Tag Archives: harrisburg

Heroism Honored: Black troops were excluded from the Union’s victory parade, so Harrisburg held its own. This month, that event will be commemorated.

October 30, 2015 | by John Duffy

In late May 1865, the Civil War was finally at an end.

The contest had cost more than 700,000 lives, destroyed countless others, and left the South in ruins. That month, the victorious Union armies paraded through Washington, D.C., in what organizers called The Grand Review—two solid days of celebration recognizing the efforts made by a generation in preserving the Union and ending slavery.

For most of the veterans who took part, it was their last act of soldiery. But conspicuously absent were the 180,000 African-American troops who had, by many historians’ estimations, made the crucial difference in achieving victory as the war dragged on for four long years.

“These soldiers played a pivotal role in victory, in saving the Union when it was being torn asunder,” said Dr. Frank Smith, founder and director of the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum in Washington, D.C.

They Earned It

When black troops were finally approved after much debate within the Lincoln administration, the outcome of the war was still very much in doubt.

“Yet after all the suffering and humiliation, after being bought and sold like animals, these men showed their worthiness and had some skin in the game, so to speak,” said Smith. “When Congress was debating the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th amendments after the war, we can read that many of them said ‘these people deserve this because they earned it on the battlefield.’ ”

They had passed through the crucible of war.

However, black and white soldiers could not share the Grand Review in Washington because it was politically toxic, said Dr. Harry Bradshaw Matthews, associate dean and director of intercultural affairs at Hartwick College.

“It would have been troubling to the unification process to have black troops presented on the same footing as whites,” he said. “It is important to remember that, for many white abolitionists, an end to slavery was not the same thing as equal rights.”

But thanks to several men from Pennsylvania’s capital region—politicians, abolitionists, clergy, journalists—the city of Harrisburg did what the nation had not. On a sunny November day, they held a parade of their own, a second Grand Review to honor the African-American men (the vast majority of them former slaves) who had done nothing less than help save the nation.

“And the Harrisburg victory parade showed the country, and indeed the world, that these men indeed had a right to be proud,” said Smith, who will be the keynote speaker at this month’s commemoration in Harrisburg, which takes place Nov. 13 to 15.

The Very Idea

While often delegated for garrison, general labor or guard duty, soldiers of the United States Colored Troops fought with distinction in most major actions of the war’s later years. Some 8,000 would enlist from the commonwealth, more than 1,000 of them from the Harrisburg region alone.

The dangers they faced once at war were often worse than their white comrades. At a time when most military deaths occurred in camp and not on the battlefield, black soldiers died of disease at nearly twice the normal rate. It was also Confederate policy that any black soldiers captured on the field would be re-enslaved. In several instances, surrendering and wounded colored troops were simply executed.

Yet they fought with conspicuous valor at New Market Heights, Nashville, the ill-fated Battle of the Crater, and in actions throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and the Carolinas.

By the fall of 1865, as most Union troops were back home re-entering normal life, most African-American troops were still in the military. A French army bent on taking over Mexico, and maybe Texas for that matter, required immediate attention. So, off to the Rio Grande the veterans went.

Many scholars have debated whether the absence of black soldiers in the Grand Review was a move of a pragmatic command—after all, many colored troop enlistments would not be up for another year—or racially motivated, as many ranking army commanders at war’s end still objected to the very idea of colored soldiers.

“There were more than enough black soldiers in uniform that could have participated in the Grand Review,” stated Matthews.

The end of slavery was, in fact, represented at the Grand Review, but in the form of thousands of camp followers—former slaves who sought the relative safety of the Union armies in a vengeful south.

“It is ironic and also in very poor taste that contraband slaves could take part in the parade only by parading behind those conquerors that saved them,” Matthews said.

All the Rights

Sensing an injustice, Pennsylvania Gov. Andrew Curtin invited several USCT regiments to the city and, on a crisp and sunny November day—a Tuesday—the soldiers formed up at State and Filbert streets and marched through Harrisburg to the cheers of residents, both black and white.

The event had been loudly promoted in the preceding days in the local press, including a notice in The Christian Recorder, which, in proclaiming the event, hoped that “our people will not fail to show their appreciation of the services of our country’s defenders…”

Serving as grand marshal of the review was Thomas Morris Chester, a Harrisburg lawyer, abolitionist and colored troop recruiter. More than anyone present that day, he was intimately familiar with the heroism of the troops he reviewed.

In the waning days of the war, Chester served as the only black war correspondent for a major newspaper, covering the actions of colored soldiers as they helped bring the war to its end outside of Richmond. When the city finally fell in early April 1865, Chester personally witnessed a column of well-armed, smartly uniformed veteran black troops become the first Union men to enter the fallen Confederate capital.

Now, Chester led a column of the same men through his hometown, not as conquerors, but as honored victors. The procession paused at the Front Street home of Simon Cameron, former Secretary of War and U.S. senator. Cameron had been an early advocate of both emancipation and the recruitment of colored soldiers.

Like Chester, he hoped the Harrisburg review would help the nation work quickly towards universal black suffrage.

“Like all other men, you have your destinies in your own hands,” Cameron said to the troops. “And if you continue to conduct yourselves hereafter as you have in the struggle, you will have all the rights you ask for, all the rights that belong to human beings.”

But even if the exclusion from the Grand Review in Washington was intentional, as Matthews insists, the benefits to colored troops of their service were numerous.

“A large number learned to read and write due to their service,” Matthews said. “That was critical.”

Along with nearly $5 million in pension pay starting in 1870, this literacy helped former soldiers become leaders of the post-war South.

“They served in elected offices, became teachers and community leaders, and founded many of the self-help organizations that built the African-American communities of the South,” he said. “At a time when Jim Crow laws were seeking to reassert the old order, they became the new backbone of freedom.”

Many events are planned in Harrisburg from Nov. 13 to 15 to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of The Grand Review. The highlight, The Grand Review procession featuring United States Colored Troops re-enactors, will take place on Nov. 14, beginning at 10 a.m. from Grace United Methodist Church, 216 State St. For a complete schedule of events, visit www.2015grandreview.com.

Holiday Cheer: Midstate Distillery Set to Open

October 26, 2015 | by Lawrance Binda

Dan Healy and Brian Myers soon will open the doors to Midstate Distillery in Harrisburg.

