By The River

Mayor Linda Thompson today gave the boot to three members of the Harrisburg Authority who were appointed about six weeks ago by Harrisburg City Council. The trio included her chief critic, lawyer Bill Cluck, who was well along with plans to have a forensic audit conducted of the Harrisburg Authority's transactions during the reign of Rhodes & Sinon partner James Ellison, especially regarding the infamous city incinerator. Cluck didn't even get a courtesy call.

The others booted, so far, were Neil Grover and Eric Davidson. Erica Bryce, the other council appointee, has her interview tomorrow. In their places, Thompson intends to appoint Harry L. Witte, Barton A. Fields, Cathy M. Hall, and J. Marc Kurowski, the only current member to keep his or her seat. Hall was on the board with Ellison, according to Cluck, and Witte was on Thompson's transition team.

Or as one observer put it, "four yes ma'am votes."

This should be considered Thompson's version of President Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre in 1973, when he fired Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. This should be a wake-up call to the U.S. Attorney in Harrisburg to start investigating, if he is not already, the awful stink coming from the old Harrisburg Authority and its dealings with the city.

Thompson got the opportunity to boot her critics because of an unfortunate decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that ruled the mayor, not city council, had sole authority to appoint members of the Harrisburg Authority. You can be sure either Thompson or the new board will come out with some platitudes soon about "wanting to move forward" and "not getting bogged down in past history."

The sole purpose of firing Cluck, Grover, and Davidson, and especially Cluck, was to make sure that reeking past was not uncovered. It was a despicable action.

Update: Mayor Thompson has now seen the light and reappointed Bill Cluck to the Harrisburg Authority. His appointment was confirmed by City Council.

Posted by David at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone who isn't blind can see there are a lot of unsold homes on the market in Harrisburg. Drive up Second Street from Forster Street to Division and you'll see what I mean. In my own neighborhood, the pleasant walled enclave of Shipoke down by the Susquehanna River, there are 11 homes on the market, possibly a record. A 12th is up for sheriff sale and a 13th is in foreclosure with a notice tacked on the front door saying the bank will pay $1,000 if the occupants get the heck out. Very un-Shipoke. Yes, George W. Bush left us an economy in deep recession, but I don't think that accounts for all of the "for sale" signs.

Many, although not all of these homes have gone up for sale since Linda Thompson was elected mayor of Harrisburg last November. While it isn't possible to generalize about why people are trying to leave Harrisburg, one hears much talk about leaving because of fears that Thompson will drive the city into the ground. These are fears based on observations of Thompson's behavior both as city council president over the past several years and in her first six months as mayor.

She still has no financial rescue plan for the city, and you know she's just itching to take advantage of an unfortunate Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling of about a week or so ago and replace her critics on the Harrisburg Authority, especially lawyer Bill Cluck, with stooges who won't authorize the forensic accounting investigation of the authority that Cluck says is necessary to get to the bottom of the city's financial mess. Cluck has studied the authority and its operations for a long time, is a smart lawyer, and if Thompson removes him it ought to be a red flag for the U.S. Attorney in Harrisburg to start his own investigation.

The economy, the city's finances, dislike of Thompson's behavior, such as buying a $4,000 desk, and now the recent phenomenon of wolf packs roaming Midtown and robbing and beating people at gunpoint have combined to send the Harrisburg housing market into a tailspin. The mayor seems rather sensitive about the unsold homes. When ABC 27, normally a friendly venue for her, asked her about the real estate situation she came back with an answer to a question that doesn't appear to have been asked: "I will not let them lay that on my feet," she told the television station, using one of her increasingly famous malapropisms. "Their inability to sell houses in rough times." It's there on the video.

When will the housing market recover? In Shipoke, my neighbors are looking forward to the change of governors in January, which is always good for home sales. The old guys sell, the new guys buy, and if you live in Shipoke, as everyone from Rick Santorum to Bill DeWeese once did, you can walk to work. But unless Thompson, who is clearly in over her head, accepts the help she needs to get the city back on the right track, more of the newcomers may choose to live elsewhere.

Posted by David at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I suspect there was a day maybe a year or so ago when Linda Thompson got together with James Ellison and plotted how to take over the city of Harrisburg for their own ends. The main part of the conversation probably had to do with the typically low voter turnout in the mayoral primary, the fact that Republicans and independents would be excluded from the Democratic primary, and fatigue with Mayor Reed after 28 years. All that came true: she was elected mayor by about 12 percent of the registered voters.

