 2, 2014 | by Paul Barker

On Friday, a few minutes before 2 p.m., and some 40 hours, give or take, after a pair of moldering properties on Derry St. became the latest in the city’s run of high-profile collapses, there commenced in a back room in the heart of Midtown another kind of ritual destruction. To demonstrate the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence, six Tibetan monks from the Drepung Gomang monastery, in India, sat beside a temporary shrine to the Dalai Lama and prepared to obliterate a work of art.

The work in question was a sand mandala, which the monks had constructed, over the course of four days, in Historic Harrisburg’s office building at Verbeke and 3^rd Street. Perched on a three-foot-square wooden table, and composed entirely of colored sand, in brilliant white, yellow, red, blue and green, the mandala contained images of conch shells, mongooses and Himalayan dragons in an intricate geometric array. There was also at least one pair of what looked like clouds trailing wisps of vapor, identified by one of the monks as “precious umbrellas,” and symbolizing, according to a printed cheat-sheet, “the wholesome activity of preserving beings from illness, harmful forces, obstacles and so forth in this life and all kinds of temporary and enduring sufferings of the three lower realms, and the realms of men and gods in future lives.”

The monks had come to town Monday afternoon and were to leave the following Sunday. They spent the week in and around the city, giving talks and workshops, chanting in the Capitol rotunda, and, on Thursday, coloring with children at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore. On the night of their arrival, they attended a welcome dinner at the Mohler Senior Center in Hershey, where one of them explained their training at the monastery while their handler, Tenzin, translated.

“They study Buddhist philosophy. They debate,” Tenzin said. The monk clapped. “They must spend day in debate.” The monk clapped again. (Later, addressing the room, Tenzin apologized for his translations: “I am monk’s van driver. We had translator, he went back to India.”)

Drepung Gomang sends a group of monks to the United States each year, to spread awareness of their plight—their literature explains that, like the Dalai Lama, they have been exiled from Tibet by the Chinese government—and to raise funds by selling their merchandise and soliciting donations. Sue Simone, who has been the national coordinator of their trips for the past seven years, noted that they’d traveled from coast to coast, to California and to New York City’s Carnegie Hall. Their host in Harrisburg was Simone’s cousin, Joan McCabe, who put them up on borrowed folding beds and air mattresses at her home in Hershey.

“They get up each morning and cook breakfast, and you wake up to the smell of cilantro,” McCabe said. “You think they’re all holy, but they like to laugh, too.” She pointed out her husband next to one of the monks. They were both soccer fans, she explained, and after the monk’s favored team beat her husband’s, the monk kept teasing him about it into the next day. “I’ll be devastated when their van pulls away Sunday,” she said.

After Monday’s dinner, the monks offered a long chanted prayer, which included passages of “throat singing,” a deep-register, droning form of vocalization which is to a bass singer what a subwoofer is to an iHome. For most, it was a brow-furrowed, eyes-closed, gently-rocking-to-and-fro kind of singing. The prayer leader, Lobsang Chosphel, cleared his throat now and again throughout, at one point wiping beads of sweat from his forehead with his saffron robe.

On Friday, when it came time to destroy the mandala, the monks began with more chanting. One rang a bell, and another clashed cymbals. Then they donned tall yellow hats, reminiscent of Trojan helmets, with fuzzy cloth ridges running from their foreheads to the back of their necks. One of the monks circled the mandala several times, ringing the bell, while the cymbals continued clanging. Then he picked up flower petals from a bowl and tossed them onto the table.

You wouldn’t think impermanence was something you could hear, but to a pair of ears at a certain distance, the thud of the flowers landing said it all: the invisible bubble around the mandala, a near-perfect work of art, with its crisp lines and blazing hues, had been pierced irrevocably. The rest was just follow-through. The monk made a few more passes, cutting lines through the sand with his thumb, until the mandala was split up into eight equal wedges, like a pizza. Then more monks came forward with brushes and swept over it, turning it first into a smear of bright colors and then into a pile of brown sand.

Tenzin, at the ready with a paper box from Giant, approached and began scooping the former mandala into sandwich bags, forming free souvenirs. Then, the monks marched down Verbeke Street to the riverfront, where, below a set of concrete stairs whose impermanence needs no ritual reminders, they dumped what was left of the mandala out of an urn and into the Susquehanna.

Moving Targets

April 30, 2014 | by Paul Barker

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse.