If all goes according to plan, Harrisburg’s first craft distillery will open next month, as Midstate Distillery today received its final permission to manufacture spirits and serve customers.

Business partners Dan Healy and Brian Myers said the distillery passed its state Liquor Control Board inspection this morning, which means the pair can begin to produce their first batches of spirits. They plan first to offer rum, vodka and moonshine, with whiskey and gin to follow.

“My hope is to be open no later than Thanksgiving,” said Healy.

For almost two years, Healy and Myers have been renovating the 6,000-square-foot, former Smith Paint building across Cameron Street from Consolidated Scrap Resources. The building was severely dilapidated when they bought the property in December 2013, and they’ve done most of the work themselves.

“It needed everything,” said Healy, who said the pair chose Harrisburg due to its central location in the metropolitan area.

The production, aging and storage areas.

Today, most of the pieces are in place. A gleaming copper still was recently installed near the rear of the industrial space, with the bar and restored vintage stools at the front. Tables will occupy much of the area between the bar and the still.

“I’ll be working day and night to get everything finished,” Healy said.

The bar area near the front of the house.

Healy said Midstate Distillery will produce about 20 cases of liquor a week to start, with the ability to ramp up as demand increases. They will serve drinks by the glass, as well as sell bottles, and also would like to distribute to bars in the area.

It is believed that Midstate Distillery will be the first legal distillery to operate in Harrisburg since Prohibition.

Midstate Distillery is located at 1817 N. Cameron St., Harrisburg. More information is at their website and Facebook page.

Gun-Rights Attorney To Seek Donor Names On Appeal

October 8, 2015 | by Paul Barker

An attorney in a legal battle with Harrisburg over its gun laws plans to appeal a ruling in the city’s favor over the privacy of donors to a legal defense fund, according to court filings.

Joshua Prince, of the Berks County-based Prince Law Offices, requested court transcripts for an appeal Wednesday, two weeks after Dauphin County Judge Andrew Dowling ruled the donors’ names could be kept private.

Prince is representing a gun-rights membership organization in a separate lawsuit against Harrisburg over its firearms ordinances. He sought documents including donors’ names and addresses in an open records request last February.

The city provided a list with the names and addresses redacted. Prince appealed to the state open records office, which ordered the city to release the full record.

Dowling, however, agreed with the city on appeal that the identity of donors is exempt under state open records law. He also sided with the city in finding it had provided records sufficient to meet other parts of Prince’s request, which Prince had disputed.

Harrisburg set up its legal defense fund earlier this year, after two groups sued the city over its ordinances regulating the use and ownership of firearms. The groups were emboldened by a new state law giving groups not immediately harmed by local regulations the ability to bring legal actions and recover costs from municipalities.

The city’s records showed it had received three donations totaling $400. The state law has since been ruled unconstitutional, though the lawsuits against Harrisburg are still pending. Prince’s case challenging the city ordinances was removed to federal court in February.

Harrisburg Changes Leaf Collection Procedure

October 6, 2015 | by Lawrance Binda

Leaves have already begun to fall in Harrisburg.

Harrisburg is changing its leaf-collecting procedure this year, asking residents to use compostable paper bags for leaf collecting and disposal.

Moreover, the city is urging residents not to rake leaves into the street, which has been a common practice for many years.

“We are asking Harrisburg residents to cooperate with our Public Works employees this fall to help the city efficiently manage leaf collections,” said Mayor Eric Papenfuse. “We strongly encourage residents not to blow leaves into the street, but to put them in brown paper bags that workers can take to the Swatara Township composting site.”

The administration said that the city has a “limited number” of large brown bags available to residents for free. They can be picked up at the Public Works Center at 1820 Paxton St. during regular work hours from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Otherwise, residents will need to buy the bags, which can be purchased at many stores, including hardware and home improvement stores.

After collecting the leaves, residents should leave the bags on curbs for collection during street cleaning days. Plastic bags will be not accepted.

The city is also asking residents not to mix leaves in with their regular trash.

“We are calling on our residents to make a special effort this fall to help our workers do their jobs,” Papenfuse said.

A Poverty of Action: It’s time for the private sector to take greater responsibility to improve this city.

September 30, 2015 | by Lawrance Binda

Illustration by Rich Hauck.

Recently, my wife and I ventured down Route 283, as we do a few times a year, to experience Lancaster’s First Friday.

I say “experience” because that’s what it is. On a beautiful, warm evening, the downtown blocks in and around Prince Street were so crowded that it was difficult to walk, customers and browsers wandering in and out of the shops along the city’s Gallery Row.

And I thought (as I have before): This is what a historic downtown should look like—shops and restored storefronts oozing character and commerce. And, as usual, I thought of how far Harrisburg, with few shops and much of its historic downtown leveled, is from this small-city charm.

Therefore, I was pretty surprised when, just a couple of weeks later, I read about a new study from Franklin & Marshall College’s Floyd Institute for Public Policy that said that, basically, I was a sucker. I had fallen for—well, maybe not quite a mirage, but certainly a distortion of what Lancaster really was.

The report, titled “Lancaster Prospers?” gave a devastating assessment of the state of the city, saying that downtown was an island of prosperity surrounded by a sea of poverty. In fact, outside the downtown core, per-capita income had fallen in each of the city’s other 13 neighborhoods, many by double-digits, from 2000 to 2013.

“The intensification of disparities between and within areas of the city has the potential to fray the fabric of social life,” warned the report.

A defensive Mayor Rick Gray later wrote an op-ed that called the Floyd Institute’s report “shallow” and “simplistic” and said his city, in addition to investing downtown, had poured “tens of millions of dollars” into impoverished neighborhoods.

“We can only wonder what the city would look like today without the economic development and investment Lancaster has seen over the past 10 years,” Gray said in the Lancaster daily, LNP.

And, again, I thought of Harrisburg.

Lancaster and Harrisburg are very different cities with very different recent histories. From 2000 to 2013, Lancaster tried to elevate itself into a regional hub for the arts, tourism and young professionals, while Harrisburg suffered an historic financial meltdown and state receivership. Yet, during this time, both cities had almost identical increases in their rates of poverty (about 8 percentage points), with nearly one-third of their populations now living below the poverty line.

What gives?

The fact is that fighting poverty is a monumental task, its causes varied and complex and its solutions largely beyond the control of local officials. “Tens of millions of dollars” may be a lot of money for small cities like Lancaster and Harrisburg, but it’s a trickle compared to the magnitude of the problem.

