I took advantage of an opportunity Thursday to video tape the proceedings of the PA Dept. of Community and Economic Development’s (DCED) testimony at the state Senate’s Harrisburg debt hearing.
DCED staff signs off on, and approves, the bond issues in Pennsylvania, including of course the Lancaster Convention Center and the Harrisburg mess.
If you get a chance, watch the video of the DCED staff testimony that I’ve uploaded to Youtube. I think you’ll be very interested. The first two testifiers explain the Municipal Debt Act, and are somewhat boring.
The third staff member to testify, Bernadette Barratini, is the recently retired DCED staff lawyer whose job it was, for decades, to review the municipal bond applications. (She was undoubtedly the person who signed off the Lancaster CC, as well as the Harrisburg incinerator.
She explains that she basically just checked that the paperwork was there and rubber stamped each certification. She further explains the DCED staff is very small and that there are about 700 or 1000 such municipal bond applications submitted to DCED each year, that it was impossible for the staff to verify bond applications, and that very few, if any, bond applications over the years ever were rejected by her office.
Of great surprise was her statement that there is actually a little-known complaint mechanism for citizens to oppose a bond issue during the DCED process. Even the bond lawyers in attendance did not know of this complaint procedure.
Barratini’s testimony begins about 41 minutes into this video.
The DCED staff not only badly botched the Harrisburg bond mess, DCED is now in charge of Harrisburg’s receiver. In other words, the incompetent fox is now in charge of the chicken coop. This is much the same as the state Department of Public Welfare botching the Sandusky investigation, then being placed in charge of referrals and adoptions involving Sandusky and the Second Mile.
If true, I fail to see the wisdom of DCED existing at all let alone overseeing a receivership. This is a prime example of a do nothing agency. Let the free market oversee municipal bonds and take the brunt of any failures. At the very least it will take the taxpayers off the hook.
EDITOR: How does failure of state overview of municiple bonds “take the taxpayers off the hook”?