Tag Archives: Audrey Utley

October News Digest

October 31, 2018 | by Lawrance Binda and Lizzy Hardison

Harrisburg to Leave Act 47

A bill passed by the state legislature last month allows Harrisburg to preserve its current tax rates and exit Act 47, a state oversight program for financially distressed municipalities.

The House and Senate both voted overwhelmingly to pass House Bill 2557, which allows Harrisburg to maintain its current local services tax (LST) and earned income tax (EIT) for five years after it exits state oversight. The bill also prohibits the city from enacting a commuter tax and convenes a five-member Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (ICA) to monitor Harrisburg’s finances.

After the vote took place, Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse thanked the lawmakers who supported its passage, including its sponsor, Rep. Greg Rothman, R-Cumberland County, and Harrisburg’s lawmakers in the House and Senate, Rep. Patty Kim and Sen. John DiSanto.

“While I wish we had been able to achieve a permanent solution for the city and the region, Harrisburg’s immediate fiscal crisis has lifted,” Papenfuse said. “I look forward to working with the new members of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority—as it’s time to roll up our sleeves and continue to work for the long-term success of Harrisburg and the capital region.”

The bill is the culmination of a 10-month lobbying effort by Harrisburg officials, who have long said the city needs stronger taxing powers to support the capital city. It will allow Harrisburg to preserve about $12 million in annual revenue that would have been lost in a traditional Act 47 exit.

Act 47 allows Harrisburg to levy a 2 percent EIT on all residents and a $156 LST, even though state law caps EIT rates at 1 percent and LST at $56 per year. Without HB 2557, Harrisburg would have been forced to cut its EIT in half and slash its LST by two-thirds when it exits state oversight.

Local officials say those rates are untenable in Harrisburg, which supports large swaths of tax-exempt properties and a daily population of some 50,000 commuters. Mayor Eric Papenfuse had told lawmakers that the city’s emergency services and infrastructure would be in jeopardy if the city had to cut its taxes.

With HB 2557 in place, Harrisburg will also be spared high property tax increases that were prescribed in a proposed three-year Act 47 exit plan.

The city did make one significant sacrifice in the final bill, which was amended in October to put a five-year time limit on the enhanced taxing power.

The original legislation only required Harrisburg to retire its tax rates once its surpluses partially funded a post-retirement benefit fund for its employees. Projections estimated that could take up to 20 years.

Rep. Kim called it “the best we can do” in a Republican-controlled legislature. She hopes that the five-year timeframe will still give Harrisburg enough time to increase its tax base.

Bowers Named to City Council

Danielle Bowers, a lifelong Harrisburg resident and state government staffer, is the newest member of Harrisburg City Council.

Last month, Bowers beat out 14 other candidates, including one past council president, to take the seat formerly held by council member Cornelius Johnson.

Bowers works as an executive director for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Tourism and Recreational Development Committee. She previously held researcher roles with the Democratic Policy Office and Legislative Black Caucus and holds a master’s degree in public administration from Pennsylvania State University.

Her appointment to council creates a vacancy on the Zoning Hearing Board, where she has served for the past three years.

Fifteen candidates appeared before council last month to share their qualifications and ask for a chance to serve on the city’s legislative branch. But only four were invited to participate in the interview phase, where sitting council members asked candidates about their skills and goals for public service.

During her interview, Bowers touted her legislative experience and her knowledge of the city’s finances. She said she would like to pass legislation to bolster public safety and hopes to see the city’s Police Bureau return to its full complement.

Candidates Josiah Yonker, an IT professional, Gloria Martin-Roberts, a former council president and mayoral candidate, and Airis Smallwood, a healthcare administrator and musician, also received nominations and sat for interviews.

City Releases Housing Study

The results of Harrisburg’s first citywide housing study are in, and they predict a shortfall of more than 200 rental units at all price points over the next three years.

Representatives from the consulting firm that prepared the study presented their main findings to City Council last month. The authors said demand for rental housing in Harrisburg will outpace supply through 2020, even as development projects put new units on the market.

As a result, Harrisburg will face a shortage of about 244 rental units across the city—a figure that accounts for the city’s existing housing stock, new units coming onto the market and old units becoming uninhabitable.

The study also considers population projections, which anticipate that Harrisburg will gain 300 households in the next three years, mostly in the Allison Hill and Uptown neighborhoods.

The study didn’t offer any policy recommendations, but city hall officials intend to use its findings to develop long-term development strategies and housing policy proposals.

3rd Street Study Released

Harrisburg’s 3rd Street corridor is headed in a positive direction, though it remains a work in progress in terms of redevelopment, economic activity and walkability.

That’s the general conclusion of a study by the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Land Institute (ULI), a nonprofit research and educational organization that recently examined the corridor from Reily Street in Midtown to Chestnut Street downtown.

“The 3rd Street corridor possesses a great deal of momentum and potential for continued development,” stated the report, titled “TLC for Harrisburg’s Third Street Corridor.” “Strategically bridging the gap between the downtown and Midtown neighborhoods can put Harrisburg on the map as a vibrant capital city with a strong urban core.”

ULI visited Harrisburg for two days in April, walking the two-mile stretch then interviewing stakeholders who live, work and own businesses there. Their analysis and report were sponsored by Harristown Development, which owns Strawberry Square.

The 14-page report lauds the recent redevelopment and adaptive reuse that has occurred along the stretch. However, it states that much work still needs to be done so that the corridor can achieve a fuller potential. It cites three specific challenges:

“Dead Zones”: Many buildings have been restored, but many have not. There is still too much blight and too many empty storefronts.
Forster Street: Forster Street is too wide, busy and inhospitable, cutting off downtown from Midtown and deterring pedestrian activity.
Aesthetics: Aesthetics are inconsistent. Some areas appear pleasant, while others do not, both in terms of streetscape and the condition of structures.

The study then offers a variety of recommendations, such as incentivizing homeownership, encouraging pop-ups in empty storefronts, increasing police visibility, enforcing maintenance codes, improving the streetscape and better connecting downtown and Midtown.

Two suggestions stood out as especially ambitious.

The first recommended improving the intersection of N. 3rd and Forster streets by employing traffic-calming measures, making it more pedestrian-friendly and possibly reducing the number of lanes. The second proposed forming a “Third Street Coalition,” which would help promote, brand and advocate for the corridor.

Environmental Council Reconstituted

After more than two years of dormancy, Harrisburg’s Environmental Advocacy Council is back in action.

City Council repopulated the all-volunteer body recently when it voted unanimously to approve five appointees nominated by council members and the city administration. One appointee, Rafiyqa Muhammad, is a holdover from the former EAC that dissolved in 2016.

She’s joined by new members Tanya Dierolf, Christine Proctor, Molly Cheatum and Melanie Cook.

The five-member body will advise the mayor and other city officials on matters related to the environment and sustainability. As an advisory group, it does not have the power to manage or disburse money, but it will make recommendations on how to spend the money collected by Harrisburg’s “host fee.”

