By The River

I've already voted absentee for Nevin Mindlin for mayor of Harrisburg, because I'm going away on a research trip for my next book and won't be in town on Election Day. But before I hit the road, I want to say a few words about why it is important that Linda Thompson not become the next mayor of Harrisburg. Whether you are black, white, Asian or Hispanic, you should want a mayor who is smart, honest, transparent, and capable, and who will not embarrass us. Thompson may be smart, but she has none of those other qualities. And she seems almost predestined to embarrass the city again, and again, and again, on the order of Mayor (nowo Councilman) Marion Barry in Washington, D.C., but probably in different ways.

Finances

Thompson asks us to put her in charge of the $122 million Harrisburg city budget, but has not provided any evidence that she is a good steward of her own or other people's money. She has refused to answer further questions about the finances or accomplishments of her Loveship non-profit, deeming them not of interest to her base. The one success story she touted on Loveship's website for several years turned out to be false. The house that was supposedly going to be rehabilitated for a low-income family was shown by Channel 21 to still be a boarded up hulk. There are serious questions of how she can afford to live in a luxury highrise apartment or drive a Mercedes on her $20,000 annual salary for being a member of City Council plus the $10,000 annual rent paid her by Loveship. She has attributed some of this to the generosity of her brother, Steven Crawford, who won a big legal settlement for being wrongly convicted of murder. Finally, again thanks to Channel 21, we now know that Discover Financial Services sued her at the beginning of this year for non-payment on a credit card account.

Behavior

Stories about Thompson's temperament, especially her behavior toward people who anger her, are legion. Those in the know will recognize what I mean when I say "West Shore car dealership" and "Harrisburg tobacco store." She filed a lawsuit against a Bucks County gas station after she spilled gasoline on herself and supposedly suffered permanent psychological damage. Thompson had high negatives outside her base of black uptown voters and a few anti-Reed whites when she began her campaign because of her rants as City Council president during council meetings broadcast on Channel 20, on occasion telling people she didn't like to "sit down and shut up." Just recently, like a petulant child, she barred reporters who wrote stories she didn't like from a press conference. Her "angry black woman" mode, which seems to be 'on' most of the time, is one big reason she has scared the hell out of many white voters.

Religion

Thompson is a black fundamentalist who, in her own words, sees herself as the prophet Nehemiah, sent to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, i.e., Harrisburg. She has drawn the support of 25 black clergy in the city, some of whom have endorsed her on their websites or, in the case of Rev. Martin Odom, from the pulpit ("Please welcome the next mayor of Harrisburg"), raising questions about their compliance with IRS rules for non-profits.

Cluelessness

Thompson professes to see no conflict in having James Ellison, the chairman of the Harrisburg Authority, which owns the incinerator mess, as the chairman of her campaign for mayor. When she appeared on WITF "Smart Talk" on Friday, she dodged questions about whether Ellison would remain as chairman if she became mayor. A big part of honesty is obeying the rules, written and unwritten, even when it's inconvenient or no one is looking. She has talked repeatedly about businesses that get tax breaks being required to "give back to the community," which could be taken as yet another touchy-feely maxim--or a planned shakedown. Legal? Perhaps. Smart and ethical? Nope.

Race and Economics

It is clear that Thompson sees blacks as her primary constituents, possibly as her only constituents. She pays only the barest of lip service to reaching out to voters of other races. She has promised to divert money spent on downtown Harrisburg to the poor areas of the city, without stating how that money would actually improve the lot of residents there. Economic development is unlikely to occur in any substantive way in Allison Hill or uptown unless they are gentrified, and maybe not even then. Just recently, the N.F. String company, which was located for years at 1380 Howard St. in Allison Hill and was a benevolent employer of many neighborhood residents, announced it was leaving the city because of active opposition in the neighborhood to its expansion plans. Does Thompson plan to divert taxpayer money to non-profit organizations like Loveship to run Kumbaya programs that have little accountability and accomplish less? We have heard nothing from Thompson except glittering generalities.

Real Estate Values

I have heard anecdotal reports that real estate agents are already downgrading the value of city homes in Shipoke and other good neighborhoods, requiring sellers to put up lower asking prices because of the possibility Thompson will become mayor. If true, and one supposes the bad economy is also a factor, that is indeed unfortunate. Some longtime residents vow to leave the city if Thompson wins on Tuesday. Many middle class people of all races have substantial personal investments in Harrisburg through their homes or businesses. They have worked hard to build the city, and don't deserve to have their hard work flushed down the toilet.

Party Politics

This election has almost nothing to do with traditional Democratic-Republican politics. It is more accurate to say that Linda Thompson is the candidate of the Angry African-American Party, and her opponent Nevin Mindlin is the candidate of the Urban Success and Optimism Party. That's why the big Democratic registration edge in Harrisburg is largely meaningless in this election, and why the big-name endorsements from Gov. Rendell and Sen. Specter (but interestingly, not from Sen. Casey) don't count for much.