But I suspect they also laughed about white reaction to a Linda Thompson victory, how a combination of white guilt and white reluctance to challenge the city's first black mayor would give her a free ride to do what she wanted once she took over the city. All she and her clergy friends had to do was play the race card a few times and the white-dominated mainstream media would back off.

What Thompson and Ellison failed to take into account was the Internet, and how it has empowered people to publicize their grievances against an elected official without filtration by the mainstream media. There are blogs, like this one, which mix news and opinion but try to keep it professional, and there is the Harrisburg Forum on PennLive, a seething maelstrom of the public id in which valid information competes for attention with complete bullshit. Citizen activists like Bill Cluck or your average everyday tipster can either talk to me or post directly on PennLive. Thompson has been unable to control this, and her enraged outburst on Channel 27 Friday night shows that it's getting to her and she may be worried about her tenure in office.

Not that it's easy to get rid of an elected official in Pennsylvania. She could equip everyone in City Hall with $4,000 desks like hers and throw the remaining Museum of the American West artifacts out on one the city's many unplowed streets (piled with uncollected garbage) and she'd still be mayor for another three years and nine months. There is no provision for recall of elected officials in Pennsylvania. Only the Legislature can remove a mayor, and that isn't likely to happen unless she is convicted of a felony and refuses to resign, and maybe not then.

Thompson was in full Angry Black Woman mode Friday night, dealing the (implied) race cards like a demented gambler. If she was a national figure, they would create a regular shtick on Saturday Night Live to parody her. That may only be a matter of time. Supposedly Glenn Beck is aware of her and mentioned her on his show, not favorably.

I hear all sorts of things, and suspect at least 80 percent of them are true. To wit: Thompson had Mayor Reed's office repainted three times by city employees because she didn't like the color the first two times. Mayor Reed's desk, a historic piece from the old city hall, was trashed after her $4,000 new desk arrived, probably because of her near-physical aversion to anything Reed touched. School Superintendent Gerald Kohn is under a tight gag order and can't even lobby for funds for the school district. Yes, things are a bit paranoid in the Führerbunker. Then there is the question of who told the Harrisburg Authority they didn't need to require a performance bond on the new incinerator. The mighty might fall on the answer to that question.

Things are bad, folks. I take no pleasure in telling you any of this, but it's getting to the point where things that were once unimaginable are crowding into my daymares. My current favorite: what if the operations of the city water purification plant go downhill? Everyone takes clean water for granted these days, but keeping it clean requires expensive chemicals and technical expertise. And everyone drinks water. Not just 12 percent.

Posted by David at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

No one should say they are surprised that Mayor Linda Thompson spent $35,000 of taxpayer monies to refurbish her office. Both bloggers like me and the Patriot-News have previously revealed that she drives a Mercedes (someone else pumps the gas), wears a fur coat, carries a designer (though perhaps a knock-off) handbag, and has an apartment in an upscale building, all of which were acquired when she seemingly had only her $20,000 city council salary to pay for it all. Then there was the extravagant inaugural gala at the Farm Show Arena and her Neiman Marcus dress, which we still don't know the cost of or who paid for them.

But this takes things to a new level, a stunning gesture of contempt to her critics. Yes, she had every right to get the smoke odor out--former Mayor Reed was a heavy smoker--but a city facing bankruptcy cannot afford to give her a $4,000 desk, not when it's hard to spend more than $650 on a similar desk at OfficeMax.com. Why did Dan Miller, the new city controller, sign off on this extravagant purchase? His signature is right there on the invoice.

Thompson contracted for the furniture purchases with The Phillips Group , a traditional office supply house, instead of going someplace like OfficeMax or Staples. Traditional office supply houses have lost ground in the overall business market to the chains because, well, unless you're the CEO of a prosperous corporation, which Thompson is not, it's hard to justify spending $4,000 on a desk when you can get a perfectly good one for $650 or less. I'm sure Thompson's desk and everything else sold by Phillips is very nice, but that's not the point. She doesn't need a $4,000 desk and the city can't afford it.