Harrisburg collects more than $250,000 a year in fees for hosting a regional incinerator, which is owned by the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (LCSWMA). State law allows cities with regional waste sites to assess a $1 per ton fee on the waste processed there. That money must be used to make environmental improvements in the city.

Christopher Nafe, the city’s new sustainability coordinator, will manage the EAC and attend all of its meetings, Mayor Eric Papenfuse said.

Papenfuse hopes that having a designated city hall staff member will help the EAC avoid the dysfunction that felled it in 2016, when most of its five members resigned.

Nafe hopes that the new EAC will advise the city on existing and new initiatives. Those include working with the Tree Advisory Council, which monitors the city’s tree population, and developing educational programs at the city’s new composting facility in Susquehanna Township.

New CRO for Harrisburg Schools

A retired Philadelphia-area superintendent will serve as the new state oversight officer for the Harrisburg School District.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education appointed Dr. Janet Samuels as the district’s new chief recovery officer in October.

She will oversee the implementation of a new, long-term recovery plan aimed at raising the district’s academic performance and financial health.

PDE put the school district under a financial recovery designation in 2012. State law requires every district in recovery to have a state-appointed recovery officer.

Samuels replaces Audrey Utley, who retired in June after serving as Harrisburg’s CRO for three years.

Her salary is capped at $144,000 annually and will be paid by PDE.

Last June, Samuels retired as the superintendent of Norristown Area School District, where she oversaw a $150 million annual budget and nine schools enrolling 7,400 students. She previously served as a regional superintendent for the Philadelphia Area School District. Her career in public education spans 35 years and includes experience as a principal and classroom teacher.

So Noted

Donald E. Schell has been named the new chair of the Homeland Center’s board of trustees. Schell, who has served on the board since 2001, takes over from Morton Spector, who will continue to serve on the board as immediate past chair.

Jeanne Troy is the new development director for Tri County Community Action, it was announced last month. In the newly created position, Troy is responsible for advancing the mission of TCCA by developing donor strategies and increasing fundraising opportunities.

Justin Roth has been named marketing manager for Capital City Mall, leading the marketing efforts for the Camp Hill shopping center. He previously served as the marketing and communications manager for the Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC.

Minuteman Press is relocating to larger space next door to its current location on the first block of S. 3rd Street in Harrisburg. Franchise owner Charlotte Todd recently purchased the Original Copy Shop, which had operated for 32 years, and converted it to a Minuteman shop.

Robert W. Morris & Co. last month celebrated the grand opening of its new office at 510 N. Front St., Wormleysburg. This is the second location for the CPA firm, which also has offices in New Bloomfield, Pa.

Three Little Birds Boutique opened a second location last month at the new Hershey Towne Square. The shop, which specializes in women’s clothing, shoes and accessories, joins businesses like Iron Hill Brewpub, Starbucks and several other restaurants and shops at the mixed-use retail and office project in downtown Hershey.
Changing Hands

Bigelow Dr., 22: E. Johnson to T. Henry, $55,000

Briggs St., 214: X. Chen to Around the Corner LLC, $135,000

Capital St., 909: M. Dietz to J. Canamucio & J. Block, $130,000

Chestnut St., 1836: G. Norman to A. Nebbou, $30,000

Crescent St., 219: Anpat LLC to J. Le, $47,000

Croyden Rd., 2926: S. McDougal to A. Guerrero, $74,900

Cumberland St., 260: J. Bane to M. Mueller, $122,250

Delaware St., 266: WCI Partners to D. Taylor, $124,900

Fillmore St., 622: J. Hoch to KAB Rental Properties LLC, $40,000

Fulton St., 1729: J. Tanjung & W. Leyu to M. Gleason, $112,500

Grand St., 924: L. Searles to N. McClure, $79,900

Green St., 1818: J. Lightner to Fratelli Property Investments LLC, $110,000

Greenwood St., 2151: Alliance of Automotive Service Providers of PA Inc. to Edwin L. Heim Co., $320,000

Holly St., 1811: Wells Fargo Bank NA to R. Murphy, $32,500

Holly St., 2009: PA Deals LLC to E. Shelly, $65,900

Hunter St., 1535: P. & F. Kehler to S. Costa, $35,000

Kelker St., 231: Cartus Financial Corp. to E. Bliman & H. Hamilton, $180,000

Kelker St., 332 & 1821 N. 3^rd St.: Harrisburg Redevelopment Authority to Pennsylvania National Fire Museum, $125,000