Is Gene Veno, the state-appointed recovery officer for the Harrisburg school district, serious about improving Harrisburg’s schools?

Mayor Eric Papenfuse first raised this question on April 3, when he announced he had petitioned the education secretary for Veno’s removal. He said his request was based on an unsettling meeting he’d attended in late February, during which Veno apparently suggested that the district would never meet his plan’s academic goals. (Veno disputes this, though state Sen. Rob Teplitz and state Rep. Patty Kim, who were also at the meeting, backed up Papenfuse’s account.)

Then, last week, Veno released an update to his plan that changed its academic goals. In particular, the new plan reduced targets for student proficiency in reading, math and science, as measured by standardized test scores. The difference was only a few percentage points, but it was enough to rankle Papenfuse, who saw an attempt to quietly lower expectations without a full public vetting. He wrote an open letter to the acting education secretary, Carolyn Dumaresq, accusing Veno of having “watered down” his original plan.

“I feel fundamentally that the new plan has shifted the goalposts,” Papenfuse said Tuesday night in city hall. He suggested the amendments embraced “mediocrity,” adding, “It’s a big deal.”

How big a deal is it? One difficulty in assessing the new academic targets is that the state, in the year since the original plan was drafted, has changed its measurements of school quality. In October, the Department of Education launched a new system of “school performance profiles,” which use weighted averages to rate schools and districts on a 100-point scale. The profiles are meant to provide a balanced look at school performance, combining points for “achievement” (how high student test scores are in a given year) with points for “growth” (how much students improved since the previous year).

These combined factors—achievement and growth—can provide for a more nuanced picture of school performance. In Harrisburg, for instance, nearly every school does poorly in raw test scores, yet, at the same time, nearly every school meets (and, in many cases, exceeds) expectations for annual growth. But the performance profiles include yet another measure of public schools: they also set annual targets for improving test scores, referred to, in characteristically eye-glazing language, as “indicators of closing the achievement gap.”

These targets are the subject of Papenfuse’s claim about benchmarks being “watered down.” The state defines the achievement gap as how far a school fell short of 100-percent proficiency in the 2012-13 school year. The state then applies a formula to come up with annual targets for “closing” the gap (actually, the targets are for cutting the gap in half within six years). For instance, applied to Harrisburg’s district-wide proficiency in math, which was 38 percent in 2012-13, the formula produces an annual target of a 5.2-percent increase per year.

This is where the new recovery plan has lowered expectations. Instead of demanding the full 5.2-percent jump in math proficiency in 2014, Veno, the recovery officer, has asked for a more modest climb of 3.64. Similar reductions were applied to the targets in science and reading. These new targets represent only 70 percent of the state’s recommendations, though the plan does ratchet them up towards full achievement of state goals by 2016.

So, to return to the original question: are these targets a sign that Veno has lost faith in the district, or is the mayor’s letter petty squabbling? The difference between Veno’s new goals and the state’s, as I wrote above, is only a couple of percentage points. On the other hand, even the state goals fall short of the original recovery plan, which called for annual gains in proficiency of up to 7 percent.

But the recovery plan’s goalposts, moving or otherwise, are only a partial measure of its academic seriousness. Even reduced targets are still just targets. The question for the recovery plan is whether it helps the district reach them.

Veno’s plan, at least on paper, has promises on this front, including reinstating full-day kindergarten, installing a system of consistent feedback between the superintendent, principals and teachers, and overhauling the school curriculum. But there’s also discouraging evidence regarding the implementation of these goals.

The original plan included a deadline for the curriculum overhaul of Aug. 15, 2013, in time for the current school year; in the amended plan, the deadline is Aug. 11, 2014. The plan’s financial objectives, including union concessions, were achieved in a matter of months (though, as it turned out, on the basis of shaky accounting). The delay on the academic front might tell you something about Veno’s priorities. (Since Monday, Veno has deferred to the Department of Education’s press secretary for comment. Neither the department nor Harrisburg school district officials responded to inquiries Wednesday.)

The beginning of this article asked if Veno was serious about academic improvement. Perhaps more to the point is the question of whether he can be serious about budget cuts and academic improvement at the same time. Nobody seems particularly keen to confront this question, and for good reason. Doing so would require admitting that Veno’s office, and the legislation that created it, has two irreconcilable goals: spending less on public education, and getting more out of it.