Thompson won the Democratic primary because she mobilized her angry black base, because Republicans and independents could not vote for Mayor Stephen Reed, and because many Reed Democrats stayed home or didn't bother to get absentee ballots because they thought he would easily be re-elected. What they didn't take into account was that a pre-election poll that seemed to show Reed winning might be terribly wrong, and that Reed had been badly damaged by the incinerator and Museum of the American West scandals.

Because there has been so much publicity about this election, and because Thompson's shortcomings are now widely known, the number of voters who reflexively vote for her simply because she is the Democratic candidate is likely to be far lower than it was in other elections. Reed is no longer a factor in this election, in spite of the efforts of two Bishop McDevitt students to encourage voters to write-in Reed for mayor, arguing, like Ralph Nader did in Florida in 2000, that the two major party candidates are both equally bad. And you know what that got us back then--George W. Bush. Anyone who writes in Reed is in effect voting for Linda Thompson and should not harbor any illusions to the contrary.

I like Nevin Mindlin, even though I am a nearly lifelong yellow-dog Democrat. He is smart, honest, and transparent, has no baggage that anyone has found or is likely to find, and promises a thoughtful, well-reasoned effort to resolve the city's problems. I would feel better about his chances if he had the money to buy TV ads to highlight Thompson's shortcomings, but I think he's going to pull this off. I think the momentum is with him.

Posted by David at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

When 25 black clergy and one white guy endorsed Linda Thompson the other day, they took pains to say they were endorsing her as "individuals" and not on behalf of their churches, a polite fiction normally followed by a cough.

But one of them just couldn't help himself. Check out this excellent radio report from WITF's Scott Gilbert today on the Harrisburg mayoral race, and hear candidate Linda Thompson endorsed from the pulpit by the Rev. Martin Odom, pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Odom told his congregation to welcome "the next mayor of Harrisburg" and LT came trotting up and took the pulpit to rail against her critics in the press and blogosphere.

IRS rules prohibit clergy from endorsing candidates to their congregations. If they do, they risk their church's tax-exempt status, although history has shown that most clergy can get away with it at least once without penalty. Gilbert asked Thompson if Odom's words were an illegal endorsement. She said no, he was just "prophesizing." Yes, of course. To a congregation that hangs on his every word.

Posted by David at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The embarrassment of investigative reporting riches that is Linda Thompson goes on and on.

Thompson told Sharon Smith of the Patriot-News yesterday that she couldn't see the Loveship IRS tax return for 2008 because "it wasn't done yet." I don't know if that's the truth or if Thompson just didn't want to comply with the request of a reporter she derisively called "Miss Sharon," but either way she could be in violation of federal tax law.

Non-profit organizations like Loveship are required to file their income and expense return, known as a Form 990, by May 15 if they are on a calendar fiscal year, as most are. If not, they risk losing their non-profit status and ability to attract donors. Thompson filed her 2005, 2006, and 2007 returns in April or May of the following years. Non-profits may request an automatic three-month extension by filing Form 8868, and may request a second three-month extension, which is not automatic. If Loveship received two extensions, the 2008 return would be due Nov. 15, well after the election.

If Thompson didn't file for an extension, Loveship is liable for up to $20 a day in penalties from the IRS. By now, that would amount to a little over $3,000.

Smith was within her legal rights to ask to see the 2008 return. In the upper right hand corner of the 990 form it states, "Open For Public Inspection." The IRS requires non-profits to grant public access to their three most recent 990s. No reason need be given, but here is one: if Thompson is going to be given charge of the $118 million city budget, we need to be confident that she is honest and plays by the rules. So far, I'm not seeing that.

It's all well and good to believe you are on a mission from God to rebuild Jerusalem, i.e., Harrisburg, as Thompson has stated, but the rest of us want to be confident that the walls won't come tumbling down if she takes over City Hall.

Posted by David at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With city mayoral candidate Linda D. Thompson announcing, with more than a little self-righteous arrogance, that she will no longer answer questions about the finances or "success stories" of her Loveship non-profit, a certain realization has set in.

She is our own Sarah Palin.

Think about it. Both came out of nowhere for a shot at the big time. Both saw their campaigns sputter after the press, and especially "pathetic bloggers", began picking apart at their records. For Thompson, the defining issue was Loveship, and whether it did much of anything except pay her rent money. For Palin, it was whether she, as governor of Alaska, tried to get her brother-in-law fired from the Alaska State Police for allegedly being bad to her sister. And general stupidity. I won't even get into the family issues that both women would find quite familiar.

Thompson is a religious fanatic, seeing herself as the prophet Nehemiah sent to rebuild Jerusalem. Palin is a religious fanatic, attending a fundamentalist church that warned her to beware of witches that would try to stop her from becoming vice president. Thompson served on Harrisburg City Council. Palin served on Wasilla City Council in Alaska. Both had their really goofball moments, Palin when she said words that became, "I can see Russia from my house," Thompson for her litigious fear of gasoline.