Kensington St., 2302: X. Weng & C. Yang to Fowler Investments LLC, $39,500

Kensington St., 2348: M. Hardison to N. Terry, $66,000

Kent Lane, 198: Neidlinger Enterprises to F. Manzanillo & S. Rodriguez, $75,000

Lenox St., 1910: RTD Properties and Management to R. Do, $40,000

Lewis St., 321: D. Licciardello to R. Neely, $114,900

Luce St., 2354 & 2356: L. Salcedo to C. Santiago, $102,000

Market St., 1829: D. & S. Parikh to G. Allen, $69,000

Market St., 2211: G. Dunn to S., J. & M. Buckham, $84,400

Muench St., 402: M. Huynh to SA Home Solutions LLC, $30,000

Mulberry St., 1842: A. Woolridge to A. Faican & E. Sumbra, $49,900

North St., 1609: W. Davis to R. Cantave, $120,000

N. 2^nd St., 901 & 903: W. & J. Hobbie to B. Golper & WG PA Holdings LLC, $365,000

N. 2^nd St., 907: D. Pong to R. Anspach Jr., 173,900

N. 3^rd St., 1636: MJ Trust Properties LLC & C. Jurasits to Fratelli Property Investment LLC, $110,000

N. 4^th St., 2443: T. & K. Malesic to W. Lawrence, $80,000

N. 5^th St., 2605: Harrisburg Homes Investment LLC to NGDGR Company Inc., $48,000

N. 6^th St., 2605: A. & P. Ashenberg to R2 Property Group LLC, $43,000

N. 7^th St., 2400: J. Holmes & BAS Tax Services Corp. to DAP 7 Curtin LP, $270,000

N. 7^th St., 2640: Q. Higgs to Riley Residential Real Estate LLC, $35,000

N. 15^th St., 1121: Golden Lover Realty LLC to B. Shephard & N. Cook, $39,000

N. 15^th St., 1415: J. & O. Hearn to E. Mantilla, $43,500

Peffer St., 613: K. Timmons to J. Santiago, $46,000

Penn St., 1336: H. & L. Roberts to J. O’Neill, $36,100

Penn St., 2105: G. Hanslovan to T. Hage, $45,000

Penn St., 2139: PA Capital Area Investments LLC to DHS Team LLC, $30,000

Reily St., 333: Dobson Family Partnership to ADS Investments LLC, $89,900

Seneca St., 241: J. Williamson to CR Property Group, $32,500

S. 13^th St., 1403: M. Stewart to B. Price Jr., $38,000

S. 14^th St., 916: 916 S. 14^th Street Partnership to Harrisburg Housing Authority, $1,150,000

S. 14^th St., 1435 & 1400 Randolph St.: A. Ingram Jr. & W. Blankenship to City of Harrisburg, $43,000

S. 20^th St., 1100: Paxton Street Home Benevolent Society Inc. to Paxton Place I LP, $250,000

S. 21^st St., 922: A. Mariluz Jr. to D. Ramos, $68,000

State St., 231, Unit 304: P. Brommer to BCRA Realty LLC, $102,000

Susquehanna St., 1805: HBG Rents LLC to V. & C. Vergara, $61,000

Sycamore St., 1711: Leonard J. Dobson Family LP to H. Yunis, $70,000

Valley Rd., 2305: J. Dunn & A. Meyers to J. Alpert, $179,900

Verbeke St., 233: D. Varno & C. Johnson to E. Herrmann & L. Hall, $126,900

Walnut St., 1232: Valley Real Estate Holdings LLC to C. & C. Hinckley, $33,000

Wayne St., 1517: J. Alvarado to A. Sweet Sr., $120,000

State set to appoint new chief recovery officer for Harrisburg school district

September 19, 2018 | by Lizzy Hardison

Harrisburg school district administration building

After a year marked by administrative fumbles and tension among board members, the Harrisburg school district soon will get a new state-appointed oversight officer.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education plans to select a new chief recovery officer (CRO) for Harrisburg schools in the next two weeks, according to spokesman Eric Levis. The CRO will oversee the implementation of a new, long-term recovery plan aimed at raising the district’s academic performance and financial health.

The appointment suggests that Harrisburg has, for now, dodged receivership – an arrangement in which a state administrator takes control of the district.

A state-appointed receiver has broader authority than a CRO and assumes many of the powers of the elected school board.

Board directors retain all taxing authority, but the receiver can approve contracts, charter school applications and personnel actions without their input.

Levis said today that receivership “remains an option,” even as PDE appoints a new recovery officer.

The district has been under a financial recovery designation since 2012. State law requires any recovering district to have a CRO, but Harrisburg has operated without one since July, when Audrey Utley retired after three years in the role.

Utley oversaw an overhaul of the district’s five-year recovery plan, which expired in June with 80 percent of its initiatives in place.

State Education Secretary Pedro Rivera is charged with appointing Utley’s replacement. He sought input from state Sen. John DiSanto, Rep. Patty Kim, district Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney and Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse while making his decision, Levis said.

When approached by PDE, Papenfuse said he emphasized his belief that the district should be under the control of a receiver.

“Under the power of the law, only a receiver would produce the level of transparency and administrative changes necessary to solve the district’s clear dysfunction,” Papenfuse said. “PDE has chosen to go in another direction, but I do appreciate their seeking my input on behalf of the residents of Harrisburg.”

The district has beat back a steady stream of scandals in the past year, including a grading investigation that led to the reassignment of a high school principal, a hiring mistake that allowed 37 unbudgeted teaching positions to be filled, and criminal charges against an administrator who allegedly embezzled $180,000 from the district.

District administrators drew fresh criticism in August, when they asked 65 teachers that they hired at the wrong salary step to pay back wages.

That request was enough to make Jody Barksdale, president of Harrisburg’s teachers union, consider the merits of receivership – an arrangement she ultimately decided she could not support.

Barksdale has also been critical of the school board this year and once pleaded publicly with board members to act more professionally.

“The way you talk to each other is unacceptable,” Barksdale said at an August meeting. “You guys are the talk of the town, and it makes me embarrassed.”

Friction among board members was on high display this year, as they debated whether to retain or replace Knight-Burney, whose contract expired in June. The nine-member body frequently split on slim margins on decisions related to district personnel.

A vote on Knight-Burney’s new contract devolved into a shouting match between board members at a June meeting, leading President Judd Pittman to issue a public apology the following month.

Three board members have also resigned their seats this year, one amid allegations that he lied about his residence in the city.

This week, the board published its annual superintendent evaluation. Knight-Burney received “exemplary” ratings across nine performance standards, even though three members rated her overall performance “unsatisfactory” or “in need of improvement.”

Knight-Burney will serve in the district for at least three more years. She’ll work closely with the CRO the entire time.

PDE has not disclosed any of the candidates it’s considering for the CRO role. Gene Veno, who served as CRO from 2012 until 2015, inquired about resuming his old position but said he did not receive any response from Rivera.

Kenneth Medina, a former business manager who was demoted and later laid off, also told TheBurg he submitted his name for PDE’s consideration. Medina is currently petitioning the district to get his job in the business office back.

Mandate or Suggestion? State calls on Harrisburg school district to seek new financial managers

June 14, 2018 | by Lizzy Hardison

Members of the district’s business office, from left: acting assistant business manager Regis Barwin, interim CFO James Snell and acting business manager Bilal Hasan.

Soon after wrapping up a protracted debate over its superintendent, the Harrisburg school district may find itself in another personnel battle.

The state Department of Education is asking the district to search for new leadership for its business office, which oversees budgets and financial management.

In a letter to the district on Monday, department Secretary Pedro Rivera said that the district’s chief financial officer and business manager do not meet the criteria set forth in its five-year recovery plan, which calls for full-time, permanent, highly qualified employees to fill both positions.

The school board has final say on all district personnel actions. But board members, who diverged for the past six months over whether to replace or retain Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney, once again disagree on the need to seek new hires.

Board President Judd Pittman interprets the letter as a directive from the state, giving the district no choice but to replace interim, part-time CFO James Snell and acting Business Manager Bilal Hasan. But board Vice President Danielle Robinson thinks the district should keep the current team.

“It’s not a directive, it’s a suggestion,” Robinson said. “The team we have in place is giving us what we need.”

The business manager and CFO are responsible for developing and managing the district’s $156 million budget. This year, the district faces a shortfall of almost $9 million. The business office has proposed bridging it with a $5 million transfer from its fund balance, $4 million in staff cuts, and a 3.6 percent tax hike.

“The people we had in [the business office] before are the reason we’re in the situation we’re in now,” said Robinson. “Hasan and Snell have helped us come out of it.”

The district’s business office has seen a revolving door of interim and acting managers in the past five years. The office had permanent leadership during the 2016-17 school year, when William Gretton served as CFO and Kenneth Medina as business manager.

Gretton resigned last July to take a superintendent position near Philadelphia, and Medina was reassigned to a grants management role in August.

Pittman called the lack of consistent leadership in the business office “a cancer.” He said that, while he appreciates Snell and Hasan’s hard work over the past year, he’s been frustrated with the district’s administration – including the superintendent – during this year’s budget talks.

“I haven’t gotten answers to the questions I’ve been asking this budget cycle,” Pittman said. “I haven’t seen any creativity.”

Pittman said that the administration has lagged on actions that would generate more revenue, such as selling its vacant properties or seeking out payments from tax exempt entities in the city.

