The City was one of 76 original applications presented to the Advisory Board. In all, the applicants requested $23 million drawing on a pool of $6-7 million. For five and a half months, the Dauphin County Gaming Advisory Board along with its well-paid consultant Mike Musser collected, reviewed, interviewed, and pondered who should get Gaming Grants. Per the PA Gaming Act, it’s this advisory board that is in charge of undertaking the process of recommending how the Commissioners should distribute the share of revenue the County receives from Hollywood Casino. The State sets the general parameters for allocating this pool of “restricted” gaming funds and the Advisory Board sets the criteria. Eligible projects have to fall into at least one of the following categories: Human Services, Infrastructure Improvements, Facilities, Emergency Services, Health, and Public Safety. 

While the Advisory Board carries out the process of consideration, ultimately, it’s the Commissioners who decide where the money goes. 

Next Wednesday, February 22nd, the 5-member Gaming Advisory Board will present its recommendations to the Commissioners. Yesterday, the 16th, the Board voted on the list it will give them.

Twenty-three projects made the list for a total of $6,904,711. The projects include various municipal public safety plans, infrastructure endeavors, an ongoing HACC project, Harrisburg River Rescue, and the American Red Cross. Aside from the 23 recommended grant approvals, another 18 projects are being recommended for “Optional Funding.” What this means is that the Advisory Board is recommending that Dauphin County Commissioners take some money from another pool of gaming money—the “unrestricted” fund (which can be spent utterly at the Commissioners’ discretion, no process necessarily necessary for allocation)—and give it to these 18 projects which include $30,000 to the Dauphin County General Authority for money to remove asbestos in the Dauphin Highlands Golf Course Clubhouse; $60,000 to the Capital Area Greenbelt; $100,000 to the Harristown Development Corporation; $125,000 to CREDC; $150,000 to the YMCA; $32,000 to the Jewish Federation; and $335,000 to the Harrisburg Bureau of Fire for Tower 4 and Engine 5. 

While the City of Harrisburg’s fire department is being recommended for consideration, the City of Harrisburg itself is not. In fact, the City of Harrisburg is last on the “Not Funded” list of recommendations. 

The fact that the City is last on the list is significant. The merits of each application are weighed on a point system as outlined by Dauphin County Gaming Advisory Board.  Of the 13 projects denied recommendation, Harrisburg is number 13. So even if the Commissioners consider bumping a project off of the “Not Funded” list onto the “Funded” list, it probably won’t be the City since it received such a low evaluation. Not only does the City’s position on the list let it know it has a long way to get bumped up to funding, it also let’s the City know that its rating is probably too low to even be considered next year should the City try again.

As the Mayor has repeatedly declared in accordance with her Act 47 Plan, the City’s intent was to apply every year until 2016 for $2 million annually.

Yesterday, after the barely 14-minute Gaming Advisory Board meeting adjourned, attorney Mark Stewart of Eckert Seamans, who is counsel to the Dauphin County Gaming Advisory Board, explained that the City of Harrisburg received such a low score and is not being recommended for funding because its request wasn’t really a project, but rather a request to fill a hole in the City’s operating budget. “The City’s application just didn’t really fit the definition as outlined in the Act. Gaming grants aren’t supposed to subsidize budgets,” Stewart stated.

Nothing is awarded, though, until the Dauphin County Commissioners vote on the recommendations the Advisory Board will put before them next week. Even if Harrisburg remains on the “Not Funded” list for these restricted gaming funds, perhaps the City’s Receiver David Unkovic will eventually succeed in negotiating with the Commissioners in order secure some money from the unrestricted pool for the ailing City, especially for the sake of public safety.

Other projects on the recommended “Not Funded” List include: Lykens Fire; the Dauphin County Fire Chiefs Association; Civil War Museum; Heinz Menaker Senior Center; and the Whitaker Center. 

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Written in collaboration with Roxbury News

Videos from the February 16, 2012 Dauphin County Gaming Advisory Board Meeting (vote on list of recommendations for awarding Local Share Municipal Gaming Grants): 

• Dauphin County Gaming Advisory Board  2/16/2012  (Part 1)
• Dauphin County Gaming Advisory Board  2/16/2012 (Part 2)

See also:

•  PA Race Horse Development and Gaming Act 2004
• Dauphin County Local Share Gaming Grant Program Criteria

Drawing by Ammon Perry: Doodletillomega: Illustrations and Drawings by Ammon Perry 

It’s a balancing act. 

Every day for those of us involved with the City of Harrisburg whether a citizen, an elected or appointed official, a business owner, a non-resident, or the Receiver, it’s a challenge of weighing the good and the bad, the pros and the cons.

We’re all struggling with it. It’s the plight of Harrisburg right now. Hopefulness lives here with frustration in Pennsylvania’s capital city along the river.

Really, though, the greatest strive for steadiness lies within our expectations. What do we expect for the City of Harrisburg? What do we expect from the City of Harrisburg?

Much of those expectations are imposed upon the City’s elected leaders. Citizens expect them to handle Harrisburg’s business. Outside elected leaders expect them to behave professionally. Businesses expect them to provide a climate for success. Non-residents expect them to establish a dependable place to work or visit. The Receiver expects dedication, reliability, and adherence from them.

Somewhere in between the extremes of those expectations, in the middle of neglect and idealism, is the means to the best course of action for the City. It’s there, like a virtue. But in order to find it, each of us has to locate the temperance of our expectations. The place where pragmatism and humility lies.