This story has been updated to include information about requests to Veno for comment.

5 Restaurants, 1 Question

April 30, 2014 | by TheBurg Staff

The restaurant business is notoriously fickle, with an average eatery lasting only a couple of years before closing up. So, then what makes for success in this difficult industry?

We asked five of Harrisburg’s long-time, most respected restaurateurs for their opinions. Looking back, what has been the most important factor in your success? Photography by Dani Fresh, danifresh.com.

Tom and Amy Scott / McGrath’s Pub

Unlike for most occupations or professions, the “School of Hard Knocks” is the best education for the food service industry. You learn as you go and hope you are blessed with good role models.

You have to be cut out for this life. Only crazy, uneducated, socially awkward people are stupid enough to do this for a living. I’m speaking for myself, of course.

All kidding aside, it’s all about relationships with our guests, striving everyday to keep our food the best quality, the restaurant spic-n-span, be committed to running a solid business, being patient, being realistic and remembering to stick with what works. And above all, know your limitations. If you can’t execute all of the time, every day, then don’t do it.

Try not to get caught up in what the “other guy” is doing, just stick to what you do best. Common sense tells me that things are “good” when our neighbors are doing good business. Common sense tells me that when “Harrisburg” is doing well, we all have an opportunity to do well.

Angelo Karagiannis / Zembie’s Sports Tavern

The most important factor in the success of Zembie’s is by far my STAFF! Twenty years ago when I purchased Zembie’s, I worked around the clock expressing my concerns and objectives to front- and back-of-the-house employees. These key employees are still with me.

Another factor is that Zembie’s is a small place with a reasonable rent which allows me the ability to manage the ups and downs of this fickle business. However, as new places come and go, my staff remains.

Regulars and the support of restaurant employees in town have given us the feeling of a “Cheers.” And we are proud to have that feeling!

Char Magaro / Char’s at Tracy Mansion

Char’s Tracy Mansion’s success is due to:

We offer an overall dining experience that is unique for this area.
We strive to exceed people’s expectations.
We deliver a “product” (atmosphere, service, menu) that makes our guests feel special.

Nicholas Laus / Café Fresco and Home 231

When someone leaves my restaurant, I want them to say “WOW.”

There are many dynamics that go into attaining and maintaining that “wow” factor. The restaurant’s atmosphere serves as the first impression for the customer—and it should be a unique concept with strategically planned lighting, music and décor. Though the fundamental theme may remain unchanged over time, I’m always visiting other establishments in search of innovative new menu, service and design ideas to incorporate into my own businesses.

Next, customers will meet the staff, whose importance I never underestimate. Wait staff in food service are your salespeople, responsible for marketing and selling your menu. Image is crucial, along with a welcoming personality that allows them to socialize with customers and offer menu suggestions. Getting someone to try something new that they love is a great way to encourage repeat business.

I want customers to be impressed by the food presentation and then wowed by the taste. The menu should be balanced, fun and exciting—continuously evolving and offering new dishes for patrons to explore.

Lastly, I strive for customers to be wowed by my restaurant’s atmosphere, service and menu every visit. Consistency is crucial in this business.

Staci Basore / Mangia Qui, Suba and Rubicon

Success in the restaurant industry can be elusive. Some operators simply want to make a living while others have loftier goals. Regardless of your ambitions, I feel for us that employee happiness is key, coupled with guest satisfaction and, of course, offering a superior product.

Comfort Factor: It’s a little funky, but it feels like home at Black N Bleu.

April 30, 2014 | by Celeste Helman

Since opening, Black N Bleu has become a sort of novelty to the Mechanicsburg community, a place for everyone, where black tie and blue collar can come together.

Wedged between the SPAR Firearms gun shop and Good Hope Animal Hospital, the restaurant on Carlisle Pike is continually striving for the perfection of comfort—in both food and ambience.

It’s a formula that seems to be working, as the place serves crowds of customers all week and then is packed on weekends, when “anywhere from a one- to two-hour wait is expected,” according to owner Donny Brown, a 30-year veteran of the restaurant business and, until last year, the long-time owner of the Fire House Restaurant in Harrisburg.

Black N Bleu first opened on Black Friday three years ago and has been gaining popularity since.

“I’m always looking for great locations that could make terrific atmospheres and comfort levels for the locals,” said Brown.