Since the state could put the district in receivership once its five-year recovery plan ends on June 30, Pittman thinks it’s imperative that the board act now on PDE’s directive.

Knight-Burney declined to comment on the letter today, but Chief Recovery Officer Audrey Utley said that the district would need to seek new personnel.

“[Hasan] does not have the required experience,” Utley said. “PDE is saying that we need to do a search now.”

Utley was referring to the criteria set forth in the recovery plan, which calls for a business manager with “substantial prior experience and… a successful, documented track record” overseeing a business office in a similar-sized district.

Hasan also lacks certifications from the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials. He was serving as assistant business manager in February when he was promoted to acting business manager at a salary of $113,000.

He was floated as a potential business manager in 2016, according to school board minutes, but passed over in favor of a more experienced candidate (the job ultimately went to Medina.)

Robinson said that she would support Hasan seeking coursework and certifications to become a full-time, permanent business manager.

Separately, the school district announced today the resignation of Percel Eiland as a school board director. The district now must find and appoint a replacement for Eiland, who served just six months of his two-year term.

This Job Could Be Yours: HBG schools CRO to retire, replacement needed.

June 1, 2018 | by Lizzy Hardison

The Harrisburg school district’s Lincoln administrative building.

The search is on for the Harrisburg school district’s next chief recovery officer.

Audrey Utley, who was appointed as the district’s CRO in 2015, will retire when her contract with the district expires on June 30, she confirmed today.

She submitted her letter of resignation to school board President Judd Pittman last week.

As CRO, Utley was charged with overseeing the implementation of the district’s five-year recovery plan, which outlined more than 100 initiatives to bolster its academic success and fiscal health. Utley oversaw an amendment to that plan shortly after she took office, but said that she never planned to serve after its expiration in June 2018.

“When I accepted my position, I understood that the plan was for five years, and I would finish the last three,” Utley said.

Utley was employed with the district on a year-to-year contract. Her salary was capped at $144,000 per year, according to a PennLive report.

She expects that 80 percent of the recovery plan initiatives will be complete by the end of her tenure in four weeks.

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse said that the city is working with the school board and the Pennsylvania Department of Education to find Utley’s replacement. The new CRO could become the district’s state-appointed receiver, if the state decides to put the district into receivership later this summer.

Even if the state rules against receivership, the district is required to employ a CRO as long as Harrisburg retains its Act 47 designation as a financially distressed city, Utley said.

Papenfuse praised Utley in 2015 when a panel of local and state officials unanimously appointed her to the CRO seat. But, today, he said that she did not choose to exercise the full power of her position.

The mayor hopes that the next CRO will be “someone who will hold the administration accountable and promote transparency in the school board, and who will not accept another day of fiscal mismanagement and academic failures of this district.”

Utley dismissed the mayor’s criticisms of her job performance. She said that the district has a standards-aligned curriculum for the first time in its history, which will help propel academic growth.

“I’m not sure what part of my job he would say I did not execute,” she said. “I was hired to monitor the implementation of the recovery plan, and we pushed the district along as quickly as we could.”

In addition to serving as CRO, Utley served as acting superintendent of the school district for fewer than two months in 2010. She left that post to become superintendent of Steelton-Highspire School District.

Harrisburg gets state grant, will begin major Paxton Creek reclamation project, mayor says.

June 1, 2018 | by Lizzy Hardison

Artist’s rendering of part of the proposed Paxton Creek Park in Harrisburg.

Harrisburg has received a $2 million state grant to begin its ambitious Paxton Creek Reclamation project, Mayor Eric Papenfuse announced today.

The funds from the Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) grant will make only a small dent in the project’s anticipated $60 to $90 million cost, but will allow the city to begin initial work of removing bridges and buildings that restrict the creek channel.

Papenfuse announced the grant at his annual “State of the City” speech, which he delivered to a coalition of nonprofit leaders at the Harrisburg Crowne Plaza Hotel this morning.

The yearly address is typically an opportunity for the mayor to recite campaign-trail talking points and administrative achievements. But Papenfuse used today’s event to announce several new initiatives, including the construction of the city’s first traffic circle and a new summer festival in Reservoir Park.

He highlighted multiple infrastructure projects in his 30-minute speech, particularly those that will improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists. That includes the Paxton Creek Reclamation project, which aims to widen the Paxton Creek and lower its floodplain elevation, making hundreds of blighted, industrial acres more attractive for development.

The project will also create recreation areas along the creek and increase connectivity between the downtown and Allison Hill neighborhoods. Papenfuse said that a new segment of the Capital Area Greenbelt trail, which runs for 20 miles in and around Harrisburg, could be constructed along the creek once the project is complete.

The city also requested $14 million in RACP funds to build a bridge over Division Street in Uptown Harrisburg, which would connect HACC’s main campus to Uptown Plaza. That application was denied, but the mayor was optimistic that the city could successfully re-apply in October.

Papenfuse also unveiled new plans for multi-modal transport along 7th Street, which will complement the construction of the new federal courthouse at 6th and Reily streets. The renderings call for sheltered bike lanes along the length of the 7th Street office corridor, as well as the construction of Harrisburg’s first traffic circle at 7th and Reily.

“This is all to ensure safe transportation and… encourage less car dependency in the city,” Papenfuse said.

With the exception of vehicle-related accidents and deaths, almost every category of violent crime has fallen in Harrisburg since Papenfuse took office. He pointed to that statistic as one of the hallmark achievements of his administration, along with growth of jobs and investment in the city.

Those investments have included corporate sponsorships for community events and festivals. The city hosted its first annual Fire and Ice Festival downtown this March, and Papenfuse said that the first-ever Weekender Festival will take place in Reservoir Park later this summer.

Papenfuse also said that that the city’s population seems to be growing, given a recent rise in revenues from the city’s local service and earned income taxes. After decades of decline, the city’s population began to stabilize with the 2010 census, ticking up by 1.2 percent, and Papenfuse believes the 2020 census will show additional growth.

The mayor assured the audience that, as the population grows, his administration is “mindful of our responsibility to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table.”

Papenfuse addressed education only briefly in his speech, when he said that the city is working with the Harrisburg school board and the state Department of Education to find a new chief recovery officer to oversee the school district’s recovery efforts.

Current CRO Audrey Utley will retire when her contract expires on June 30.

Click here to learn more about the Paxton Creek Master Plan.

Teaching Empty Seats: As the Harrisburg School District nears the end of its five-year recovery plan, how well has it improved student attendance?

January 31, 2018 | by Lizzy Hardison

Today’s American classrooms bear little resemblance to their counterparts of yore. Touch screen monitors have replaced blackboards, students exchange text messages in lieu of folded paper notes, and teachers tap-tap on tablets to distribute homework assignments and quizzes.

And yet, the most important issue in education today is pretty old fashioned: getting kids to show up.

