Shapiro chooses reform over criminal charges
The AG recommends changes to head off the kinds of problems that led to the Harrisburg trash scandal.
So now we know. In just a few minutes, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro put an end to one of Harrisburg’s great unanswered questions:
The architects of a financing scheme for the city’s former trash incinerator that plunged Harrisburg into debt and turned Pennsylvania’s capital city into a national watchword for financial mismanagement would not be facing any criminal charges.
Instead of charges, the Montgomery County Democrat offered seven recommended changes to state law intended to head off the kinds of problems that led to Harrisburg’s financial collapse and the lack of accountability that followed.
Among them is giving Shapiro’s office what’s known as “original jurisdiction” to pursue local public corruption cases.
Right now, county DAs must refer those cases to the Attorney General’s office for prosecution.
The final report is likely to detail problems with municipal financing and other local government issues exposed by the Harrisburg issues.
Shapiro’s press conference will likely be viewed as a mere whimper, rather than a bang, by those city residents who hoped to see the professionals who worked on the incinerator and related contracts clapped in leg irons.
And certainly they have reason to be angry: The $300 million in debt racked up as a result of incinerator retrofits under former Mayor Stephen R. Reed added to a tower of existing municipal debt from under which the city is still trying to extract itself.
City residents, and those who travel and work in the capital, have felt the pain of that obligation most noticeably in increased parking fees in downtown Harrisburg.
The announcement by Shapiro ended the criminal investigation and revealed new details about the incinerator financing. And while the criminal case is over, civil claims related to the incinerator are still very much alive and working their way through the courts.
Favorable decisions there could recover some of the losses incurred by both the city and Dauphin County, which guaranteed much of Harrisburg’s debt.
The bigger question is whether, now that the criminal case has apparently been settled, factions within the city that have spent years nursing grudges and traded recriminations over the debt, can finally put them aside.
Because if Harrisburg’s political class can boast of one virtue above all others, it can boast of an exceptionally long memory, granting it the ability to preserve grievances and to remember slights over long decades. And while stubbornness and toughness of spirit can be a virtue, it can also be an impediment, blocking progress and frightening good people out of public service, even as a permanent ruling class of leaders retains control.
The end of the Reed era, followed by the bumpy interregnum of Linda Thompson and the eventual election of Eric Papenfuse as mayor, were good steps toward changing those habits.
State lawmakers who represent the city can do their part by taking Shapiro’s recommendations to heart and by pursuing the changes he recommends in his grand jury report.
The record, admittedly, in such instances is poor.
Despite a grand jury report recommending that local police, rather than school administrators, investigate allegations of sexual abuse, the latter rather than the former, remains common practice, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported in 2015.
That cannot be allowed to repeat itself in Harrisburg’s case. Too much is at stake.
Instead of charges, the Montgomery County Democrat offered seven recommended changes to state law to head off the kinds of problems that led to Harrisburg’s financial collapse.