I suspect there is another motive to some of these purchases. If you look at the link to the invoices in the Patriot-News story, you will see that she also had the vanity, faucet, and toilet replaced in the mayoral bathroom. The cost was modest, $284, but porcelain doesn't absorb smoke smell. Why not just give them a good cleaning? I would not be surprised if the real reason for a lot of this new furniture and fixtures is that Thompson has an aversion to Reed and doesn't want to touch anything he touched or used. To which I say, you're a grown-up, get over it.

We don't know how much labor added to the $35,000 cost, because those invoices weren't released. Was the clean-up and repainting, etc., done by city employees or by a private contractor? The new $8,000 carpeting was installed by the vendor, Essis & Sons, but there's no clue on the other stuff. If she hired a private contractor or contractors, I'd like to know who they were, how they got the business, and whether they submitted competitive bids.

The $4,000 desk, the $963 two-drawer lateral cabinet (Office Max: $479), and the $194 "mouse platform" need to be returned to Phillips for a refund if they can be. If not, Thompson should pay for them herself. These purchases were outrageous and should not stand.

Posted by David at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

My neighbor the lawyer had to file a Right to Know request to the Pennsylvania Department of State to get this information, but he finally unearthed both the list of directors of Mayor Linda Thompson's Loveship non-profit, and as a bonus, its original bylaws. Loveship has gone into drydock since Thompson was elected mayor, but this stuff is still interesting.

Most of the bylaws are basic boilerplate, but then the curious reader comes to "Article V-Officers" and this paragraph:

"The Chairman of the Board of Directors shall be Linda Thompson, who shall serve until her death or resignation. The Chairman may also be removed by a unanimous vote of the remaining members of the Board only for gross errors defined as severe deviation from the teaching of the Bible (Old and New Testament read together as a whole) which would tend to spiritually endanger and lead the members of the fellowship away from the Lord, the God of the Bible."

Now Linda Thompson the private citizen can have just about any bylaws she wants in her own 501(c)3, even one with the overtly secular agenda of "home ownership counseling" and "combat academic underachievement."

I think it's fair to say most Americans want their elected officials to be religious or have a strong moral compass, but the above paragraph might go too far for many of them. It suggests deeply fundamentalist beliefs which are not held by the majority of Americans. Combine this with Thompson's comparison of herself to the prophet Nehemiah sent to save Jerusalem, i.e., Harrisburg that used to be on her website, and the Bible verses my lawyer friend saw posted liberally about the interior of Loveship, and its more religion than a lot of voters want.

At its core, that paragraph is simply a severe limitation on the grounds for Thompson to be removed as head of Loveship (known as Timeship in the original incorporation papers, with a ring of science fiction). The part about the Old and New Testament read together is clever--it means she can't, for example, be removed for eating pork or shellfish, banned in the Old but blessed in the New. Thompson, who has pledged transparency as mayor, was loading the dice to make sure she couldn't be removed as head of Loveship.

The danger of having a deeply--and I mean deeply--religious person of fundamentalist beliefs as mayor of Harrisburg or in any major elected post is that she starts filtering her decisions for the public through her personal religious beliefs. No matter what the Christian Right may tell you, the U.S. Constitution mandates the separation of church and state.

Oh, and the Loveship directors for 2008 were Gerald Robinson, Dr. Norman LaCasse, K. Lameson Lawrence, Jacquetta McCoy, Lois Glass, Greg Rothman, and of course Thompson herself.

Posted by David at 09:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

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.

Posted by David at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This just in: the invitations to Mayor Linda Thompson's inaugural are out. She is holding a $100 a person reception Jan. 4 in the Farm Show Arena, and a $75 luncheon for business leaders on Jan. 5 at the Civil War Museum.

I'm assuming this shindig will be financed by donors and by ticket sales, not the taxpayers of Harrisburg. $100 is about what Gov. Rendell charged at his inaugural parties, which were also held in the Farm Show. But hey, I'd celebrate, too, if I was going from making $20,000 a year and being sued by credit card companies to being mayor of the state capital and controlling a $160 million budget, slightly more than the $35,000 her Loveship non-profit cleared in good years.

Wonder how many of her people will be able to afford to go? Does she really think there are enough business leaders and lobbyists to fill that huge space? Time will tell.

Posted by David at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mayor-elect Linda Thompson has filed her post-election financial disclosure form--oops! She forgot to sign it! Her campaign manager James Ellison did, but the space for her signature, where she verifies that her Leadership for Harrisburg PAC did not to the best of her knowledge violate any election laws, is conspicuously blank. Just an oversight, I'm sure. Her opponent, Nevin Mindlin, did remember to sign his.