In recent years, educational experts have identified chronic absenteeism—students missing 15 or more school days per year—as one of the single greatest impediments to a district’s academic success. A 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Education called chronic absenteeism “a hidden educational crisis” in America’s schools.

“Curbing absenteeism has to be a priority because it undermines all other good efforts in a school,” said Robert Balfanz, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Education and a leading researcher on the harms of absenteeism. “Regular, consistent presence is a prerequisite for anything else to work.”

Balfanz, who leads the dropout prevention program, “Everyone Graduates,” has spent most of his career trying to answer one question: what keeps students from finishing high school? Time and again, he says, research has shown that a student’s attendance history is a better indicator than test scores at predicting his odds of graduating. A study Balfanz led in Philadelphia found that, if a student missed 20 days of school, his chance of graduating dropped as low as 10 percent. In Utah, researchers found that even a single year of chronic absenteeism between 8th and 12th grade could increase a student’s likelihood of dropping out seven-fold.

Like many urban school districts, Harrisburg schools have historically struggled with high rates of student absenteeism. The district recorded 45 percent of its 6,338 students as chronically absent in the 2013-14 school year, the last period for which data is publicly available. Nationally, the rate of chronically absent students that year was 14 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. *

Administrators in Harrisburg say that attendance-boosting initiatives strengthened under the district’s five-year recovery plan have stabilized school attendance rates. State data show that daily attendance averages in that time period are indeed consistent, but remain well below an acceptable level. Audrey Utley, the district’s chief recovery officer, said that the district won’t meet the attendance goals outlined in the recovery plan by the time it expires in June 2018.

Left unchecked, a high rate of chronic absence among students can impede any district’s academic performance. The good news is that a concerted effort to increase regular attendance can help a school raise test scores, graduation rates and student growth rates—even without changing any part of its curriculum. What can Harrisburg do to get there?

Devil’s in the Data

The idea that consistent attendance boosts student performance seems intuitive enough. According to Balfanz, however, the method that states have historically used to track attendance allows troubling rates of absenteeism—and the academic consequences they carry—to persist.

For every year since 2011, Harrisburg has logged an average daily attendance (ADA) rate between 88 and 90 percent. That metric represents how many students are present in school on an average day. Since ADA rates are aggregate figures, however, they don’t account for the fact that different students are absent on different days.

As a result, average daily attendance data can obfuscate a much higher incidence of chronically absent students, Balfanz said.

“Our tendency is to think that, if something is in the low 90s, we get an A,” Balfanz said. “But even at that ADA rate, you can still have a quarter or more of your kids chronically absent.”

Indeed, data from Harrisburg show that a middling ADA figure can mask a scourge of chronic absence. In 2013-14, the same year that 45 percent of Harrisburg students were chronically absent, the district reported an ADA of 88 percent, according to Pennsylvania Department of Education data. By comparison, the district’s ADA for the 2015-16 school year was 89 percent.

Balfanz said that any district with an ADA under 95 percent likely has a significant problem with chronic absenteeism. That means that, even if Harrisburg schools did meet the attendance benchmark set by the recovery plan in 2011—which was to bring the district-wide ADA to 92 percent by 2018—they would not eradicate chronic absenteeism.

Pennsylvania is one of the 44 states in the country that does not require schools to report chronic absenteeism data. Jaime Foster, chief curriculum officer for the city school district, could not disclose its current rate of chronic absenteeism, citing student confidentiality concerns. She did claim that the figure is lower than it’s ever been.

“When you’re not in school when you should be, every day is like a new day,” Foster said. “The district’s efforts to monitor and support students who are chronically absent have significantly increased over the past three years.”

Foster said that Harrisburg schools issue letters to families when a student has accrued too many consecutive or non-consecutive absences. Teachers can also meet with parents to discuss their child’s attendance record or arrange for a social worker to visit a student’s home, Foster said. Jody Barksdale, president of the Harrisburg Education Association, added that school guidance counselors help communicate the value of attendance to families. Foster said that schools also offer incentives for regular attendance, such as class pizza parties or public recognition assemblies.

“These policies have always been in place, but now we’re implementing them with greater fidelity,”
Foster said.

However, the lack of significant improvement in the district’s attendance rates over the past five years cast doubt on the current methods for tracking and curtailing absences. What’s more, the misplaced focus on daily attendance averages, as opposed to chronic absentee data, could allow many students not to meet critical attendance thresholds.

As research shows, students who don’t meet those thresholds have greatly diminished graduation odds.

What’s a District to Do?

Chronic absenteeism is endemic to many urban districts across the country, which means that schools have tested a broad range of initiatives to curb the problem. According to Balfanz, reducing absence requires a multi-tier approach: preventative measures and interventions, incentives and opportunities to build relationships within school settings.

In Philadelphia schools, administrators have found that a simple postcard can go a long way to decreasing student absences.

Philadelphia schools participated in a federal Department of Education study in the 2014-15 school year that sent families postcards telling them how often their children missed school. Students who received a postcard missed, on average, one fewer day of school than students in a control group. Reitano said the experiment generated 20,000 days of additional attendance in the district that year. Taking into account the cost of the mailings, each day of additional attendance cost the district just 6.96 cents.

One additional day of school may not seem like a lot, Reitano said, but it could make all the difference for a student teetering on the edge of chronic absence.

Mailings may be the most cost-effective method to produce modest attendance gains, but Reitano and other researchers know they won’t replace people-based initiatives. The consensus in the education community is that forging student relationships are the most effective way to encourage regular attendance. In Harrisburg, Foster agreed that teachers are “the number-one influence” in getting students to attend schools.

“I can’t stress enough the importance of the positive teacher and student relationship to improve the absenteeism rate,” Foster said. “It’s not climate, it’s not books. If you have a great teacher in front of you, you will want to come.”

In a district such as Harrisburg, however, the struggle to retain teachers throughout the school year can hamper a teacher-centered approach to curbing absenteeism. As of late November, 45 teachers had resigned from the district since the start of the academic year, according to the Harrisburg Education Association. What’s more, teachers in Harrisburg have their own checkered attendance record: 325 teachers (73 percent of the district faculty) were absent 10 or more school days in 2013-14, according to federal data.

The schools that see the most dramatic reductions in chronic absence are those where nonprofits and local agencies collaborate to provide integrated support to students. These programs often include individualized attention and mentorship for students.

In an attendance-boosting initiative in Pittsburgh, intern social workers were charged with tracking students with poor attendance records. The interns welcomed the students to school each morning, checked on them throughout the day and personally called the students’ homes when they were marked absent. Forty percent of the targeted at-risk students in that program showed an increase in their attendance. Through a similar program in Kent County, Mich., a coalition of nonprofits and state and county support caseworkers provide integrated support to at-risk students. In that county, the decision to post a DHS caseworker in select schools boosted attendance by a full week, according to the nonprofit AttendanceWorks.

In schools in Seattle and Philadelphia, young adult mentors provide in-class assistance, after school tutoring and cheery greetings to students as they arrive to school in the morning. Nonprofits like CityYear, Communities in Schools or Balfanz’s own Diplomas Now employ cadres of these young recruits to give students individual attention throughout the day—something teachers can’t always afford to do in large classes.