The Floyd Institute doesn’t seem to have any answers either. Its report includes some vague language about improving housing affordability and employment opportunities in the neighborhoods. However, it lacks concrete ideas on how to do that, other than advocating the ultimate recipe for inaction—another poverty study.

That’s not a surprise. If there were a magic bullet for alleviating poverty, everyone would be doing it. Instead, we seem to be heading in the opposite direction.

The fact is that we don’t live in a command economy. A local government can’t, at will, create jobs for low-skilled workers or force landlords to reduce their rents. Most of the economy is in private hands, a fact that many academic studies gloss over or dismiss. In cities, even small cities, thousands of people own the rental housing, the stores, the hospitals, the eateries and the other places where lower-income people live and work. It’s the broad, diffuse, tough-to-control private sector, not the concentrated public sector, which has the greatest impact on the economies and lives of people.

So, as the Floyd Institute calls for action from the public sector, I call for action from the private sector. Here in the Harrisburg area, that can take many forms—from working with school kids to greater job training to seeding entrepreneurship to targeting impoverished areas for small-scale manufacturing to helping workers put down roots in the city, which feeds economic activity. The need is tremendous, as are the options for action.

An excellent start would be for private landowners in Harrisburg who’ve long neglected their properties to begin to take responsibility for them. As I’ve said in a previous column, if you buy a dilapidated building or empty lot and, within a year or so, don’t begin to improve it, you’ve become part of the problem, no matter how well intentioned you may be. You’re now contributing to the blight in that neighborhood, discouraging redevelopment and economic progress.

I especially call upon the owners of property along the 3^rd Street corridor to take action. With anchors like H*MAC, Midtown Scholar, the Broad Street Market, the Susquehanna Art Museum, Campus Square and Midtown Cinema, that stretch has tremendous promise. The coming redevelopment of the old Moose Lodge temple at 3^rd and Boas streets is another critical piece in stitching downtown and Midtown back together.

However, the corridor will never reach its full potential until other buildings there are renovated and occupied by responsible tenants. Unlike downtown, 3^rd Street retains enough of its 19^th-century building stock that, if restored, it could do for Harrisburg what Gallery Row has done for Lancaster.

Harrisburg’s municipal government is stressed simply picking up trash, fixing streetlights, policing streets and providing other core services. Expecting it, or any local government, to solve a 30-percent poverty rate is fantasy.

Therefore, the private sector must take greater responsibility. To date, a handful of people have stepped up to start good companies and to improve dilapidated buildings, but they can’t carry the entire burden. Others must join this effort—companies and individuals that have the means to do so—if we’re ever going to create an attractive, more prosperous city that will encourage people to visit, spend money, contribute taxes and generate employment.

In my view, that’s the part of the social contract that’s most missing.

Lawrance Binda is editor-in-chief of TheBurg.

Outdoors in October: You needn’t drive far for some nature-loving fun.

September 30, 2015 | by Phyllis Zimmerman

Wildwood Lake

It’s autumn. Time to pack away the swim trunks and shorts and pull out those fall sweaters. The days and nights in our area are becoming cooler, but there’s still plenty of ways to enjoy the great outdoors.

Both Wildwood Park in Harrisburg and the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in Millersburg offers a full schedule of events for October that is likely to please just about everyone in the family.

“Our goal is to connect people with nature and art,” said Alexis Dow Campbell, director of creative programming for the Ned Smith Center, which honors the namesake artist, writer and naturalist.

The center features art galleries, an education center, an observational beehive and a new outdoor amphitheater. Its rustic 535 acres of woodlands offer 12 miles of hiking trails with magnificent views for autumn leaf-peepers and those who like to venture into nature during the welcoming October weather.

The center also will host a variety of special events this month.

On Oct. 3, the center will hold its 22^nd annual Wildlife Art Auction, an all-day event in the Ned Smith Gallery. Dow Campbell said it’s the largest auction of Ned Smith’s artwork in the United States.

A week later, on Oct. 10, the center will put on its annual Fall Family Fun Day. Activities will include live animal presentations, face painting, pumpkin bowling and more.

“This is something for the whole family,” Dow Campbell said. “It’s a traditional fall festival, but it’s also an educational and fun day. We always have a great turnout each year.”

This year’s festival theme is “animal tracks.” Visitors can learn how to identify the tracks of various creatures in the woods or make fall crafts with an animal-track theme. ZooAmerica representatives will be on hand with an array of birds, particularly raptors, and small mammals like “de-scented skunks,” Dow Campbell added.

A Ned Smith Center Express Train and a horse-drawn hayride will be available to transport visitors around the center’s expansive grounds in upper Dauphin County.

Later in the month, on Oct. 31, the center will host its annual Halloween Owls program, which features live owls from Penn State University’s Shaver’s Creek Environmental Learning Center. Owl experts will present facts and explore myths about the nocturnal creatures, while certified bird-banders will net and band wild migrant owls and discuss their efforts to learn more about these birds of prey.

Off to Wildwood

Throughout the year, Wildwood Park is a popular outdoors spot for Harrisburg-area residents.

During autumn, the 229-acre park truly comes into its glory, with hikers, runners and nature-lovers all flocking to its six miles of trails, 1½ miles of boardwalks, 90-acre lake and the Benjamin Olewine III Nature Center.

To add to the outdoors experience, this month workers are putting the finishing touches on a new, 200-foot section of trail in front of the nature center, said park Manager Chris Rebert.

“This makes it safer for our park users,” he said. “It delineates our trail users away from (the nature center’s) vehicular traffic. That’s something that’s been a real traffic concern.”

The project was made possible by $140,000 received from Friends of Wildwood, the Olewine Family, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Dauphin County Department of Community and Economic Development.

As a further safety measure, speed bumps for vehicular traffic are being installed on the road leading from the park’s main entrance on Industrial Road to the nature center. That project is expected to be completed by early October, Rebert said.

Also this month, restoration work is scheduled to begin on the Fox Run Bridge near the park’s spillway. Rebert said the bridge dates to the early 1900s, the same as much of the trail. That project is expected to be completed by winter.

Event-wise, Wildwood Park will host a free fall foliage walk on Oct. 18, the day the autumn leaves are expected to reach peak color. An environmental educator will lead the walk and explain why leaves change color as visitors soak in the annual visual display. Preregistration isn’t required.