And both eventually refused to answer questions about the baggage from their past and present, insisting they only wanted to talk about the "real issues."

Palin lost the big election for John McCain as voters caught on that that there was nobody really home to run things if the Big Guy abruptly exited the picture. Thompson? We'll see on Nov. 3.

I hadn't realized until I wrote this that both Thompson and Palin used the phrase "pathetic bloggers" to deride the journalists parsing their records. Hmmm. Do you supposed Thompson admires Palin? Is that the real reason Charlie Gerow, the rightwing political consultant who helped smear John Kerry's war record in 2004, embraced Thompson? Is Thompson the ultimate stealth candidate? Intending to become a Republican when the time is right? Maybe that's why the Dauphin County Republicans have offered, at best, tepid support and almost zero dollars for Nevin Mindlin, the actual Republican candidate. Are they slavering at the thought of a black Republican woman running Harrisburg, the state capital?

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Posted by David at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I watched the video of a group of 25 black and one white clergy endorsing the black candidate, Linda Thompson, I couldn't help but recall something I learned in 35 years as a newspaper reporter: clergy tend to be among the least reliable sources of information out there.

Not all of them, of course. But many. They often are not very worldly, and tend to believe that anyone who professes to believe in God is credible, no matter the evidence to the contrary. They also are on the gullible side: in the 1980s and 1990s, Proctor & Gamble went nearly insane trying to stop a completely false rumor that it's famous moon-and-stars symbol was of Satanic origin, and that it gave a portion of its profits to the Church of Satan. Their chairman had supposedly confessed as much on the Phil Donahue Show, despite never having appeared on it. The false rumors spread through church bulletins in those pre-Internet days. Clergy would be handed a printed accusation against P&G from "good Mrs. Smith" and would insert it in the bulletin, no questions asked.

I thought of this when I viewed the video on Roxbury News of Apostle Brenda Alton, the Steelton resident who pastors Kingdom Embassy Church in Harrisburg, comparing Linda Thompson to Kanye West as siblings in black victimhood. West, as you may recall, was widely condemned after he, during the MTV Music Awards, interrupted an award to the really white singer Taylor Swift, grabbing the microphone to complain that Beyonce, a black singer, should have received the award instead.

Bizarre? Yes, but stay with me. Alton then seemed to compare the criticism of Thompson's finances, job history, and general untruthfulness over the past week to the nationwide criticism of West's boorish manners, suggesting that the criticism of West was intended to divert attention from a joking "prayer to Satan" that white comedian Jack Black offered later in the MTV Awards show as a spoof on the weirdness of metal rock. The criticism of Thompson, she suggested, was intended to distract "the people" from the real issues facing Harrisburg. Whatever.

Apostle Alton then went on to say that Thompson was the "ambassador of the Kingdom of God as well as the people of God." That fits in with what Thompson herself said on her website, since removed, but archived here, comparing herself to the prophet Nehemiah sent by God to rebuild Jerusalem. Hmmmm.

Thompson, in her own remarks today, said the members of the black churches served by these clergy are "my constituents," and there didn't seem to be too much room for whites, Asians or Hispanics in that group. She referred several times to "my dedicated service on City Council" and asserted that the members of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber to whom she spoke Tuesday "could care less" about her Loveship non-profit, which has been at the center of the past week's criticism. "My record on council is impeccable," Thompson said. And referring to Mindlin, she said: "What right do you have to judge me?"

She denied that the news conference today was scheduled to distract attention from all the criticism. "I don't need a press conference with ministers to validate my service to the city and to discredit the naysayers," Thompson said.

Thompson attributed her bald assertion at the Harrisburg Regional Chamber breakfast that she had been endorsed by the Patriot-News--she wasn't--to mistaken information provided seconds before by supporters. Whatever.

Posted by David at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We continue to learn more about the past lives of Linda Thompson, candidate for mayor of Harrisburg. Here is what I found out yesterday.

When I was looking at the Personal Statements of Income that Thompson filed with the City of Harrisburg for her $20,000 a year city council job, I noticed that she had filed a supplemental form in 2007 reporting income amending her 2003 PSI to include income from the Harrisburg School District for 2002. What was the income for? She didn't say.

I subsequently heard that she had done "consulting" work for the school district, so I filed a Right To Know request and got the results yesterday.

According to the vendor payment history the district provided, Linda Thompson Consulting was paid more than $56,000 by the Harrisburg School District, either directly or indirectly, between Nov. 21, 1997, and May 10, 2002, although there is only one $200 payment to Thompson's Loveship non-profit organization after June 27, 2001. More on that $200 in a minute.

Harrisburg School District was taken over by the state in 2000, which gave it over to a Board of Control appointed by Mayor Stephen Reed. Dr. Gerald Kohn was hired in 2001. The rumor I heard--one of many rumors circulating around Thompson--is that her antipathy to Kohn stems from his supposed decision not to renew her consulting contract. Mark Holman, who is the district's Right to Know officer, said he could "not confirm" why her contract was not renewed.