According to a report in the Seattle Times, two south Seattle middle schools that partnered with young adult mentors saw dramatic results in student test scores. In the three years after the schools began focusing on attendance, they reported a combined 79-percent drop in the number of students failing English and a 96-percent decrease in those failing math. The number of students with attendance problems fell by 15 percent.

“When it comes to absence, you have to change a behavior, and that’s very hard to do without a positive relationship with the student,” Balfanz said. “Very few of us change behaviors on our own.”

At the heart of a nationwide attendance epidemic lies a cruel irony: the very students who benefit the most from a stable school environment are those most likely to encounter barriers to entering it.

In an urban community like Harrisburg, those barriers align with all of the various deprivations of poverty—inadequate transportation and healthcare, as well as transient or tumultuous homes. Overcoming these obstacles can’t be the job of a school district alone. But as other, similarly struggling districts have shown, increasing student attendance and, by extension, graduation odds, may eliminate at least one significant hurdle on the path to leaving poverty.

*In a January 2018 interview, Audrey Utley, chief recovery officer for Harrisburg schools, defined chronic absence as students missing 10 or more days of school a year, not 15. Pennsylvania law offers yet another standard. According to a 2017 consolidated state plan published under the Every Student Succeeds Act, chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10 percent of the school year, or roughly 18 out of 180 school days. For the purposes of this story, chronic absenteeism was defined as 15 or more absences in a school year. This is the standard in a U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights report, in which Harrisburg reported 45 percent of its student body as chronically absent.

A new state system puts less emphasis on standardized tests. How will Harrisburg schools fare?

January 24, 2018 | by Lizzy Hardison

File photo by Dani Fresh

Pennsylvania is changing the way it grades its public schools, which may be good news for the Harrisburg City School District.

This Monday, Gov. Tom Wolf signed off on a 144-page education improvement plan that deemphasizes test scores and creates a new index for assessing school performance.

The state Department of Education wrote the plan to bring Pennsylvania into compliance with the “Every Student Succeeds Act.” ESSA, which replaced “No Child Left Behind” as the federal education law in 2015, gives states more flexibility in how they govern schools.

With that discretion, many states, including Pennsylvania, are choosing to evaluate schools based on student growth rates rather than student proficiency.

What does that mean in plain English? Essentially, schools will be graded by how much students learn over time – not by how they score on tests.

Pennsylvania’s new education plan introduces the Future Ready PA Index — a report card system that evaluates schools on dozens of performance indicators. The index won’t take effect until fall 2018, but the plan says it will “emphasize student growth measures that are less sensitive to out of school factors.”

This new evaluation method could reap favorable returns in Harrisburg. The city’s school district consistently logs some of the lowest test scores in the county, and appears at the bottom of statewide rankings every year. When evaluated by its student growth rate, however, a slightly different picture emerges.

Harrisburg students progress by an average of 4.3 academic years in the five years between third grade and eighth grade, according to a recent study from Stanford University. That doesn’t help most Harrisburg students achieve state proficiency standards in math or reading, but it does show that they learn at a rate that’s equal or faster than students in wealthier districts nearby.

Central Dauphin School District, for example, has a median income of $72,000 per year – three times that of Harrisburg’s reported $24,000. While Central Dauphin students achieve higher standardized test scores than their peers in Harrisburg, they progress at a slightly lower rate: 4.2 grade levels in 5 years. In Susquehanna Township, where the median annual income is $63,000, students have the same 4.3-year growth rate as Harrisburg students.

“This data tweaks conventional wisdom in many ways,” Emily Badger wrote in the New York Times about the Stanford study. “Some urban and Southern districts are doing better than data typically suggests. Some wealthy ones don’t look that effective. Many poor school systems do.”

Indeed, the study results show that districts lauded for high test scores may be less competitive in rankings based on growth. Meanwhile, a district such as Harrisburg may move from the bottom of the pack to somewhere closer to the middle.

In 2013, the Harrisburg school district adopted a five-year recovery plan aimed at narrowing the disparity between student test scores and state standards. In Harrisburg schools, the average student tests 3.2 years behind grade level in the third grade, according to Stanford University data.

While the district has a long way to go before it closes that gap entirely, Chief Recovery Officer Audrey Ultey said that growth data tells them they’re on the right track.

“Students are growing at a faster rate,” Utley said. “They’re not meeting targets in the recovery plan and are below state averages in proficiency, but we have, in the last two years, seen some growth in closing that gap.”

Utley knows that the district’s current growth rate needs to increase. Ideally, students would achieve at least one year of growth for every year they are in school, she said.

Even so, Utley reported that the district’s growth rate has increased under the recovery plan, since the district adopted a unified curriculum with benchmark assessments. These structured learning goals help teachers assess student needs and develop individualized learning plans for students with gaps in their education.

Utley said that proficiency measures are still important, since students and teachers need a goal to guide their work. Jaime Foster, the district’s chief curriculum officer, added that student performance on standardized tests dictates annual revisions to the curriculum.

However, state evaluations based on performance can stack the deck against urban districts, which have higher rates of poor and non-English speaking students. In Harrisburg, one of the greatest detriments to student test scores is the rate of transient students. Utley estimated that the district has a 25-percent turnover rate among its pupils.

Both Utley and Foster hope that the state’s new priorities will help teachers assess their effectiveness in the classroom and encourage disadvantaged students as they progress through school.

“Growth has a greater impact because a student will be able to see how they go from one point to another over time,” Foster said. “With growth, the sky is the limit.”

Harrisburg School Board Moves Forward with Organic Composting Project

November 22, 2016 | by Danielle Roth

The Harrisburg School District met on Nov. 21.

One man’s trash is another student’s educational opportunity.

Or at least that’s the reasoning of the Harrisburg School Board, which approved a resolution to support the installation of an organic waste composting facility at last night’s meeting.

The resolution allows the school district to start working with the city to develop and operate a facility for educational and operational uses at its property at 1901 Wayne Ave.

“The authentic learning opportunities are boundless,” said board Director Judd Pittman.

The district currently uses the Susquehanna Township property, near Capital Region Water, for bus and leaf storage, said Solicitor Samuel Cooper. The district is mandated to use the land for an educational purpose, Cooper said.

“This is a golden opportunity for students to learn about composting and other environmental aspects,” he said.

The district is still in a preliminary planning phase for uses for the composting facility, which also will be accessible to city residents.

A waste analysis completed last year showed that food waste created most of the weight of the garbage the school district disposed, Pittman said. The school pays for trash disposal by weight, which means a composting facility for food waste will reduce the cost for the school.

The city approached the school board with this idea about a year ago. The next steps to further the project are approval from Susquehanna Township’s zoning board and possibly a period of public input, Cooper said.

“It is normal procedure that the public will have a chance for comment,” Cooper said.