Wildwood’s Magical Trail takes place a few days later, on Oct. 22 and 23. Held after the school day, children and adults will encounter the park’s costumed “talking animals” that include a white-tailed deer, a turtle, a frog and a great horned owl.

“This is one of our most popular programs,” Rebert said. “It’s pretty exciting for the 2- to 7-year-olds.”

The evening ends with a campfire, s’mores and apple cider. The cost is $8 per person and pre-registration is required.

“It’s not something that’s scary, it’s informative,” said Rebert. “The animals talk about their evening activities and what they do at night.”

On Oct. 27, the park will hold its first Full Moon Halloween Hike. Walkers should meet at the Olewine Pavilion near the nature center. The guided, 1.5-mile walk is considered easy for all ages and will follow the park’s north boardwalk. Pre-registration isn’t required.

“The full moon will be rising then, so you won’t really need a flashlight for the walk,” Rebert said. “You can hear fall insects make interesting droning sounds, too.”

The Ned Smith Center is located at 176 Water Company Rd., Millersburg. For a complete list of fall activities, visit www.nedsmithcenter.org.

Wildwood Park is located at 100 Wildwood Way, Harrisburg. For a complete list of fall activities, visit www.wildwoodlake.org.

Common Cause: Can the “Eliminate the School Property Tax Now” campaign unite right and left?

September 30, 2015 | by J. Alex Hartzler

Being a political town, Harrisburg, at any one time, has large numbers of groups clamoring to make their views known to our commonwealth leaders. From marches and rallies on the Capitol steps to a single person holding a handmade sign, there is no shortage of ways individuals and groups can promote their political message.

Typically, I admit, I pay little attention to these efforts, ubiquitous as they may be, since they are most often targeted at niche issues that directly impact small groups of people instead of the general public. Their campaigns and complaints are mostly received as noise in a Capitol filled with even more constant and loud political chatter.

One recent and ongoing campaign, however, has the potential to break through the clutter, at least in its possible impact on nearly every citizen. On giant billboards around the region, “Eliminate School Property Tax Now” signs have appeared next to major highways. The print below the sign refers to a website, www.ptcc.us, which appears to be financed by tea party and other politically conservative groups that have the support of various Republicans in the House and Senate.

Not to be outdone, Gov. Tom Wolf and a few Senate Democrats have recently proposed separate plans that would rebate or reduce school property taxes. The proposal from the governor would significantly reduce or eliminate most school taxes for homeowners in cities like Harrisburg through an expansion of the Homestead Program, but, so far, it has failed to achieve much traction in the legislature, even in his own party.

Details aside, it is noteworthy that leaders in both parties see the need to reduce or eliminate school property taxes. Nearly two-thirds of Pennsylvanians own their own home and would directly benefit from such a proposal. Renters would receive similar indirect benefit from the increased availability and affordability of quality rental apartments and homes.

As an advocate for urban economic development, I find it hard to imagine a more far-reaching and beneficial change to tax structure in our commonwealth than eliminating property taxes altogether and shifting to income and sales taxes to fund our schools, as many others states across the country have done.

There are two main reasons for urban advocates to support elimination of the school property tax: economic growth and social fairness. (There are several other derivative and ancillary reasons ranging from better economic stewardship and farmland preservation to overall increased opportunity and competitiveness for disadvantaged groups that may appeal to urban advocates on the left. For arguments from a conservative perspective, see the website referenced above.)

Economic Development. The current system of local school property taxes wildly distorts investment away from our cities and urban areas via high millage rates, with disastrous consequences. As I have discussed previously in this column, a city like Harrisburg, where the tax rate is 28 mills (just for schools) and 45 mills overall, is at a serious disadvantage in attracting new investment and residents with respect to its suburban neighbors who have tax rates at half or even one-quarter of these rates.

It is no surprise that, over the past half century, the population of Harrisburg has declined by nearly half, while the surrounding region has more than doubled in size and prosperity. This circumstance has been repeated in towns and cities across Pennsylvania as people have fled high-tax urban areas to lower-tax suburban ones. Once the trend began, it became self-reinforcing, as urban school boards had no choice but to raise rates even higher on the folks who remained, causing additional outflow. It is no wonder that dozens of urban areas have been declared distressed under Act 47.

In contrast, demand for urban living throughout the country is strong and rising due to both millennials and empty-nesters seeking walkability and convenience. However, the issue across Pennsylvania’s cities is the lack of quality supply to meet that demand, as the tax burden on real estate generally prohibits new construction or rehabilitation of deteriorated buildings without some type of tax abatement or government subsidy to make it economically feasible. This would all change if developers and homebuyers faced equal property tax rates regardless of which school district they choose to live in. Simply put, if school property taxes are eliminated, there is ample evidence that developers would build in and more people will choose to live in urban areas, helping them to grow and flourish.

Fairness. According to numerous studies and financial advisors, the single most important store of wealth for most Americans is their home. In suburban areas across Pennsylvania, this holds true for most homeowners who generally see the equity in their homes increase as they pay down their mortgage over time. Urban areas, on the other hand, have seen values stagnate or decline and equity fall as their property taxes have risen. As urban areas contain disproportionately more poor and minority residents, the disparate impact of high property taxes on poor and minority communities is easy to see.

Combine that reality with the fact of failing city schools, and poor and minority communities face the double unfairness of paying relatively more and getting relatively less for their money. Harrisburg schools, for example, have some of the highest per-pupil expenditures in the state (top 10 percent), yet produce some of the worst results (currently ranked 491 out of 496 school districts in performance). Without economic development to change this dynamic, the current system forms an invisible, yet all too real, iron gate on these communities, making them nearly impenetrable to long-term change of any type. In the context of the ongoing national debate surrounding fairness and unequal distribution of wealth, there would seem to be no more direct and efficient manner to address this issue in Pennsylvania than eliminating this fundamental unfairness for urban communities.

Teachers’ unions and their supporters (and I am one on many issues) often put forth counter-arguments about “stable funding streams” and the like, but they need to face the reality that our current system of school funding has failed many of the children that it was designed to help the most. At a minimum, the burden shifts to these guardians of the status quo to explain why they continue to favor a system that hurts our most vulnerable members of society and ensures they have little ability to change their circumstances through the kind of economic and social mobility that is afforded by community prosperity and quality education.