What sort of consulting services did Thompson provide? I'm told that some of her work was done for Cornell Corp., which operated the Cornell Abraxas Academy for troubled youths for the district. But there are also notations on the vendor payment history that suggest Thompson was hired to provide services to district faculty, such as a $2,090 bill for Title I Professional Development dated June 29, 2000. She billed the district $3,000 and $3,975 in 2001 for two Read to Succeed four-day professional development seminars.

The final, mysterious entry from May 10, 2002, is a $200 payment to Loveship for "(2) Tickets - Inauguration." Whose inauguration? The only one held that year was Mayor Reed's. But why was this a payment responsibility of the school district and its taxpayers?

Mysteries upon mysteries. Linda Thompson unravels before our eyes. The question is whether any of this makes any difference at all to her hardcore base, and if it will drive enough anti-Thompson Democrats to the polls next Tuesday.

Posted by David at 04:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the major part of a news release posted by the Thompson campaign on the PennLive Harrisburg Forum at 7:20 a.m., again falsely claiming she has been endorsed by the Patriot-News:

"Today the opinion page of the PN has an article in which the editorial Board of the paper endorsed Linda Thompson for Mayor. The Board shared how they had processed the decision and although thinking both candidates were imperfect, they decided that Linda Thompson has the best match of skills and experience to move Harrisburg forward at this time.

"Linda Thompson has never claimed to be a perfect servant. What the PN editorial Board ultimately concluded however was that she has been a committed and competent public servant. Linda Thompson thanks the PN for their endorsement for Mayor. The time has come for those of us who seriously love this city and can recognize the important issues we are facing to put aside differences of style and unite with Linda Thompson as the person with the best knowledge and experience of city government to meet these challenges.

"You do not turn over your brand new car to your child who has a learner's permit. Not because you do not love that child, but because they haven't driven cars enough to be able to handle everything they will experience on the road. Don't be unfair to Mr. Mindlin, we all know that he does not yet have the requisite experience in city government to be given the wheel of the city of Harrisburg. Allow him to continue to grow as a leader in the city. Join with the PN, Gov. Rendell, Sen. Arlen Specter, and other like minded individuals in putting the leadership of Harrisburg in the capable and experienced hands of Linda Thompson."

Capable. Yessssss. That's the word.

Waiting for the retraction from the Thompson campaign. But not holding my breath.

Posted by David at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Linda Thompson told a whopper this morning at the Harrisburg Regional Chamber breakfast, asserting that she had been endorsed by the Patriot-News and was "elated" to receive their endorsement. Trouble is, the newspaper didn't endorse her. In an editorial this morning, the Patriot-News said it was going to endorse Thompson over her opponent, Nevin Mindlin, for mayor of Harrisburg, but changed its mind after the miasma of questions about her finances, employment history, and other issues arose in the past week.

I wasn't at the Chamber breakfast, but two people who were there independently confirmed the incident. One said her campaign manager, James Ellison, had the paper in front of him, got up, went up to Thompson while Mindlin was making his opening statement. He whispered in her ear and handed her a note. When it was her turn to speak, she said, "I am elated to receive the endorsement of the Patriot-News." She also said she was surprised to receive the endorsement given the stories the paper has been writing about her. Perhaps that should have been her first clue.

The editorial basically said Thompson blew it, praised Mindlin for his thoughtfulness and honesty, and then punted, saying it was "unfair to offer an endorsement right before voters go to the polls." Excuse me? Endorsements a week before the election are par for the course. The editorial expressed anxiety about what more might surface about Thompson in the days before the election.

So Linda has some 'splainin' to do. Only the most cursory of readings of the editorial, and I'm talking about an extremely quick skim, would have allowed Ellison and Thompson to have missed this: "At one level, Thompson has the greater potential for mayor. Unfortunately, she also offers the much bigger risk." Or, "At her worst, she sometimes offers solutions with no clear plan to execute them...As we have seen increasingly during these last few days, she can lash out angrily at those who disagree with her..."

Yeah, that's an endorsement alright.

Posted by David at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I came out of the Film Forum on Houston Street in New York tonight after seeing "The Yes Men Fix the World," and saw that rain was pelting the city. It was raining so hard that I started imagining the plot of a script I would write, "The Day After Tomorrow, Part 2: The Deluge," in which it begins raining and never stops. I and a few other plucky survivors, including the 93-year-old Ernest Borgnine (Shelley Winters, alas, is gone) huddle on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, the only part of the city still above water. It was that kind of rainstorm.

Fortunately I had an umbrella and rain jacket, so about half of me stayed dry on the walk to the subway station at Prince & Broadway. My feet and my jeans up to my knees were soaked. Rivers of rainwater rushed down the streets and into storm sewers, and when you stepped off a curb you stepped into a couple of inches of water. The neon lights of SoHo reflected brightly off the wet pavement, and people inside the Apple Store looked at the shiny new laptops as if nothing was amiss. I saw a woman without an umbrella trying to hail a cab. She looked forlorn.