More news from the Nov. 21 school board meeting:

Superintendent Dr. Sybil Knight-Burney led attendees in a moment of reflection for Shanice and Destiny Johnson, school children who died in a recent fire.
The district is working with law enforcement to adapt HACC’s active shooter procedure.
Chief Recovery Officer Audrey Utley said the district is creating “action plans” to address staff absenteeism and a task force to strategize how to minimize teacher absenteeism.
The board approved 21 budget transfer items; five requests for facility use; seven fundraiser requests; 10 fiscal items regarding contracts or agreements; and personnel appointments, promotions, resignations and tenures.
Harrisburg Education Association President Jody Barksdale gave five letter-sized envelopes filled with stories from staff and students to board President Danielle Robinson. “You don’t have the opportunity to come in and see what prevents us from teaching,” Barksdale said. The letters detailed persistent struggles teachers face on a day-to-day basis. Barksdale urged the board to offer mental health support students dealing with grief, poor coping skills and sexual abuse.
Karl Singleton, senior advisor to Mayor Eric Papenfuse, urged the board to employ staff and sign contracts with people of color and women. He noted that he saw few people of color and women working on recent construction at the district’s baseball field. He invited board members to a Dec. 14 session on reducing negative police and minority contact.

Author: Danielle Roth

August News Digest

July 31, 2015 | by Lawrance Binda

Reed Arrested, Arraigned

Seven-term Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed was arrested and arraigned last month on 17 criminal charges ranging from bribery to running a criminal organization.

In all, the state charged Reed with 499 criminal counts covering actions related to the Harrisburg Parking Authority and the Harrisburg School District, as well as city government.

The counts cover alleged actions for many well-known Reed-era projects, such as the incinerator retrofit, the effort to acquire museum artifacts, the Senators baseball team and Harrisburg University.

Debt accumulated under Reed eventually resulted in a financial crisis that led the state to appoint a receiver for the city, as well as a failed attempt by City Council to declare municipal bankruptcy.

Dauphin County District Justice William C. Wenner set bail at $150,000 unsecured, meaning that Reed did not actually have to post bond. He ordered Reed to surrender his passport and restrict travel to the confines of Pennsylvania.

After the arraignment, Reed and his attorney, Henry E. Hockeimer Jr. of the Philadelphia-based firm Ballard Spahr, made statements defending the 28-year mayor. Reed blamed the criminal charges on “misperceptions and politics,” while Hockeimer said Reed “carried out his role [as mayor] with dedication and integrity.”

Afterwards, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane publicly released the grand jury presentment, which detailed the evidence behind the charges. The presentment alleged that thousands of “artifacts” and “curiosities” purchased with public funds were found in Reed’s home and storage areas; that Reed diverted money from city borrowings for other purposes; and that he used city employees for personal reasons.

Market Report Released

The Broad Street Market Task Force last month released a long-anticipated report on how to improve the condition, management and overall operations of the historic Midtown market.

Chairwoman Jackie Parker told Harrisburg City Council that the market’s two buildings are in decent condition, but that they will require “large capital investments” over the next decade.

More immediately, the report strongly recommended changing the market’s management structure.

Currently, the Broad Street Market Corp. operates the market, with the Historic Harrisburg Association as its sole shareholder. The task force advised separating from HHA and transitioning to a nonprofit entity, which then could better pursue grants and other funding.

“It would be a newly established nonprofit that is dedicated to full-time fundraising for the market,” said Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse, who announced the 10-member task force early last year as one of his first acts as mayor.

That transition could take the better part of two years, said Parker, who also is director of the city’s Department of Community and Economic Development.

Under the new structure, the market’s two buildings would remain owned by the city, but ongoing repair and maintenance would shift to the nonprofit, which would be overseen by a board of directors composed of volunteers from the community and market stakeholders.

The report recommended a number of other operational improvements, including free WiFi, greater recycling efforts, extended hours, greater diversity of food options, a marketing budget and better litter management.

Separately, Joshua Kesler last month was named president of the Broad Street Market Corp. board, replacing Jonathan Bowser, who resigned in June. Kesler is owner of The Millworks restaurant and art studios across the street from the market.

Campbell Pleads Guilty

Former Harrisburg Treasurer John Campbell last month pleaded guilty to charges that he stole money from several Harrisburg-based non-profit organizations.

Campbell said he was guilty of two counts of unlawful taking, a felony, and one count of Charitable Act fraud, a misdemeanor. He also promised to make full restitution for the thefts, which total almost $30,000.

Campbell was accused of taking money from several groups, including Historic Harrisburg Association, the Stonewall Democrats and Lighten Up Harrisburg. He was not charged with theft relating to his position as city treasurer.

If Campbell makes restitution by his Sept. 15 sentencing, Dauphin County Deputy District Attorney Joel Hogentogler said he would agree to a sentence of probation.

Anti-Blight Bills Passed

Harrisburg City Council last month approved two bills meant to battle the continuing problem of blight in the city.

The bills, passed unanimously, create a registry of foreclosed properties and increase fines on real estate investors and speculators for code violations.

Under the first ordinance, banks will pay a $200 annual fee for each property on the registry. The properties then must be kept properly maintained and secured.

Under the second, the city will levy higher fines on “corporate owners” of properties cited for code violations than it does on residential owners.

The higher fines are justified because it costs the city money to track down the investors and speculators, who often live out of the area and are difficult to identify and contact because they hide behind corporate entities, said Mayor Eric Papenfuse.

Food Truck Rules Updated

Food trucks in Harrisburg must locate at least 100 feet from brick-and-mortar restaurants under an ordinance passed last month by the City Council.

Council unanimously approved an ordinance update that requires food trucks and other mobile food vendors from setting up within 100 feet of existing restaurants, 15 feet from building entrances and 15 feet from a fire hydrant.

The ordinance update was urged by several downtown restaurants, which have complained that food trucks set up near them during high-volume times, such as during lunch and on weekend nights, and negatively affect their business. They also have complained about grease and litter.

The mobile vendors also must cease selling by 2:30 a.m. and move from the area by 2:45 a.m.

The ordinance does not apply to food trucks that congregate during special events, such as the monthly Food Truck Feast held during 3^rd in the Burg.

HUD Funds Distributed

Harrisburg last month finalized the recipients of its annual dispersal of federal housing money.

The city received $3.1 million from three U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development programs, most through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program.

The city’s housing rehabilitation program received $451,806, the largest allocation, and the city police department received $250,000, which it plans to use to boost manpower in Harrisburg’s most troubled neighborhoods. The city’s demolition program got $111,114.

Other recipients included:
Fair Housing Council, $130,000
Tri County HDC, $100,000
Camp Curtin YMCA, $80,000
Christian Recovery Aftercare Ministry, $75,000
Habitat for Humanity, $70,000
Boys & Girls Club of Harrisburg, $60,000
Latino Hispanic American Community Center, $59,982
Heinz-Menaker Senior Center, $50,000
Mid Penn Legal Services, $30,000
Christian Love Ministries, $29,000
Codes Enforcement, $10,000

The city’s Emergency Solutions Grant Program received $164,603, and the Homeowner Improvement Program got $295,765.