No doubt much work needs to be done to ensure that a replacement system of income and sales taxes is fair and equitable and ensures an overall funding level that is, at minimum, equal to our current school funding levels. However, those discussions and challenges can be worked out and are no excuse for preserving a funding system that is so clearly in need of radical change.

It is indeed interesting that this issue has arisen from both the left and the right in our current political culture that is today characterized more by gridlock and delay than compromise and results. It may well represent an opportunity for both sides to effectuate a substantial change to our overall economy and reposition Pennsylvania as a state poised for progress and competitive advantage while addressing a fundamental unfairness in our society.

I am hopeful that a moment of change is upon us.

J. Alex Hartzler is publisher of TheBurg.

The Cost of Recovery: As Harrisburg’s recovery plan turns 2, how close is the city to financial stability?

September 30, 2015 | by Paul Barker

What will it take for Harrisburg to exit Act 47, Pennsylvania’s program for cash-strapped municipalities?

Don’t ask the citizens of Farrell. Located in the Shenango Valley, along the Ohio border, the city entered the program in 1987 and hasn’t left. In 2013, the Farrell City Council approved an amended version of the consulting plan guiding its recovery, which said it was “in a position to move out of the Act 47 program over the next four to five years.” Residents had heard that before—in 2006, consultants had said the city was poised to exit within a few years, too. But this time was different. Within a year of the update, state lawmakers adopted a five-year deadline for all municipalities in the program. “We’re stuck now,” Michael Ceci, the Farrell city manager, said recently. “The most recent amendment is it.”

Farrell’s fortunes, like those of many other Pennsylvania towns and cities, rose and fell with the U.S. steel industry. In 1992, the Sharon Steel Corp., a major local employer, filed for bankruptcy. By 2010, the city’s population had fallen to just above 5,000, from a height of more than 15,000 in the 1920s. A key benefit of Act 47, in this context, has been the ability to levy an additional four-tenths of a percent of income tax on non-residents—primarily people coming from Ohio to work in the remaining factories. According to Ceci, the hike, which provides a quarter-million dollars of Farrell’s $3 million budget, has been the program’s only meaningful advantage. “I get no other benefit,” he said. Yet, under the new deadlines, the city must eliminate this hike by 2018. Future budgets will have to be balanced through some combination of cuts and higher taxes on people who live there.

Two years ago, a state court approved Harrisburg’s own blueprint for financial recovery, branded the Harrisburg Strong Plan. The plan cautiously promised four years of balanced budgets, but a few weeks shy of the anniversary, Mayor Eric Papenfuse, who took office in 2014, announced it wasn’t working. Speaking in an annual “State of the City” address downtown, he swaddled this claim in some impressive rhetoric, comparing the need to amend the plan with the need for a Bill of Rights to amend the Constitution at the country’s founding. But Harrisburg’s plan, like Farrell’s, was already no stranger to revision. The Strong Plan updated a 2012 plan, itself modeled on plans from 2011, which in turn had replaced an emergency plan from 2010, a few months before the city entered Act 47.

Every city has its own circumstances, but financial trouble ultimately comes from the same two quarters: growing expenses and sluggish or declining revenue. When Harrisburg first sent up its distress flare, the worst problems were on the expense side. Though the Strong Plan has its detractors, there’s no question it addressed many of these woes. Most famously, it paid off hundreds of millions owed on the city incinerator, but it also targeted other, smaller obligations. (Among these were ballooning overtime costs for city firefighters; in his speech, Papenfuse noted these had dropped from $2.8 million two years ago to below $900,000.) This year, like last year, the city plans to underspend its budget. Halfway through its second year under the plan, Harrisburg appears to have expenses under control.

At the same time, cutting expenses isn’t the only key to recovery. As Papenfuse also said, the city is “starving for capacity,” with a workforce that has shrunk from 667 a decade ago to 369 today. The problem now is on the revenue side. The Strong Plan provided for two primary sources of new money—a higher income tax on residents and proceeds from more expensive parking downtown. But for months, city officials have been warning that the money isn’t coming in as expected. The balanced budget now threatens to fall apart in 2016.

Is the Strong Plan working? The first part of the plan, captioned “Guiding Principles,” concluded with a “cautionary comment”: no matter how comprehensive the plan was, it couldn’t replace the “dedicated and diligent services by public officials and other civic leaders.” But cities like Farrell offer their own cautionary tale. No matter how dedicated the public officials, they can only tax so much and cut so far. Most recently, Farrell decided to jettison its library, handing its management over to an area non-profit. “This city has done absolutely everything it can in terms of cuts,” Ceci said. At the same time, he fears what will happen as the city shifts the tax burden from commuters to residents. Why would anyone move to town?

Nobody likes it when money is tight, but one benefit of being in recovery is that it can force citizens to think about what level of government they’re willing to pay for. Harrisburg’s leadership, in the form of the recovery plan and, more recently, in Papenfuse, has drawn conclusions about what services to provide. They include filling in more potholes, tearing down more blighted properties, and hiring more police and public works employees. At the same time, Papenfuse has stirred the pot by saying the plan doesn’t quite cover their costs. He has already aired an initial suggestion on how to make up the difference—an extra $2-per-week tax on people who work in Harrisburg, and a plan to get more businesses to switch trash accounts from private haulers to the city. But the true price of closing the gap, and who should pay it, are questions we should expect to revisit in the months to come.

HU at 10: President Eric Darr takes a glance back and looks ahead as Harrisburg University celebrates its first decade.

September 30, 2015 | by Lawrance Binda

Illustration by Ryan Spahr

Last month, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology marked its 10-year anniversary. The school began in September 2015 with 73 full-time equivalent students. This year, HU will have 2,200 undergrad and graduate students enrolled.

We used the occasion to interview Dr. Eric Darr, who has been with H.U. since its inception and has served as its president for the past three years. We asked him to look back at the school’s founding and ahead to its future.

TheBurg: How did you come to be involved with Harrisburg University?

Dr. Darr: About 2001 or 2002, the idea for university was floated to the state, and the state system passed. And Steve Reed, as we know, not to be denied, put together a group of consultants about what would be a new university—really around the academic side of this—and I was one of those five people who was approached.

“Eric can you help us out? You were an academic. You understand that part of it. You run a technology business. You helped found businesses. Starting a university is like starting any other business.”

