Harrisburg, Pennsylvania -- The State Capital -- Chapter 11 Bankruptcy -- Recovery Plan Unacceptable

Update

November 30, 2016: whatever happened to Harrisburg? The seven-term mayor has been indicted on 500 counts of corruption. 

What was the result of that case?

“He has pled not guilty and the case is ongoing.”

“But it’s not just him. It’s the people who advised him. It’s the people who drafted the documents. He didn’t do this alone. Now, he’s facing 500 charges of corruption. He has pled not guilty to all of them. A trial date has not been set, but this is going to trial. The people who helped him — none of them have been held accountable. He didn’t do this by himself. He didn’t draft those documents alone. He didn’t write this stuff up alone. He had lawyers, accountants — they were all in on this.”

“The Attorney General of Pennsylvania has said that they are also being investigated. There is a grand jury investigating right now. They are looking into this to see what charges they can bring against the professionals who helped him. Also, the Governor of Pennsylvania has hired a law firm from Washington DC to go after the firms and the professionals civilly to try and claw back some of the money that Harrisburg lost in these loans that shouldn’t have been issued.”

October 14, 2011: Pennsylvania, the state, sues Harrisburg, the city: Hey, you can't declare bankruptcy. Pay your bills.

Original Post
Due to the browser pecularities of Microsoft IE, it is too cumbersome to put in the links right now -- if I remember, I will do it later.

I follow the budgetary problems of US cities at the sidebar on the right, way down near the bottom, called "Doomsday -- US Cities" or something like that.

I've been following Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for quite some time.

This week, I see, they finally stuck the fork in the steak.

Pennsylvania's capital city voted to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday as it faced a state takeover, according to media reports.

The City Council voted 4-3 to seek bankruptcy protection for Harrisburg, which has a debt burden five times its general-fund budget "because of an overhaul and expansion of a trash-to-energy incinerator that doesn’t generate enough revenue," Bloomberg reported.

The bankruptcy means the city will lose state aid, but that is better than the proposed recovery plans, Councilwoman Susan Brown-Wilson said, according to Bloomberg.

Wow, there's a lot packed into that very, very short story:

• Losing state aid is preferable to "we are the government and we are here to help"
• Another renewable energy -- green jobs -- debacle -- wow -- I can't make this stuff up

I assume there is much more to this story -- like who made money on the incinerator. Certainly one city project doesn't put a city into bankruptcy. Something tells me this is just the tip of a story that includes a lot of ...

Here's the Wall Street Journal story -- a much longer story.

After months of contentious debate among city and state officials, Harrisburg, Pa., filed for municipal bankruptcy protection, days before the state Senate was scheduled to vote on taking over the struggling capital city's finances.

The city, which faces $300 million in debt over a failed trash incinerator project, ...

Robert Philbin, a spokesman for Mayor Linda Thompson, who had opposed such a filing, said the mayor thinks the move is unfortunate and that it will complicate matters and add to expenses for the city. Mr. Philbin said the mayor would have preferred the council come to her with an alternative plan, and pointed to a recent poll of registered Harrisburg voters showing only 13% supported a bankruptcy filing.

And some think the Williston City Council has challenges.