More than $1 million will not go directly to recipients. Grant administration received $482,624, while debt service ate up $638,000. The latter item covers this year’s installment of repayment of a $3.8 million federal loan that Harrisburg backed for the failed (since revived) Capitol View Commerce Center.

Recovery Officer Appointed

Audrey Utley was appointed last month as the new chief recovery officer for the Harrisburg School District.

State Board of Education Secretary Pedro Rivera appointed Utley after a search committee recommended her. She recently retired as superintendent of the Steelton-Highspire school district and served a short, three-month stint as acting superintendent of the Harrisburg district in 2010.

Utley will continue the effort of trying to improve the financial and academic condition of the Harrisburg district, an effort begun by Utley’s predecessor, Gene Veno, who served in the post about two years before resigning in June.

Under Veno’s recovery plan, the district’s precarious financial situation stabilized, but the academic performance deteriorated further, according to state performance measures released last year.

2 Projects Get Green Light

More apartments are coming to Harrisburg, as the City Council last month approved land development plans for two substantial projects.

First, council unanimously approved Harristown Enterprise’s plan to convert 21,000 square feet of office space and another 6,000 square feet of loft space to six two-bedroom and 16 one-bedroom apartments above a stretch of shops along N. 3^rd and Market streets in Strawberry Square.

If all goes according to plan, work on the project would begin this fall with completion slated for spring 2016, said Brad Jones, president and CEO of Harristown Enterprises, which owns Strawberry Square.

Council then OK’d a plan by WCI Partners to transform the former Harrisburg Moose Lodge Temple at N. 3^rd and Boas streets into 33 one-bedroom apartments, with commercial space on the ground floor. WCI also plans to renovate three boarded-up townhouses on the property.

WCI President Dave Butcher said the project should begin in early autumn with completion expected next summer.

Transit Consolidation Urged

A state official last month urged the Harrisburg City Council to consider regional consolidation of mass transit services.

Area governments could save an estimated $2.3 million a year, mostly through reduced administrative staff, if they chose to consolidate into a single entity, said Toby Fauver, deputy secretary for multimodal transportation for the state Department of Transportation.

Fauver cited the potential savings as he briefed council on Phase 2 of the South-Central Regional Transit Consolidation Study, which recommends consolidation for most transit systems in south-central Pennsylvania.

If they decide to merge transit operations, the participating counties and municipalities would need to appoint representatives to a transition board that would decide such issues as structure, governance and operations. The consolidation would cost about $4.7 million to achieve, but the state would absorb that cost, Fauver said.

Changing Hands

Boas St., 106: K. Miller to A. Nascone, $130,000

Boas St., 314: B. Ostella to W. James, $99,900

Briggs St., 241: M. Simmons to C. Jeffers, $113,500

Calder St., 504: P. Maruszewski to H. Nguyen, $109,900

Catherine St., 1620: R. & M. Caplan to M. & V. Keyes, $31,000

Chestnut St., 2137: P. Bowman to G. Bierbaum & W. Alford, $184,900

Cumberland St., 117: J. & C. Kuntz to Cardinal Investments LLC, $81,900

Derry St., 2422: N. Foose to D. Brently, $61,900

Green St., 1910: WCI Partners LP to C. Reinhold & K. Hurst, $193,900

Green St., 3011: R. Snyder to M. Palermo Jr., $180,000

Herr St., 415: A. Antoun to J. Foreman, $54,900

Herr St., 1424: M. & A. Foreman to Bethesda Mission of Harrisburg, $275,00

Kelker St., 235: S. Woomer to D. Robinson & J. Vu, $99,900

Kensington St., 2408: PA Deals LLC to F. Frattarole, $63,500

Manada St., 1905: PA Deals LLC to G. & J. Modi, $96,000

North St., 1718; 2418 Jefferson St.; 2228 N. 4^th St.; 350 Harris St.; 352 Harris St.; 1813 Boas St. & 1833 Forster St.: R. Shokes Jr. & Shokes Enterprises to JDP 2014 LP, $497,000

N. 2^nd St., 405, Unit 2 & Unit 4: Belco Community Credit Union to Vinculum Inc., $410,000

N. 2^nd St., 1100: L. & A. Morato to S. & J. Toole, $45,000

N. 2^nd St., 2537: J. & M. McCarthy to N. Banting, $72,100

N. 2^nd St., 2821: D. & M. Anderson to J. & L. Witmer, $96,000

N. 2^nd St., 2904: J. Reitz & Webster Bank NA to F. & B. Pinto, $285,750

N. 2^nd St., 2926: J. & Y. Garner to M. & S. Bennington, $282,000

N. 2^nd St., 3118: A. Barlup to P. & M. Rowan, $152,000

N. 3^rd St., 1720: F. Phillipy to A. & A. Campoverde, $90,000

N. 4^th St., 1625: GWD Capitol Heights LP to J. Wolfe & K. Hunt, $103,300

N. Front St., 1525, Unit 103: K. Blum to A. McKenna, $214,900

N. Front St., 2401: E. & D. Black to J.A. Hartzler, $215,000

N. Front St., 2501: Harrisburg Builders Exchange to Poole Anderson Construction LLC, $415,000

Rudy Rd., 2401: C. Butler to B. Royster, $119,900

S. 18^th St., 946: W. & D. Shalan to Darna Investments LLC, $140,000

S. 21^st St., 971: Lee Estates LLC to T. Le, $100,000

S. 29^th St., 520: E. Cohen & Goodrich Assoc. to Goodrich Assoc., $125,000

S. Front St., 607: S. Farr to T. Edinger, $130,000

S. Front St., 711: Z. & J. Goodling to P. Moore, $180,000

State St., 1801: MAT Properties Inc. to Transcend Church, $99,000

Taylor Blvd., 52: PA Deals LLC to V. & S. Vdov, $56,900

Woodlawn St., 2359: Meier Norton FLP to Meier Supply Co., $406,800

Wyeth St., 1404: A. Weikert to F. Frattarole, $103,900

Wyeth St., 1412: PA Deals LLC to F. Frattarole, $103,900

Harrisburg property sales for June 2015, greater than $30,000. Source: Dauphin County. Data is assumed to be accurate.

TheBurg Podcast, July 10, 2015

July 10, 2015 | by Admin

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

July 10, 2015: This week, Larry and Paul talk about a task force report on the Broad Street Market, some new regulations on mobile food vendors, the latest tools in the city’s fight against blight and a new chief recovery officer for the Harrisburg School District.

Special thanks to Paul Cooley, who wrote our theme music. Check out his podcast, the PRC Show, on SoundCloud or in the iTunes store.

TheBurg Podcast can be downloaded by clicking on the date above or by visiting the iTunes store. You can also access the podcast via its host page.

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