For a lot of reasons, it made sense for me to help thing about it. And I looked at it, as a lot of people did—oh, this is an interesting kind of exercise. Then, a year or so in, it became apparent that the Department of Ed and others—Jeff Piccola—and some others at the time actually believed that this could happen. And so, in 2004, it became, to me, I guess, real, and I became the chief financial officer. I left the software company and started full-time here. I think there were four or five of us, and I became the chief financial officer. And I’ve been here ever since.

So, I helped design the underpinnings of the application to the Department of Education and what would be a new university, and we have a very different faculty model. We have a very different structure to our general education, and we have a manic focus on experiential opportunities for our students. And all that was from the very beginning laid out in the roadmap of what would be Harrisburg University, and I was fortunate enough to be part of the thinking in those early days.

So, that’s how I ended up here. I’ve been the chief financial officer. I’ve been the provost, been executive vice president, and now I’m in my third year as president.

Q: What would you say would be the greatest achievement during this period of the university?

Darr: The good news and the bad news is that it’s not easy to start a new university, at least in Pennsylvania, and particularly one in the model of not-for-profit, independent, comprehensive university. It’s not something you can wake up on a Tuesday and say, “I’m going to go do this.” And so actually getting that done through the legislature, through the accrediting body, was a significant accomplishment in and of itself.

I can still remember the feeling of—and, as you know, it is now 10 years in September, of the first day of having classes and feeling like, you know, you’ve put together a party, and you’re not quite sure who’s going to show up. Then, when they show up, are they going to get along or not? You know, you have a broad guest list, and you’re not quite sure. That’s kind of the sense we had: “Wow, we’re really having students, and we’re really conducting classes. This is like a real thing.” We’ve come a long way since that day. So, that’s a significant accomplishment.

I’d say another significant thing in the journey of Harrisburg University is the building itself. You know, good or bad, right or wrong, people criticized the construction of the building, the financing of the building. In some sense, at this point, it’s passed, and let’s just move on. But, at the time, we were fortunate to be able to raise the money to build this building.

I’ve thought about—what would the university be without this? Or if we had tried to just use rented space. And, if you know the history, we did, while this building was being constructed—space in the train station, space in Strawberry Square. If that were the path we had pursued for more years, could we have been successful? Maybe, at the time, this (building) was too big. Today, with our growth over the last two years, we’ve already outgrown this building. So, today, this is not enough of a building. But, as a startup business, two or three or four years in, it probably was too much of a building.

With an academic endeavor, you just can’t go rent more office space as you need more office space. That’s not the way it works for a university. So, I look at it, and I say: This was a significant accomplishment. And anybody you talk to—this is a fantastic building. It works well for the students. It works well for the curriculum that we want to deliver. It’s a unique physical structure. It works 95-percent of the way we designed it way back when to work. How many people can say that, 10 years in, a building they designed still meets all of their needs, other than it’s not big enough yet right now for us. So, that’s a significant accomplishment.

I think the hiring of faculty and recruiting of faculty, and the people who are here—to me, at the end of the day, that’s the thing that I’m most proud of. I look at the building and say, “I contributed to the skyline of Harrisburg.” But the people are really what makes the university and are why we’ve been successful. And, so, recruiting really smart people and keeping them here. Putting together a fantastic team and keeping them together—that’s significant.

Q. The financing of the university was unconventional, to say the least, and Dauphin County (which backed HU’s bonds) has had to pay some of your bond payments. How do you perceive the university’s finances, how will you be self-sustaining going forward? How is that issue evolving?

A. Well, we will be self-sustaining going forward. We’re now at a size where that’s not an issue. Historically, just to be clear, the bonds on this building are not at all like the bonds that have been called into question with regard to the incinerator or other things, meaning the city was not involved, and the taxpayers in the city itself were not at risk.

The county was a limited partner, meaning their exposure was limited per year. So, by and large, we’ve had to stand on our own. Yes, the county has helped, and the county has helped tremendously. They’ve been great partners, and I hope they’re great partners going forward—whether we need the funds to make bond payments or whether we would request monies for innovative programs or technology pathways that help county workers or in other ways. I look at the partnership and say, “Maybe it’s been of one form in the past three or four years, but maybe it takes a different form moving forward.” By all accounts, the university, our employees, our students, the money we spend, the real estate that our employees purchase—all of that helps Dauphin County. I would look to the county to remain a partner even as the university financially gets to a point where we’re on our own.

Q. Do you know when that might be?

Darr: Now. So, we have a bond payment due on Monday (Aug. 31). We’ll make that payment. This is the first year that principle payments are due on the bond, and we made that payment back in June. Right now, we’re making those payments on our own. We also made our payment in March, and I anticipate that going forward.

Q. What do you see as some of your biggest challenges over the next couple of years?

Darr: So, two years ago, we had some 500 or 550 degree-seeking students. Last year, we had around 1,400 degree-seeking students; this year, around 2,200. So, that’s what leads to the financial stability. But, to accommodate growth like that, you need the physical space as I alluded to—lab space, classroom space, office space for faculty, all of those things, which I can’t just go to Harristown next door and say, “I want to rent some empty space. It just doesn’t work.”

So, in the next year or two, we’ll finish off the floor and a half that’s unfinished in this building and, frankly, we’ll look to others for buildings that may be around us. So, for example, in September, with a partner, there will be a small new media business accelerator that opens up just down the alley here in a building across from where Messiah is located. Again, a small building, a start. But it’s a building that’s been sitting vacant for years that is now renovated, and it’ll be an interesting place, and there will be four or five new media startups that are affiliated with the university that will be in that space. I envision more of those kinds of partnership spaces, not just pure university academic space. We’ll need more housing. We have three student housing buildings now and, over the next five years, we’ll need more of that. So, the good news there is that, unfortunately, there are buildings and spaces that are not used to their maximum capacity sitting all around us. So, there is opportunity. And we would look to development partners to help in that kind of expansion. So, that’s one.

The other is, frankly, the hiring of faculty. We have to meet the needs of now nearly 2,000 additional students, and, if I look at next year, there’s no reason why we won’t get close to 3,000 students. So, from a faculty perspective—we’ve hired 12 new full-time faculty since March, and we have plans to hire 20 more full-time in the next year. On top of that, we’ve hired 35 part-time faculty since March with plans to hire somewhere between 50 and 70 in the next year. So, there’s a challenge of doing that because, again, considering the types of programs we have, you look for Ph.D.’s, highly successful people in cyber-security, data analytics and network architecture. I’m not just competing against other universities. I’m competing with industry for all of that talent, as well. So, we’ve had to look globally for the faculty that have come. And that kind of matches our growth in the international student area, as well. So, we’ve hired two Indian faculty, Pakistani, a Romanian, an Iraqi as part of all of the faculty. So, it’s kind of a mini-U.N. downstairs. But I look at that and say, “That’s great in terms of diversity. That’s great for the region. That’s great for Harrisburg University.” Our students benefit from having multiple perspectives and smart people that have grown up in different parts of the world.