Indeed, he has created a delightfully relaxed restaurant, with vibrant colors, original artwork on the walls and low-key lighting (the blue globes over the bar both add a fun, arty vibe and enforce the “blue” color theme). Meanwhile, the unique open kitchen allows diners to watch their meals prepared before their eyes.

The menu, focused on casual American fare, actually contributed to the naming of Black N Bleu. By coincidence, there were four dishes with bleu cheese on them, and, therefore, the title of “Bleu” was created.

Today, Black N Bleu’s offerings range from pasta dishes, unique salads, steak and burgers to different types of seafood. The restaurant’s creative, yet classically inspired, choices include pasta dishes like “Lobster Mac-n-Cheese,” a steak and calamari salad and garlic chicken pizza.

“I like to come here after work, just kick back, and enjoy the atmosphere,” said Kevin Kellerman of Mechanicsburg. “The prices are fair, and the food is delicious.”

Prices range widely from about $8 for some of the sandwiches to $32 for the “Black N Bleu Stack,” an edible skyscraper consisting of three layers: blue cheese mashed potatoes and asparagus as a base, filet mignon in the middle and a crab cake on top. Portion sizes are generous, and the service is genuine.

“What we do right is provide consistently good food at fair prices,” said Brown, who always likes to keep busy, helping his employees with the dinner rush and socializing with the customers whenever he can.

The familiar feeling of home seems to work.

“Everyone is welcome, casual, coming after work, whatever,” Brown said. “The comfort factor is a must.”

Black N Bleu is located at 6108 Carlisle Pike, Mechanicsburg. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed Monday. Call 717-458-8105 or visit www.blacknbleupa.com.

Warrior of Song: Musician Widad on her past, her coming release and the Harrisburg arts wave.

April 30, 2014 | by Alexis Dow Campbell

Music has been a part of Harrisburg-based singer-songwriter Camela Widad’s life for, well, pretty much all of it.

The folky songstress (she pronounces her first name like ‘Pamela’ with a “C” and her last like saying yes in French, Wee-Dod) began her musical training at age 7 and continued through high school. But, despite her immersion in music, she never really considered it a career option.

“When I as a junior in high school, I was accepted into five universities and, on a whim, I applied for a theater scholarship at one and got it,” she explained. “So, sort of last minute, I decided to let out the secret that I always saw myself on the stage.”

Widad got a degree in theater performance and spent several years as a working actor. And, although she did venture into musical theater every now and again, she found that her musical abilities were called upon fairly often.

“I would add music or singing to roles that had none or add harmonies to songs in shows that previously didn’t have any,” Widad explained. “People started to take notice, more often than not, guys in bands that wanted a singer or playwrights who wanted a song or music in their show.”

Eventually, she was given an opportunity that set her on the path she is today.

“When I was 23, I ended up with an amazing theater gig: sketch comedy, avant garde theater and live music with a ‘real’ rock band all in one company. I was in heaven!” she said.

Widad was performing more and more music, and people like it.

“The regulars in the audience started really responding to my singing, and I took it as a sign,” she explained. Widad took her one original song, started hitting open mics, and things began to take off.

“Within six months, I had 10 new songs, was in the studio and had a manager,” she said. She decided to hit the road and head to Austin, Texas, “just to see what would happen.”

“I just thought, okay, let’s try this for a while, and it turned into 10 years of being an indie artist, learning the art and craft of songwriting and meeting so many amazing people,” she said.

Widad describes her sound as having the “passion of old school soul, but then, at the last minute, some softness kicks in that makes it feel like ‘60s folk.”

“I’ve always been drawn to the human experience,” she said, “good, bad, darkness and lightness of living, so the writing reflects those stories of hope and heartache. Songs about real folks.”

Widad released her first album, “Eve,” in 1999, which she describes as “a gritty folk rock album.” She then recorded 2001’s completely acoustic “Call to the Soul,” followed by “Food for the Traveler” (2005) and “Before You’re Gone” (2009), both of which were recorded with a full band.

“From my first album, I’ve explored sound,” she said. “[I wasn’t] sure who I was as an artist and insatiably curious about so many genres, [and I was] wondering where I wanted to land.”

Widad’s fifth studio album, “Warriors of Love,” will be released this spring. She describes the album as “folk, acoustic, Americana,” and she had a specific vision for the album.