This is tricky one, especially for the City’s prime leader—the mayor, Linda Thompson. She seemingly has trouble with reposing in virtue, in finding that sweet spot of appropriate behavior at the right time. Perhaps it’s a restlessness in her driven by a frantic need to feel valuable. Or maybe it’s a delusion of grandeur. Whatever the reason is, it’s plain she does not serve the masses and all of their expectations well.

It’s a flaw in our democracy, electing inadequate leaders. In the case of the City of Harrisburg, this was done by a slight margin. Thompson assailed the electorate with promises, assurances, and bombast. Her tactics succeeded, though, and now here we are. In Receivership. 

In his Recovery Plan, which he filed with Commonwealth Court last week, Receiver David Unkovic showed subtle signs that he understands the City’s plight of a lack of adequate leadership. The indications are there despite the Mayor denying them as was clear in her superficial response to the plan. However, reading through the plan’s introduction, Unkovic displays an awareness that Harrisburg is without strong leadership be it from the Mayor’s Office or even from City Council Chambers for that matter. At the same time, he’s represented that he will honor the system of elected officials. For now. He’s going to let us have our governmental processes and procedures. 

One of those processes and procedures is the hiring of a Chief Operations Officer (COO) for the City. This is a critical part of the Receiver’s plan for Harrisburg’s longterm recovery. Yet, as Unkovic articulated last week at the City Council Budget & Finance Committee meeting, he will permit the Mayor to interview and recommend the COO for hire, and if the candidate passes Unkovic muster, then the entrant will head to City Council for appointment. 

The COO is an integral position and one which is much more than the Chief of Staff/Business Administrator Harrisburg has been without since the last one walked out a year and a half ago with no other found in the meanwhile. This is the one. It’s the one who could accomplish the mean in the middle, the point of virtue. It’s the one who could right many of the expectations pointed at the City. Unkovic refers to the COO as the person who will “take the lead role with recovery plan implementation.” This person will not only answer to the Mayor but also to the Receiver himself. Managing day to day operations, the person hired as COO will most likely out term both the current Mayor and the Receiver. 

That is, if the COO hired can be retained within the Thompson Administration. As stated above the last one Harrisburg had walked out in July of 2010, three months after his predecessor resigned, which was only months into Mayor Thompson’s first term. It’s no secret that the Mayor has trouble keeping her management staff. 

One manager in particular, though, has weathered the stay, and that’s Director of Public Works Ernie Hoch. Regularly hailed by City citizens, businesses, and leaders as a shining diamond in the rough of Harrisburg’s government, he is someone who has demonstrated keen skill in superintendence. He regularly exemplifies a perseverance to public service under extraordinary conditions from calamities to complaints. Plus, he evidently can handle the Mayor. Hiring him was one of the best things Linda Thompson ever did for the City of Harrisburg.

Ernie Hoch has applied for the COO position. After one and a half years of residing here, come from afar, he wants to stay to take on more. More responsibility, more challenges, and more grief, which will no doubt be a part of the duties.

There’s a catch, though. The Mayor doesn’t seem to want him. This could be conjecture, but as City Hall is no longer on lockdown (remember when there was Mayoral order of that?), reports are coming out that Hoch has applied but hasn’t been interviewed, that he won’t be interviewed. Apparently, the Mayor sees him as a risk to her reign. Is it possible that she won’t consider his application because he’s too good, too competent, too able?

Whispers out of City Hall is that Hoch is the one for the job. He has the resumé, the respect of the department heads and the workers, and the trust of the people. He has proven himself. Anyone else as COO would have to become acquainted with the ways of the City which includes the ways of the Mayor. That’s a learning curve that Harrisburg cannot necessarily afford, many will agree. Time cannot be wasted with quittings and backlash. There’s been enough of that.

If City Council is aware of Hoch’s application and situation, they have not stated so in the public forum as would be expected they should do about this significant issue. In regard to the position of COO, Councilmembers have been publicly vocal about one thing and one thing only—that the City does not need both a COO and a Director of Communications. In fact, they were quite vocal about this last week and gave the Receiver an earful about it. While they agree with the import of a COO, they do not agree with keeping the spokesman. In return, Unkovic stated the Director of Communications was necessary because the City must have a steady voice at this tumultuous junction, basically implying the Mayor looks bad without someone to write her messages for her. When the Mayor looks bad, too often the City of Harrisburg looks bad as has been the history.

Harrisburg will also look bad if the Mayor chews and spits out another crucial employee that we need much more than she needs, and by we, that is all the people and their expectations.

Striking the balance. In one dish of the scale, a city demised–assets gone, taxes high, crime out of control, services cut, morale diminished. If the people of the taken-over City of Harrisburg are to be taxed more and stripped of assets, then we must be given tools to offset it. Truly, the only hope Harrisburg has of any comeback the Receiver envisions is by assembling a domain of competency, proficiency, and regeneration, which people from the outside and in want to be a part of. That won’t happen if the balance isn’t struck. No point in extravagant pantomimes of governmental process and procedure when it threatens virtue. Let’s expect the Receiver realizes this as he calibrate’s recovery for the City.

See the Receiver’s Plan here.

Drawing by Ammon Perry: Doodletillomega: Illustrations and Drawings by Ammon Perry