One of my neighbors was kind enough to parse all of Thompson's campaign disclosure forms this year. She spent a grand total of $101,196 on her campaign. Of that, the Harrisburg law firm of Rhodes & Sinon, where Ellison is a partner, provided $25,000, far and away more than anyone else.

And why not? Rhodes & Sinon, according to my neighbor, has billed the Harrisburg Authority more than $300,000 in legal fees in 2008 and 2009. Ellison, who is chairman of the Harrisburg Authority, owner of the incinerator mess, is said to have recused himself on some of the votes to pay those legal bills. Not that it really matters. As a Rhodes & Sinon partner, he knows what happens to law firm profits.They get distributed to partners. Is there anyone here who isn't clear what is going on?

Among other contributions of interest was a $200 donation--small, to be sure--from a John T. Durbin of 12 Emlyn Lane, Mechanicsburg. Durbin was executive director of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission for eight years under Govs. Ridge and Schweiker. He got the job as a reward for his fundraising prowess the first time Ridge ran for governor in 1994. I laud some of the reforms he brought to the Turnpike, especially EZPass, but he's a big-time Republican who lives in the suburbs. In the past few years he has donated $2,300 to John McCain, $1,550 to Rudolph Guiliani, $1,000 to Mitt Romney, and so on. Why is he interested in Linda Thompson?

This and Thompson's employment of hard right Republican Charlie Gerow (see, Swift Boating, John Kerry, 2008) as her consultant/spokesman, a slap in the face to Democrats, is just more fuel for my growing belief that she plans to turn Republican at some convenient point after she gets into office. Oh, and one other thing. The Dauphin County Republican Committee didn't lift a finger to help their own mayoral candidate, Nevin Mindlin, the strongest Republican candidate in Harrisburg in years. No contribution to Mindlin. He did get a de minimus $200 from the city Republican committee and $500 from Friends of (Sen.) Jeff Piccola, but really. These sort of things don't happen in politics just by happenstance. Something is coming.

Why would the Republicans want Thompson? Because they don't have many blacks in their party. Thompson would be an anti-abortion, Bible thumping candidate who could add the GOP base to her own know-nothing base. For governor? Senator? Heck, they'd be thrilled just to keep her as mayor of Harrisburg.

I also looked at her campaign expenditures in the most recent support, and one thing that caught my eye was more than $600 for "volunteer lunches" on election day. The story that circulated after Thompson's primary victory last May was that she used free food to entice voters from her base to come to the polls, which is illegal under state election law, not that it's ever enforced. Then I heard she was claiming the food went to "volunteers." $600 buys a lot of pizzas. Ellison received $200 for "reimbursement for youth volunteers." Considering that 27,000 registered voters stayed home that day, and Thompson got the votes of only 12 percent of all registered voters in the city, it does not appear to have been money well spent.

And finally, my favorite Thompson campaign expenditure, $15 for a "parking ticket," paid on Nov. 18, 2009, after the election. I'm sure there's a fascinating story behind that one.

Posted by David at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The acquittal of Bonusgate defendant Sean Ramaley by a Dauphin County jury yesterday is not a good omen for Attorney General Tom Corbett's plan to seek the Republican nomination for governor next year. One of the jurors told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the initial vote was 9-3 for acquittal and that there just wasn't enough evidence to justify a conviction.

While I don't deny that Corbett has made strong prima facie cases against several of the defendants, this shows the danger of simply accepting prosecutorial versions of events as the Gospel truth. Whatever Corbett may have thought, the jury thought otherwise.

This didn't have to be a politically-motivated investigation, but it was. Corbett indicted only Democrats in the first round, and timed the indictments to affect the November 2008 election (didn't seem to have any effect, though). Likewise, the belated indictment of former House Speaker John Perzel and several other Republicans, plus the trial of the initial Democratic defendants, seems nicely timed to have the maximum impact on his run for governor in 2010.

But perhaps Corbett's remarkable physical resemblance to "Naked Gun" actor Leslie Nielsen,who plays the clueless Inspector Frank Drebben, is more than just physical. We'll have plenty of opportunity to see as the Bonusgate trials play out.