So, to answer your question, space and faculty will be our two biggest challenges over the next two to three years, just keeping up with the growth.

Q. What do you credit this recent growth in your student population?

Darr: Of the last 10 years, we spent eight years building an undergraduate institution. That was geared to attract and retain, by and large, traditional-age undergraduates. In doing that, we attracted really talented, student-centered faculty, people who cared an awful lot about the success of students. So, the faculty had to be very student-centered in their approach. And, while some do research, this is not a research university, in terms of our focus.

So, a byproduct of that early work was really great student attention, high-quality education and an emerging strength in technology, somewhat driven by the employers in the region, like Highmark, Penn National Insurance, PSECU, Holy Spirit, etc. These are all very different businesses, but, in terms of their back end businesses, they’re all very sophisticated technological institutions. Highmark, particularly, is world-class in its technology sophistication in what it does. So, being driven over a period of years by the needs of those employers, we became, as an institution, really good at some really hard things from a technology perspective.

And, every year, you sit around and say, “How can we attract more students? What do we have that’s interesting? What do we have that we can market, to what groups?” So, after a period of years, you list off what do you have? So, we have affordable education, student-centered faculty, sophisticated technology capabilities. What don’t we have? We don’t have 100-year-old brand. We don’t have bands. We don’t have athletic teams or fields. We don’t have sororities or fraternities. We don’t have those sorts of things.

So, what kinds of students are interested in what we have and don’t care about what we don’t have? So, you start thinking and immediately graduate students come to mind because, by and large, graduate students don’t go to grad school for the bands and the intramurals and clubs. They had all that, right? They either wanted it and got it in their undergrad or they didn’t want it. But what they care about is an affordable way to improve their skills so they can get a better job, so they can climb the ladder. So, we started thinking—graduate students.

The brand issue—the fact that we’re only 10 years old, and we don’t really have a brand per se, led us to think about international students. As Americans, we’re somewhat brand-conscious, whether it’s universities or jeans or cars or shirts or whatever. International students are less so. So, a couple of years ago, we tried to recruit Chinese students, not very successfully. English is still an issue, by and large, with Chinese students. Some people have successfully put in English as second language programs, but it takes money to do that, and we didn’t have money at the time to do that. So, if you think outside of China—what’s the second biggest group that comes into the United States? It’s Indian students, and Indian students, at least in many parts of India, English is the language of instruction. And, technical sophistication—Hyderabad and Bangalore are probably two of the technology centers around the world, let alone in India. So, it fit very well with our strengths, and our weaknesses are mitigated because that’s not what, by and large, Indian graduate students care about.

So, two years in, you talk to the 1,500, 1,600, 1,700 graduate student we have, and ask them: What attracts you to Harrisburg University? And it’s the quality of education at an affordable price in an attractive location. It sounds pretty simple, right? But we had spent six, seven, eight years building that and aiming it particularly at an undergrad population. And, in the last two years, our growth has been driven because we then went out and took our strengths and aimed it at a population that was more attracted to what we had spent time building. We probably couldn’t have done this from the very beginning because we didn’t have it in place at the very beginning. So, the struggles of the early years allowed us to go reach and be attractive to the graduate students that we’ve now been successful in recruiting over the last two years.

We look at that as an amazing opportunity for the region because these are technically sophisticated students, many have families, many may already have a graduate degree from an international university. From a technology perspective, they’re as sophisticated and talented as you’re ever going to want to find. So, to the employers of this region that need technology workers, here are hundreds if not thousands of technology workers that will be available.

But this is a problem that we see. The firms in northern New Jersey near New York or in the DC area have already recognized the population of Harrisburg University in terms of these graduate students and are snapping them up. So, to the employers of this region: I say, “Wake up, here’s a great opportunity for you.” Part of that is that we just haven’t marketed it as aggressively as we perhaps should. But this is a tremendous opportunity for the region in terms of this population of graduate students.

Q. Do you find that a lot of these international students after they graduate stay in this country?

Darr: Absolutely. For the vast majority, that’s what they want to do. Something that I learned is that the Harrisburg region is the sixth-fastest growing Indian population in the United States. It’s driven by Indian entrepreneurs who settled in Central PA decades ago, have been successful, have become very successful. That attracted others. They’ve had good experiences. This is a great place to raise a family, and the momentum just keeps growing.

Q. Your model for expansion seems to be the urban school model, like a place like George Washington University.

Darr: That was one of the visions when the place was founded, to have a positive influence on the city of Harrisburg, and I think you’ve seen in during the last 10 years just in our little dusty corner of the world here: this building itself, the student housing buildings. All of those used to be abandoned buildings, more or less, and now they’re renovated and are fantastic buildings. The attraction of some number of vendors—the store that’s downstairs is a bigger version of a food store than probably has been seen in this part of Harrisburg in awhile. The art store that’s downstairs that’s aimed at students. That’s another interesting addition. The Subway that came in. These are not great cultural icons. Nonetheless, they represent economic activity and growth and vibrancy to this part of the world. Our view would be that that’s only going to expand as we get bigger. And it’s certainly part of our plan. And we have no illusions that we will do it alone. We have partners already. We’ll look to use other partners. Harristown, for decades, has been an active developer in this part of the region, and we’re connected physically and emotionally to them, and we look to work with them. We’re an urban school, we’re an urban campus, so absolutely.

We have an interesting new partnership with Pavone. Where they’re physically located down Market Street represents a future direction for us, I think. I’ve already talked to them about what we might do together in that part of the city.