The subway station was a refuge, warm but not entirely dry. Dozens of wet umbrellas dripped onto the floor, and at the end of the platform water poured down from an opening to the street. People noticeably relaxed when they came inside, as if they were Londoners reaching the safety of the Underground during the Blitz. A train came and it wasn't as crowded as I feared. I rode up to 28th Street, dreading having to go outside again. The rain hit me when I was halfway up the steps, and I opened my umbrella and began walking toward the apartment.

I was hungry and decided to stop at Bar Breton on 5th Avenue. I hesitated at the door, wondering if I looked too much the drowned rat to go inside. But they welcomed me, and I sat down for a smoked salmon galette, thinking of Hemingway in Paris and "A Moveable Feast," and washed it down with a Stegmaier beer, thinking of Pennsylvania and home.

When I finished, it was still raining, but not as hard. Reaching the revolving doors of Skyhouse, I shook my umbrella and walked inside. The elevator door opened and I stared at my bedraggled self in the mirror. At the 27th floor, I exited and opened the door to the apartment, stripped off my wet clothes, put them in the washer, and began to write.

Posted by David at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Scooped! The Harrisburg Forward blog beat me to the punch with its examination of mayoral candidate Linda Thompson's 501(c)3 non-profit community aid organization, Loveship, Inc., located at 2308 N. Fifth Street in Harrisburg. The HQ is in the heart of one of Harrisburg's worst neighborhoods, although Thompson herself lives well above the street violence she rightly rails against, on the sixth floor of the Towne House Apartments, a nice highrise at 6th & Boas streets near the Capitol Complex.

I've linked to Harrisburg Forward's article above. Suffice it say, Thompson told the Patriot-News with great fanfare in 2007 that Loveship was going to restore a house at 2308 N. Jefferson St., a four-minute walk from the Loveship headquarters, and move in a poor family. The photo posted by the blog doesn't suggest that much of anything has been done to fix up the house in the past two years. Makes you wonder about her other promises, doesn't it?

Thompson makes $20,000 a year as a member of Harrisburg City Council, according to city spokesman Matt Coulter, and doesn't get a bump for being council president. For most years since 2000, she lists her council job and Loveship as her only sources of income on her financial disclosure form filed with the city clerk. In her 2008 filing, but none of the others, she reveals that she collects $10,000 annual rent from Loveship for use of the house at 2320 N. Fifth Street, a house she paid $1 for in 1998 (Thompson says on her website it was her childhood home and her parents gave her the house). The house is assessed at $54,360 on the Dauphin County website, and annual county taxes are $393.09. She paid her 2009 taxes late, incurring a penalty. Her 2008 county taxes remain unpaid, according to the website.

Non-profits are required to file an IRS Form 990 in lieu of a regular income tax return. Unlike income tax returns, 990s are public documents. You can ask any non-profit to see their 990 and they have to show it to you. It is basically a profit-and-loss form for non-profits, showing income and expenditures but not always in any great detail. A friend found Loveship's 990 forms for 2005, 2006, and 2007 on Guidestar.org, a financial disclosure website.

In 2005, she reported Loveship revenues of $32,528 (no sources were identified) and claimed $31,683 was spent on "program services," described by her on the form as "Provide training in employment, counseling, housing and economic development to help less fortunate individuals become self-sufficient." Of that, $12,560 went for "occupancy," or rental payments to herself or utility costs. In 2006, she reported $24,466 in revenues and just over $23,500 in "program services," of which a much lower $8,900 went for "occupancy." But in 2007, it was back up to $14,740.

Thompson's financial disclosure statements to the city reveal she also has a $23,000 car loan, an $11,000 student loan from PHEAA--she graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1985, a university spokeswoman confirmed, and took a loan of unspecified size at zero percent from Loveship in 2008. Whether that loan was for her campaign isn't disclosed.

On annual income of about $30,000, how does Thom;pson afford what she describes as her "suite" at Towne House, where a studio apartment rents for $580 a month? Is there a source of income she has not disclosed?

There are rumors that Thompson benefits from the huge settlement won by her brother, Steven Crawford, when he was freed from prison many years after being wrongfully convicted of murder in Dauphin County in 1970. See p. 38 of Jet magazine here for the story, and a photograph of Thompson and her brother.
If so, she hasn't included income from this on her financial disclosure statements.

She also hasn't filed an annual report for Loveship with the state Corporation Bureau since 2001. I'm still waiting to hear from the Department of State whether that violates any law or regulation.

Do we really want her as mayor of Harrisburg?

