Danger signs?
Mayor Stephen Reed leaves office today after a long and mostly distinguished career as Harrisburg's mayor. He managed to turn Harrisburg from a run-down colony of state government to a city where many of us chose to live and raise families. I salute him for that, and wish him well in whatever he does next in his life.
He will be replaced, of course, by City Council President Linda Thompson. She was elected by 12 percent of registered voters in the city and comes in with a mandate only from her base in the poorest, blackest neighborhoods of Harrisburg. She won in large part because 27,000 registered voters stayed home. I don't doubt her supporters are ecstatic. The danger for Thompson, and for the rest of us, is that she may find it difficult to say no to any of them, or anyone who claims to speak for them.
I don't want Thompson to fail. I live here. I own property here. I have a stake in her success. I'm just afraid she'll do no better with city government and its $160 million budget than she did with her Loveship non-profit and its $25,000 to $35,000 budget.
She also seems to have a taste for high living that she obviously couldn't indulge on her $20,000 city council salary. She drives a Mercedes, which she hints her brother Steven Crawford paid for out of the settlement of his wrongful incarceration suit. She appeared to be carrying a designer handbag in one of the pictures during the campaign, although it could have been a knock-off. She is holding a grandiose, gubernatorial-like, $100 ticket inaugural ball at the Farm Show arena, with invitations that looked remarkably like wedding invitations. Mayor Reed had his inaugural party at the much smaller Hilton, and charged half as much. And via the print edition of the Patriot-News (it was oddly missing from the PennLive version) we now know that her inaugural gown was purchased, like Sarah Palin's campaign finery, at Neiman Marcus, a top tier luxury department store.
So the Plum in downtown Harrisburg, where many Harrisburg business women of all races purchase their finery, wasn't good enough? The nearest Neiman Marcus is in Philadelphia. How does this square with her self-professed image as a representative of the poor and downtrodden? I half expect her to have a balcony overlooking Market Square built out of the mayor's office and to proclaim, like Eva Peron, that her poor supporters expect her to dress in top designer fashions so they can bask in her glamour. I'm not suggesting she wear sackcloth and ashes, but every smart politician knows what the public will accept and what raises eyebrows.
This isn't a good beginning. Yes, it's legal for her to use campaign funds to pay for that dress, and for the inaugural ball, and for the hundreds of comped tickets that will likely go to her supporters to make the Farm Show look at least halfway full. All of this spending has to be disclosed at some point, and it will be interesting to see what the final bill will be. It is important for Mayor Thompson to understand that people, including people who in the worst way didn't want her to be mayor, will be monitoring her every step. She needs to follow the rules, written and unwritten. The high life is nice, but only if you can really afford it. Ask Mayor Sheila Dixon of Baltimore.