Posted by David at 07:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You knew this was going to happen. Harrisburg City Council has voted to delay severance payments to a number of longtime and faithful city employees who served for decades under Mayor Reed and now want to leave before Linda Thompson becomes mayor. Council is shocked, shocked that it ever authorized employees to be paid for their unused sick, vacation and personal days.

And why wouldn't they leave, given that Mayor 12 Percent is likely to fire them soon after taking office so she can give their jobs to her "urban" supporters? Is it so offensive to Thompson and her allies on City Council that these longtime public servants devoted so much of their lives to working for Mayor Reed and the people of Harrisburg? Thompson has done nothing, nothing at all to reassure white employees of the city that they will be treated fairly and decently under her administration, just as she has done nothing to reassure white residents of the city that she will be their mayor, too.

As one of my neighbors put it, God help the city if a major snowstorm hits during the first week of the new year, because there won't be anyone left who knows how to run a snow removal operation.

Admittedly the City of Harrisburg is in a bad budgetary situation. But the severance payments are contractual obligations and the retiring employes should retain legal counsel and sue if council now refuses to pay up.

Posted by David at 05:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

My lawyer neighbor Bill Cluck has informed me that the recall statute I cited in my last blogpost only applies to the City of Philadelphia through its home rule statute. And as it turns out, our blessed and glorious Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that local statutes for recall, or removing elected officials like Linda Thompson from office, are all unconstitutional. The court ruled in 2003 that the only method that can be used is that specified for impeachment in the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Good luck. While the state constitution doesn't give mayors one free year to establish a "performance record," as the Philadelphia statute does, it does require that removals from office follow the impeachment process. That means that the House of Representatives would have to initiate and pass an impeachment resolution, to be followed by a trial in the Senate. Or the Governor could ask the Senate to take up impeachment.

If a mayor is convicted of an "infamous crime," defined in the state constitution as forgery, perjury, embezzlement of public monies, bribery or similar offenses, a court can remove them from office. Public officials can also be impeached for "misbehavior in office," defined as "breach of a positive statutory duty or the performance by a public official of a discretionary act with an improper or corrupt motive."

Trust me, the Governor, who endorsed Thompson, isn't going to quickly ask for her impeachment. House members are equally unlikely to be interested. With the Supreme Court having declared that impeachment under the State Constitution is the only means for removal of a public official that is legal, the Legislature is unlikely to pass a statewide recall statute. Their passing a constitutional amendment for voter consideration is equally unlikely. Does anyone really think they would vote to create a means for the public to remove them from office, too?

The hard fact is that short of her being convicted of an "infamous crime," we in Harrisburg are stuck with Linda Thompson, the choice of 12 percent of the electorate, as our mayor for four years. I apologize for getting this wrong in my last blogpost. I'll try harder not to make mistakes like that in the future.

There have been calls of late for a new state Constitutional Convention. That option seems more attractive every day, but carries extreme peril. Conservatives will try to write tax limitations into a new Constitution that will condemn Pennsylvania to permanent decline. They will try to gut teacher unions, ban gay marriage, and make all abortions illegal, even in cases of rape or to save the life of the mother. If there is a convention, moderates and liberals must fight hard to ensure that this doesn't happen.

Posted by David at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I received a Facebook e-mail the other day from a neighbor who was in despair at ever being able to sell his Shipoke house with Linda Thompson becoming mayor of Harrisburg in January. His house has been up for sale for quite awhile, since well before Thompson's Democratic primary victory last spring, and they've already moved out to a new home they built in the East Shore suburbs.

He asked me if there was a way to impeach Thompson, and he was quite serious about it. I told him there was a procedure for recalling mayors, but I didn't know the details of how it worked.

Now I do. If you go to this link, you will find good and bad news. The good news is that she can be recalled from office. The bad news is that Pennsylvania law bars recall elections during a new mayor's first year in office. The law actually states that this is to give the new mayor time to build a "performance record." Given Thompson's Loveship performance record, perhaps 10 years would be more fair.

But if Thompson performs like she did at Loveship, and as many assume she will as mayor, a recall petition can be filed in January 2011. It must contain valid signatures of 25 percent of the number of people who cast votes in the most recent mayoral election, with no more than one-fifth of the total coming from any one precinct. Because only 9,046 people voted in the Harrisburg mayoral election in 2009, there would need to be only 2,263 signatures on the recall petition, although it is generally advised to get double that number to be safe from challenges.