Posted by David at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mayoral candidate Nevin Mindlin talks to the Patriot-News about his concerns about the ties between mayoral candidate Linda Thompson, the Harrisburg Authority, and authority chairman James Ellison, her campaign manager:

P-N: The City Council, with much fanfare, took control and reappointed the members of the Harrisburg Authority. James Ellison, head of the authority board, is now adviser to Ms. Thompson’s campaign. But has the new authority board really solved any of the incinerator’s problems? It is certainly spending more money on consultants, engineers and its own director, Michele Torres. So is the city getting what we are paying for when it comes to the authority’s leadership? Or has the agency remained a drain on the city, with the spoils simply going to a new set of members/officials/consultants? Explain your view with details, please.

Mindlin: Let’s put the issue into complete perspective. Mr. Ellison’s law firm represents, or certainly has represented, the Harrisburg Authority. Mr. Ellison is Ms. Thompson’s campaign manager. Ms. Thompson was President of Council when Mr. Ellison was appointed. And, finally, Mr. Ellison’s law firm was a significant contributor ($15,000) to Ms. Thompson’s primary campaign effort. I have been around politics long enough to understand well that votes are not the only means to achieving a results. In politics other “chits” are often used, in many instances to relieve a politician from voting on some issue. While Mr. Ellison may abstain from the vote to retain his law firm, which has been generously compensated for legal work done for the authority, as a partner in his law firm, he still profits from his firm’s representation. This relationship is not in the public interest and fosters distrust in city government.

Now, let’s look at the results. Since Ms. Thompson has been President of Council, and her campaign chair has chaired the authority, there has been no major advance in the resolution of this issue. There has not even been a notable suggestion of how to resolve this issue. All that has been accomplished is that political control has shifted and other people, who have not seemingly contributed to a better result, have been hired. The result has been that new vested interests, associated with new political powers, are benefiting financially while the people keep losing. The new authority board has not solved any of the incinerator’s problems. The simple facts answer the question.

Posted by David at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I gave 25 environmental studies students from the State University of New York a tour of Centralia and its mine fire. During lunch afterward at May's Drive-In in Ashland, I was talking with the bus driver and he mentioned how he lives in the Skaneateles, N.Y., area, and recently allowed a gas drilling company--he didn't say which one-- to lease the right to drill on his property for gas in the Marcellus Shale formation.

What I found interesting and disturbing was his description of how the gas company approached him. Kind of a bad cop, good cop approach. The first guy sent out by the gas company was blunt and heavy-handed. According to the driver, he said the gas beneath his property didn't belong to him and they would get it one way or another, including by drilling sideways from the property of someone who did sign a lease, which technically can be done. He offered a low ball price, basically said take it or leave it, and then told him that he could sue, but the gas company would win in the end and he would get nothing.

"I almost threw him him (bodily) out of my house," the bus driver said.

Then the gas company sent a second representative, much nicer than the first, and offering a somewhat higher price. The bus driver, by now unnerved, signed with the second rep. I asked him if he had consulted a lawyer at any point during this process, and he said no, but now wished he had. I mentioned how the Republicans in the Pennsylvania General Assembly had stopped an extraction tax on the gas industry on the grounds that they didn't want to hurt a "struggling young industry" and that got a good laugh at the table.

Let's be straight. This is not a "struggling young industry." It is Halliburton, Chesapeake Energy, and the other big boys from Texas. Pennsylvania apparently has a whole lot of gas in the Marcellus formation, and this gas is the legacy of all state residents. We need to levy a serious extraction tax and devote that windfall to something like making college more affordable, if not free, for Pennsylvania children.

And the state needs to beef up regulation of the gas industry, not cut it as appears likely in the wake of the disastrous budget agreement signed recently. The state also needs to proactively educate land owners about their rights and how to get the best deal from drillers. There are lawyers developing this as a specialty, among them Bill Cluck of Harrisburg. Lawyers cost money, true, but they can save or make money in the long run.

We have ample evidence in Pennsylvania of the cost of unregulated energy extraction, the Centralia mine fire being a prime example. The mine fire was the result of a 1962 clean-up fire set by the borough in its landfill, which was in an abandoned strip mining pit with openings into the labyrinth of abandoned underground mines beneath Centralia. Had that pit been backfilled after the coal was extracted, as must be done with new strip mines now under a federal law passed during the Carter Administration in 1977, there would have been no Centralia mine fire and the town would still exist.

There is considerable concern among environmentalists and public officials about the threat to drinking water supplies posed by Marcellus gas drilling. New York City is desperately trying to stop any gas drilling in its pristine watershed, which provides some of the best, safest, tastiest drinking water in the world, and isn't filtered. New York is concerned that they will be forced to built filtration plants at huge cost to protect city residents in the event dangerous chemicals used in gas extraction get into ground water supplies.

We need to take action now in Pennsylvania so all residents benefit from the gas reserves and we don't have Centralia's younger brother 100 years from now.

Posted by David at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

According to research cited in The Daily Beast, Harrisburg ranks 50th on the list of America's 55 smartest cities. But since we apparently made the list in part because of a strong public library system, we will probably fall off the list in the future given the cuts to library funding in the new state budget. Harrisburg don't get no respect!