“[The album] inspires the concept of being a warrior,” Widad explained, “not of hate or revenge, but one of the hardest things to be when you’re down, hurt or angry: a warrior of love.”

“Warriors of Love” was funded, in part, by a campaign on the crowd-funding site Indiegogo. Although the Indiegogo campaign has ended, she is still collecting donations through her website to fund a corresponding radio campaign in support of the album.

Widad now lives in Harrisburg, which is exactly where she wants to be.

“I am finding that there is a renaissance happening for Harrisburg on many levels,” she said. “So many creative people are coming here to not only find inexpensive spaces to live and create, but there are new venues popping up. The grassroots community is gathering to create space for art and music, farmers markets, green initiatives… this is how great cities are made.”

She believes that artists can lead the way to create a social scene that attracts tourism and gathers people together, while creating something beautiful.

“I feel like being in Harrisburg right now is the perfect time because the wave has begun,” she said.

Learn more about Camela Widad and her music at www.widadmusic.com.

A Reasonable Balance: City, citizens share the job of making Harrisburg function.

April 30, 2014 | by Tara Leo Auchey

“It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.”

John F. Kennedy paraphrased this original statement by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes into what most of us are more familiar with:

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Kennedy’s quote, in particular, has been explicitly and implicitly directed to the people of Harrisburg more than once over the past few years. The onus becomes ask not what your city can do for you, but what you can do for your city.

While it’s an eternal statement that evokes a sense of civic responsibility and loyalty, for some Harrisburg residents, it’s increasingly losing its power.

Right now, there is a high demand being put on the citizens of Harrisburg, and that demand is spreading to citizens beyond the city’s limits, and, logically so, because Harrisburg does not exist in isolation of its surroundings.

It exists as the capital city of Pennsylvania, in the County of Dauphin, center of the region. Thus, it makes sense that, as a region, we are being asked to be patient, to be helpful, and to be willing to sacrifice for the good of the capital city and its future.

Yet what about the other part of the equation?

As we recall what the city has done for us, it’s difficult to be motivated to give even more than we already have when the balance of give-and-take feels so askew.

In return for our patience, aid and sacrifice, what is it that we can expect from the city of Harrisburg?

Such a loaded question.

To be sure, the answer will depend on who is asked. Increasingly, though, to many residents, commuters and visitors, the answer is simple.

Each and every citizen expects to be safe and sound.

Beyond the obvious services of police and fire, we must recognize what else is included in public safety and well-being. It encompasses not only a sense of protection from harm, but also clean and sanitary streets, well-lit ways, defense against blight and sound infrastructure.

These are the basics that we citizens pay for, the cost of our taxes for the services of safety and well-being. Ideally, the services should at least equal the cost. This is what the city should be able to guarantee us in return for our residency, along with our patience, aid and sacrifice.

The perception, though, is that we are not guaranteed these basic services, and, unfortunately, reality keeps giving us examples proving that perception to be true.

The trash, the blight, the broken and burnt-out lights, pitted streets and the negligent property owners—these are signs of the demise of a city.

Absolutely, the good stuff exists here in Harrisburg, but it’s tough for it to persevere when the basics seem to be slipping between the cracks of disintegration.

Unmistakably, it’s going to take the efforts of everyone—citizens and government—to make the city prevail over its challenges.

However, who should do what? What is up to the citizens, and what is up to the government?

Currently, those lines are blurry.

Out of City Hall, we hear a variety of news, but, when it comes down to it, public trash cans overflow, blight continues to rot, lights aren’t on, streets worsen and property ordinances are profusely neglected.

Of course, we all know there is a deficient city workforce to accomplish all that needs done.

With a lack of people in place to do it all, it’s essential the lines of duty and action be as clear as possible.

Residents, business owners, commuters and visitors need to be encouraged to do their part—to pick up litter, to follow the laws, to report wrongdoings and to hold the city accountable.

And, on the city’s part, it needs to focus its efforts to empty the trash cans, turn on the lights, fix the streets and enforce the rules.

We must strike a reasonable balance of duty and action.

Otherwise, the potential prosperity of this capital city—a symbol of national governance and American independence—will be threatened by delinquency and excessive demand on the public.

Then both Holmes and Kennedy will undoubtedly roll over in their graves each time someone quotes them here in Harrisburg.

Tara Leo Auchey is creator and editor of todays the day Harrisburg. www.todaysthedayhbg.com.

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like