Once the petition is certified, the mayor has 10 days to resign or face a recall election. If Thompson lost a recall election, she would be barred from public office in Harrisburg, elected or appointed, for two years. City council would elect her successor, who would serve until the next municipal election. If council failed to do so, or achieved only a tie vote, ten voters could petition Dauphin County Court to appoint a successor.

Thompson won a narrow victory over Nevin Mindlin, by just 842 votes, and therein lies the peril and promise of recall. More than 27,000 registered Harrisburg voters failed to cast votes for mayor. How many of them opposed Thompson, but didn't want to vote for a white Jewish Republican (Mindlin) they knew little about? And how many were just apathetic drones who couldn't be bothered? The answer to those questions will decide a recall election. Thompson opponents would need to mount a fast and overwhelming media campaign, including the TV ads that might well have turned the election to Mindlin if he could have afforded them. Where will that money come from?

An election would also have to overcome Thompson's know-nothing base of about 4,000 voters who were unswayed by the massive evidence presented during the campaign that she was unfit to be mayor.

I know how many voters in Harrisburg are feeling right now. I hear from some of them periodically, and I know how I feel. They are deeply depressed that the city they devoted their lives to, where they owned and rehabilitated homes, raised their children, and rejoiced as the city came back under Mayor Reed from the depths of the early 1980s, is about to be taken over by someone they regard as a grifter, an illegitimate mayor who drew the votes of 12 percent of the electorate and who can do incalculable damage before she is removed from office. I think of those photographs of people in occupied Paris weeping as the German Army victory parade goes by. We trusted too much in our own Maginot Line--Mayor Reed--and failed to see the danger.

It is of critical importance that all good citizens become involved and not let despair prevent you from fighting back. We can't let the city become an ATM machine for Thompson and her friends. Go to council meetings. Speak out. Don't be intimidated. Your city needs you.

Posted by David at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

My fellow pathetic blogger Jersey Mike reports that Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, headed by the Rev. Barry Lynn, has sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service asking that it investigate the clerical endorsement of mayoral candidate Linda Thompson offered by by the Rev. Martin Odom from the pulpit of his Bethel Village AME Church in Harrisburg. We'll see what comes of this. The most severe penalty the IRS could hand out would be loss of the church's tax exemption. That almost never happens for one offense, but at least someone is telling the black clergy that the law applies to them, too. Even for endorsements of self-proclaimed black Messiahs.

Posted by David at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Despite heroic efforts by Republican candidate Nevin Mindlin and his supporters, Linda Thompson will be the next mayor of Harrisburg. That is a tragedy. No amount of Kumbaya comments or suggestions that the hard-edged reporting in blogs and on Channel 21 were "just political," or "scare tactics," can hide the fact that the city has elected a mayor with anger issues, who believes she is a black messiah, who can't manage her personal or business finances, and who won't respond to tough questions.

She is likely to face IRS issues over her Loveship non-profit, as are some of the black clergy who endorsed her and who may have pressured the newspaper to abandon its coverage of the race just as criticism of Thompson was peaking. I hope that isn't the case, and it's hard to imagine that it is, but the story is out there. There was supposed to be an article in the paper this past Sunday about James Ellison, Thompson's campaign manager and the chairman of the Harrisburg Authority, that never appeared.

If Thompson turns Harrisburg city government into a kleptocracy, an American Zimbabwe on the Susquehanna, there is the possibility of a recall election. But imagine the damage that could occur until that happens. We all must be vigilant, citizens and prosecutors alike. I live in Harrisburg and own property here, and will not be silenced by false accusations of racism from people who don't.

And you 20,000 some Harrisburg registered voters who didn't bother to come to the polls--you can all go to hell.

Posted by David at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The foolish effort by two Bishop McDevitt students to encourage write-in votes for Steve Reed should be ignored. Mayor Reed did great things for Harrisburg, but he is done. The only way to stop Linda Thompson from becoming mayor and getting her hands on the city budget is to elect Nevin Mindlin. Don't be like Ralph Nader voters in Florida in 2000. They didn't like some things about Al Gore, so they voted for Nader and handed the Presidency to George W. Bush.

Think of Thompson's awful record at Loveship and her public rants as city council president. Think of your property values and what will happen to them if she becomes mayor. Don't stay home, don't write in Steve Reed. Vote for Nevin Mindlin tomorrow.

Posted by David at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)