Q. Harristown is now renovating old office space into apartments. Do you foresee any of your students living in those?

Darr: Absolutely. So, we have students living in Harristown spaces this year. As they expand and though I can’t predict better than anyone else the housing market here in Harrisburg and what’s good or bad, I will say that we’ll need housing as our undergraduate population grows. And even our graduate population—our plans moving forward is to put in place a doctoral program. Well, a doctoral program means you have graduate students—doctoral students—who are living and working here full time in the city. They will need something other than an undergrad circumstance. They’ll want their own apartments that can support families. You’ll see that in the future, as well. So, I applaud Harristown for what it’s doing: renovating, reusing buildings here in Harrisburg that have sat vacant for awhile. I think that’s great. They are bullish on what we’re doing, what Messiah is doing, what Temple might do. Again, I look at that and say that’s good for the university. I don’t look at that as competition. Our programs are very different. The kinds of students we serve are different. And much like George Washington and the universities that are in DC that are all kind of clustered together, in some sense, it’s good that they all play together. It’s good for the vibrancy, for the education, for the aura that is there. To the extent that can be built here in Harrisburg, that’s great.

Q. Is there something you’d like to say about your 10^th anniversary?

Darr: We have three events planned over the next eight months to celebrate the 10^th anniversary. You’ll see some marketing changes, banner changes. I think the university will want to be recognized a little bit more on how we stuck our heads down and just tried to work down and pull ourselves out of the financial challenges we had over the last couple of years. Now, heading into our 10^th anniversary with a few nickels to rub together, I think you’ll see some more come out of the university in terms of who we are and where we think we’re going—and celebrating the support we’ve gotten from people like the county commissioners and others who have stood by us and supported us through the years. We’ll thank them and then look to the future to look forward during our 10^th year. For us, it’s a great opportunity to celebrate the past but also a launching pad for the future. There’s nothing more exciting than bringing in faculty and professionals into the university, but also to continue to expand a growing city.

Even though we’re growing on the graduate side of the business, we haven’t forgotten the roots of the institution in regards to servicing of the undergraduates and particularly students who otherwise wouldn’t have success. So, this year, for the third year in a row, we held tuition constant in a world where everybody around us continues to increase their tuition. We talk to students every day about how they can’t afford an education and don’t believe that they can be successful. So, we’re trying everything in our power to make sure the education here is as affordable as possible and to extend to the students who need the help as much financial help as possible. So, again, we’re not or the first or the last university to do this. You make money on one set of students, then you help and subsidize another set of students. So, we still see that as a critical part of what we’re doing—providing students here in Harrisburg, York, Reading, Philadelphia with opportunities that they might not otherwise have in science and technology. So, we’re proud of our ability to hold tuition constant in the face of rising costs and healthcare that we have no control over. We’re fairly proud of that accomplishment.

Unfavorable Comments: City leaders, residents must stop trafficking in us vs. them.

September 30, 2015 | by Tara Leo Auchey

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of my time traveling all over the city talking and listening to people.

In my conversations, I hear a variety of things. I hear stories of life in Harrisburg. I hear about what the city used to be. I hear about what the city is and isn’t. I hear about what people think the city could be.

I’m enlightened, inspired, motivated and saddened by what I hear. I’m saddened because I know there are many people who have become cynical and doubtful of the potential of this capital city along the river. This particularly hits hard when I’m conversing with youth who have no pride or faith in this place.

The eternal optimist that I am, though, I continue to take in everything to reinforce my resolve that this city will be better.

However, there is one prominent theme that troubles me the most and plagues my strategies to collaborate with fellow residents to succeed in the goal of reconstructing Harrisburg as a model of urban renewal.

It’s the notion that “some parts” of the city get things “other parts” don’t get. It’s the accusation that “those people and neighborhoods” are the favored and “these people and neighborhoods” aren’t.

Yes, I’ve often written about the “us” and “them” dynamics that challenge our city, but this theme I’m referring to is much more insidious than that. It’s more nuanced and dangerous, I think.

First off, it’s more overt. It’s being said in community meetings, quoted in media and posted on public forums.

Secondly, it’s being stated by city leaders, not just the elected but by community activists, block captains and personalities of prominence.

While I do not refute that our distinct neighborhoods have distinct problems, the claims I keep primarily hearing can actually be proved to be false.

These proclamations include, “The administration gives Midtown whatever they want.”

“City Councilors only listen to the people who voted for them.”

“Bellevue Park and Shipoke get their potholes and storm drains fixed faster than other neighborhoods.”

“Allison Hill is always getting more enforcement and services than Uptown.”

In some cases, I can understand where there are issues of perception versus reality, but that’s where I’m severely troubled by the irresponsibility of the proclaimers for not checking reality.

Through inquiry, onsite visits, informal investigation and my own experiences, I know many of these claims aren’t true and can’t be true.

When I look into it—which is not that difficult to do in this small city—reality is not substantiating the statements nor are the statements sufficiently backed by evidence.

Instead, when I ask, “How do you know?” I typically get, “Oh, I know. I know how it is around here. I know how things are done.”

Yes, but where’s the proof?

I’m not necessarily seeing it. And, fortunately, I’m not alone. Once in awhile, when these claims are made in a crowd, someone else steps up to offer an alternative point-of-view or some information otherwise.

Yet, what worries me the most is that there isn’t always someone around willing to step up and question the accuracy or dispute the claims.

So, then the claims become the narratives that are believed, passed around, built upon and established.

They become “facts,” although, like I said above, “facts” without sufficient evidence.

Please understand that I’m not denying the existence of some very real social challenges we face in this city. Nor am I denying that some parts are more redeveloped or that there are more concentrated areas of disintegration.

But here are the simple truths.

Every single neighborhood in this city has disinvestment.

Every single neighborhood in this city has neglect and dumps.

Every single neighborhood in this city has poverty.

Every single neighborhood in this city has potholes, broken streetlights, clogged drains, faded crosswalks, overgrown lots, overflowing trashcans, bad neighbors, good neighbors, engaged residents and value.

I wince every time I hear someone say, “Well, you know that would never happen in Midtown,” or “All of Allison Hill is a burnt-out mess.”

The people, leaders especially, who are saying these things are being reckless in their claims.

They are perpetuating myths that reinforce the fragmentation that becomes the ultimate deteriorating factor of our urban fabric—the “us” and “them” mentality.
Instead of working together to fix this city as a whole, we’re continually pitting neighborhoods against each other. The one basic fact we should all remember is that this city is broken.

In total, it’s broken, and, in total, we can fix it.

Only, though, if we start rising above our perceived differences and share in the reality of Harrisburg’s current state together.

Tara Leo Auchey is the creator and editor of today’s the day, Harrisburg. www.todaysthedayhbg.com.

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