Posted by David at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Surprise of surprises--I guess she must read my blog--Harrisburg mayoral candidate Linda Thompson visited Shipoke this morning, escorted by two white men from the neighborhood. She came mid-morning Saturday, a time when few people were home. Her escorts were Peter Marks, former counsel for the Pennsylvania Department of State earlier in the Rendell Administration, and Scott Staruch, who works for Quantum Communications of Harrisburg, which does work for Thompson.

Peter steered her away from my house, so I didn't get to meet her. I honestly don't understand why he was doing the escort duty unless the Democratic State Committee told him to, because it isn't going to go down well in the neighborhood. Thompson is about as popular here as George W. Bush. Scott, who lives around the corner from me, can plead business. A former aide to Sen. Arlen Specter back when Specter was still a Republican, he has worked for Quantum for the past couple of years. The question is why Quantum is involved in this campaign at all, given that its owner, Charlie Gerow, is about as far right a Republican as you can find.

Local folks may remember Gerow as the man who ran for Congress on the West Shore, but lost in the Republican primary three times. But what he ought to be remembered for by city Democratic voters is his close ties to the Swift Boaters, the group of Vietnam veterans who smeared Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential campaign. He and Quantum represented "Stolen Honor," a documentary that was at the heart of the effort to smear Kerry's war service and later anti-war activities. Red, White, and Blue Productions, which made the film, used Quantum's address as its mailing address.

Why would any good Democrat vote for Thompson when she employs a firm like this? What is Quantum's interest in having Linda Thompson as mayor? (One could ask the same question to the Rhoads & Sinon law firm in Harrisburg that donated $15,000 to her campaign). There is much we don't know about Linda Thompson, and I don't want to spend the next four years finding out in painful detail. That's why I, a lifelong Democrat, plan to vote for Nevin Mindlin, Thompson's Republican opponent.

Posted by David at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's really quite simple why President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. It was for turning away from the belligerent, go-it-alone foreign policy of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney that so distressed Europeans and many others around the world. Obama has decided to work to build up respect for America in the Middle East and elsewhere. They love him out there, or at the very least pay him grudging respect, and everything I've read says this is paying big dividends for America's standing in the world.

So the newspapers and columnists who have called the prize "an embarrassment" or questioned whether Obama has done anything to deserve it are simply missing the point. Abandoning the Bush/Cheney foreign policy was a major step toward world peace, and the President was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for doing so.

Posted by David at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a modest proposal: the National Rifle Association should pay damages to the three children of Meleanie and Scott Hains. The parents died in a blaze of gunfire from weapons the NRA and other groups encouraged them to buy and carry.

It's only fair. The Hains couple died for the Dream, the Dream that one day all Americans will openly carry handguns with them wherever they go, ready to shoot it out with bad guys. Melanie Hain, aka the "pistol-packin' soccer mom," drew nationwide attention to the pro-gun cause last summer when she irresponsibly carried a loaded handgun, worn on a hip holster, to her five-year-old daughter's soccer game.

Now "Daddy shot mommy," as the young Hains children screamed as they ran from their home in Lebanon, Pa., on Wednesday night. They will be forever scarred, victims of the "gun rights" crowd every bit as much as their parents.

Scott Hains, if the most likely scenario is confirmed by police, chose to pick up a gun and shoot his wife to death, then shot himself to death. When I was a young reporter in Shamokin in 1977, I was called one Saturday morning to a trailer home to take pictures at the scene of a similar murder. The husband, a prison guard (as Scott Hains formerly was) had blown his wife away and then fled. If there had been no guns in the house, both Meleanie Hains and Linda Feigley might still be alive. Absent a gun, the remaining options tend to be far less deadly, or easily deadly.

The "gun rights" crowd screams "protection!" But statistics show that guns in the home are far more likely to be used against their owner or someone in the household than against some home invader. Meleanie Hains' gun didn't protect her from her husband.

Everyone who tried to stop her from openly carrying a gun to her daughter's soccer game deserves a medal, especially the sheriff who revoked her pistol permit. Imagine if she had gotten into an argument with Scott Hains at a soccer game and they both pulled out their pistols and began shooting? How many children might have died? They, too, would have died for the NRA dream.

So NRA, pull out your fat checkbook and write a big one to the three children of Meleanie and Scott Hains. You don't even have to call it "damages." Call it "lifetime support." Honor them for their sacrifice. And go to hell.

Posted by David at 06:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I went to a meet-and-greet for mayoral candidate Nevin Mindlin tonight at the home of Alice Anne Schwab, who lives with her husband in Harrisburg's Midtown neighborhood. I recognized many of the people in the room as former supporters of Mayor Stephen Reed. Some of them were there to be persuaded that they should support the Republican candidate for mayor now that Reed has said he will not run a write-in campaign. I asked Eileen Young where her husband was. She told me he was sitting home, unable to entertain the idea of voting for a Republican. "He won;t vote for Linda, though," she said.

