As I’ve been writing, this ridiculously complicated Harrisburg Parking Deal is a state bailout.
A big part of the present problem in Harrisburg was created when Dauphin County commissioners got into the re-financing craze with Mayor Reed in the early 2000s, in exchange for $2 million in walk-around money. The bond insurer AGM backed these bad loans.
Now the Dauphin County commissioners and the bond insurers look to be writing their own bailout.
They have written for themselves essentially the same sort of complicated bond deal that created this mess. The public is also intentionally left out of the loop, and is not asked to understand or participate. As such, it will probably fail. Why should the public care?
This is a state bailout — dishonest in intention and execution — made to not look like a state bailout.
The same applies to the hidden state subsidies proffered to sell the long trouble plagued Harrisburg incinerator and adjoining ‘mountains’ containing toxic ash to the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority at many times its market value. In that case there has been no third party Financial Feasibility Study. No third party Environmental Impact Study. Just ‘trust us.’
How many debacles have followed such reassurances? (To start, let’s count Iraq and the Convention Center.)
Here’s what one of the Patriot-News’ readers commented:
“Somehow it appears we will be borrowing from Peter (the parking garages) to pay Paul (AGM). I would like to know if this ‘deal’ really is in the best interests of the TAXPAYERS of Harrisburg. Where does it end??”
Hopefully we’ll be hearing this over and over, as more in the public come to understand what’s going on.
