Harrisburg on Verge of Losing Control of Finance

[The Northerner]

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Pennsylvania moved closer to seizing control of the finances of its capital, Harrisburg, as its Senate approved legislation that would make the city the state's first to fall into receivership.

In a 37-13 vote, senators today advanced the bill to let Republican Governor Tom Corbett declare a fiscal emergency and appoint a receiver empowered to sell municipal assets and overrule elected officials. The legislation heads to the House of Representatives, which passed an earlier version in September. Corbett has said he will sign it.

A federal judge yesterday scheduled a Nov. 23 hearing on the validity of a bankruptcy petition filed by Mark D. Schwartz, a lawyer hired by the Harrisburg City Council. The council approved the move 4-3 as a bid to ward off the takeover after skipping payments on debt tied to a trash-to-energy incinerator project. The state and Mayor Linda Thompson have challenged the filing.

"The preferable course of action would be for the city of Harrisburg through its elected officials on City Council and the mayor to work out an appropriate and acceptable pathway to fiscal solvency," state Senator Jeffrey E. Piccola, a Dauphin County Republican who helped draft the legislation, said after the vote.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/18/bloomberg_articlesLTA01Y6S9728.DTL

[FarCenter]

1. They've already lost control, it's just a matter of deciding who gets to clean up the mess

[StarsInHerHair]

2. willing repeating Russia's post-Soviet mistakes? willfully creating US oligarchs

& doing everything to maintain them