I asked Mindlin what reasons he would give to people not to vote for Linda Thompson for mayor. The first reason he cited was that Thompson relies on her experience as Harrisburg City Council president to justify her claim to be qualified to be mayor, "but in City Council she helped enable the very problems we are now facing."

He meant the city incinerator debacle and her support of comingling the funds of the city and the Harrisburg Authority, calling it a "government Ponzi scheme." The authority owns the incinerator and its chairman, James Ellison, is Thompson's campaign manager and handler. "I don't know if it's a legal conflict of interest," Mindlin said. "But Ellison's law firm (Rhoads & Sinon of Harrisburg) represents the authority and gave $15,000 to her campaign." Whatever the nature of the links between Thompson and Ellison and Rhoads & Sinon, he said, they have "tainted" the entire situation.

Mindlin had to be coaxed to talk about Thompson, saying that he doesn't want to "go negative." Asked if he can defeat Thompson without making her the main issue, he thinks he can. "I would also tell people that I am a thoughtful, level-headed person, very steady, and that I exhibit the leadership qualities that people expect."

He has had several conversations with Mayor Reed since the primary election, and says he has promised a smooth transition. People in Harrisburg are often of two minds about Reed, he said, grateful to him for all he has done and fearful at his impending departure, but also angry at the missteps he made that led to his defeat.

Mindlin has ideas, lots of them really. He wants to get city government out of doing things that could be done by others, such as running festivals on holidays. He pointed to the example of Bethlehem, Pa., and its annual Musikfest, which is run by a non-profit. He would like to reduce traffic in downtown Harrisburg by making Second Street two lanes two ways, and making Front Street into a parkway. He is a fan of mass transit, though not necessarily the commuter rail line that has been stalled by the opposition of the Cumberland County Commissioners.

Linda Thompson has been "borrowing" some of his ideas and repackaging them as her own, Mindlin said. He is convinced that the public is getting a clear idea of who Thompson really is and who he is. "If she has any ideas, why haven't they been laid on the table?" he said.

But his obstacles are many, among them a much smaller campaign treasury than she has. No one, so far, has made a $15,000 donation to his campaign. "Even $5 would help," he told people tonight. Similarly, while he has gone door to door in the black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods of the city, he is having trouble finding a way into homes. I asked him if he had been at a meet-and-greet like this in Allison Hill, and he said no, but that he very much wants to have one.

Posted by David at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I walked over to the State Library today to print out two old Philadelphia Inquirer articles. I had the first article up on the microfilm reader-printer, put in my quarter, pushed the button and nothing happened. I summoned a librarian, who determined the printer was out of toner. He told me, apologetically, that they don't have any more toner and can't get more until the Legislature passes the 2009-10 budget, overdue since July 1. He took out the toner cartridge, did a little "twist and shout" with it, and managed to jar loose enough toner for one copy, but not two.

Thank you, hard-right Republican ideologues in the state Senate for putting your no-tax-increase religion above the needs of Pennsylvania residents. We so appreciate it.

Posted by David at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's interesting to look back at the press release City Council president Linda D. Thompson put out back on Feb. 9 when she announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for mayor of Harrisburg.

"Council president Thompson, a Democrat, said she will visit every neighborhood in the city and reach out to every citizen to help restore a city government 'that works for all of us, not just a chosen few.'"

While admittedly there are four weeks left until the election, she hasn't done any serious campaigning since then that I'm aware of in my own neighborhood of Shipoke, which is almost entirely white, or in Bellevue Park (ditto).

For that matter, has she appeared anywhere other than a carefully controlled "debate" with her opponent Nevin Mindln the other night in which neither candidate was allowed to directly question the other? Her handler, Rhoads & Sinon attorney James E. Ellison, chairman of the Harrisburg Authority, which owns the troubled municipal incinerator, appears to be keeping her almost entirely under wraps. And that's probably a good strategy, because the less the public hears from Thompson, the more likely they are to vote for her simply because she's the Democratic candidate. She also has a bad tendency to lash out at questioners she doesn't like.

The news section of her campaign website hasn't been updated since May 21, when she announced her victory over Mayor Stephen Reed in the primary. No schedule of events is ever posted.

We really know almost nothing about Thompson, not even her maiden name or her parents' names for pity's sake--the kind of personal information politicians are normally quite happy to disclose. I did some searching on the Internet today and discovered that her Loveship non-profit is located in a house at 2320 N. Fifth Street in Harrisburg that she bought for a dollar in 1998. She herself lives on the sixth floor of the Towne House Apartments at 7th and Boas Streets, according to Dauphin County tax records, not down among the people she claims to represent.

We do know she plans to fire the white superintendent of schools in Harrisburg and replace him with an "urban" superintendent. Who does she have in mind? Does anyone know besides her and Ellison? People who live in Harrisburg and actually pay their taxes--she didn't pay the delinquent taxes on Loveship until after the primary--have a right to know. Before the election.

Posted by David at 07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)