Jersey Mike

The most frustrating thing about the Thompson Administration is that the constituency of Harrisburg WANTS to succeed and the right people to get the various jobs done efficiently and honestly ARE available…but for reasons unbeknown to any of us…she simply doesn’t want to accept the help that is right in front of her face.

Case in point: this past Friday, August 20, the City Parks and Recreation department had a concert at the Levitt Pavilion. It was part of the “Levitt Live” summer series. The band was called “Trey Eley Experience”. A reliable source told me that the band’s payment was $1,000.00. The sound company gets paid around $500.00. Plus, there are additional costs involved like park staff, electricity and, of course, the band’s “rider”.

So the stage is set – a beautiful night this past Friday, giant open pavilion and a lawn that can seat thousands.

My source tells me there were fifteen people in attendance.

Fifteen.

But wait! It gets better. Around ten of the fifteen in attendance were Mayor Linda Thompson and her entourage (including her personal security detail).

SIDEBAR- In case you haven’t noticed, much space here hasn’t been given to the general disarray of the City of Harrisburg lately, rather, I’ve tried to focus on the areas that I’m 100% certain about. In this case, how to promote a concert.

And looking at the Levitt Live! website, I wasn’t surprised to see a number of cancellations. And the 2010 Summer Concert series still says “To Be Announced” (Today is August 23…when, exactly, will the Summer Concert Series be announced?)

It doesn’t take a Wall Street consultant or analyst to advise the city on how best to spend it’s entertainment and marketing budget. All it takes is a phone call.

Linda: stop wasting our money and start hiring the people who know what they’re doing.

Oh, and by the way- when is the Kipona Music schedule going to be announced?

My friends are going to hate me in about thirty days.

Actually, if what I’m about to do has the same effect as what happened when I found The Hold Steady, my friends are going to hate J Roddy Walston and The Business in about a month.

You see, they’re not gonna hate J Roddy because they’re not a massively awesome rock and roll band, rather, they’re going to hate J Roddy Walston and The Business because the new record is all that I’m going to listen to and play for a long, long time once I get it this coming Tuesday, July 27. (It’s streaming on Spinner right now)

But that’s what we do, isn’t it? Don’t we scream it from the rooftops and evangelize on streetcorners and blog and tweet and facebook and hire skywriters to tell everyone about this awesome new band.

I thought that The Hold Steady ruined music for me. Simply because they set the bar SO FUCKING HIGH that most other new bands that I have heard since simply haven’t done much for me. That is, until J Roddy came along. We ran a short “Indie At The Abbey” series a couple of years ago that our friend Joe at Instrumental Analysis put together. J Roddy was on the wishlist for that but a date never materialized. That was when I got my first taste of the Rod. However, it wasn’t until over two years later seeing the boys open for The Hold Steady at The Recher Theater in Towson that I got the first addictive injection of this band.

It’s just straight up, down and dirty, high and mighty, wet and sloppy, fat and happy, dark and dirty, foot stompin, fist pumpin, head banging, beer swillin rock and roll music.

Oh, and Rod plays the piano – but it’s not really piano rock. Though the “dinka-dinka-dinka-dink-dink” of Used To Did is simply as catchy as any jingle I’ve ever heard and it’s a natural show-closer (and usually is).

Look, I can go on and on about this band. And I likely will over the coming months. But their new record comes out on Tuesday. It’s on Vagrant. They’re playing the Khyber in Philly on Tuesday night, Baltimore at the Ottobar on the 31st is the hometown CD Release show. And from there? Sky’s the limit.

I’ve found the new kings of bar rock – and they are J Roddy Walston and The Business.

If there’s one person who knows more about the state of Harrisburg’s finances, it’s attorney William Cluck. This post was written by him and posted on the Harrisburg Forum of the PennLive website.

Please do your fellow citizens a favor and share this link. It is, by far, the most in-depth explanation of the quagmire we’re in that you’re going to read anywhere.

It is time to go directly to the citizens of the city and region instead of the political officials providing sound bites for the media. My intent is to shed some light, provide some facts, and identify, from my perspective, the issues and players in our financial crisis.

1. The debt is actually around $283 million. There is also a risk the Authority could be liable for an additional $25 million if it loses the CIT litigation. The revenue from the incinerator, after operating expenses, has been unable to pay debt service. So, the city’s taxpayers, as primary guarantor of the debt, must come up with money to pay the debt service to the bondholders. Since the city is essentially broke, the county, as secondary guarantor for about half the debt, must come up with the funds. If the county defaults, then the bond insurer makes the payments to the bond and note holders. And any entity that makes a payment wants to be reimbursed eventually.

2. There are basic solutions to addressing that debt. Come up with $283 million and retire the debt or come up with $50 to $100 million to reduce the debt so it can be restructured and more manageable. Of course, how to do that is the big issue. Sale of the incinerator could bring in anywhere from $75 million to $180 million- if someone will purchase it. Leasing the parking garages apparently could net up to $100 million. There you go, done deal. Sell incinerator for $180 million and use parking lease proceeds of $100 million and we can go back to our lives. Easier said than done. A more realistic scenario is to pay down the debt by $50 million to $100 million and look to the state financing authority to provide leverage in refinancing or restructuring the outstanding amount. Neil Grover and City Controller have put forth their concepts for reducing the debt. The rest of this post will identify the parties and how I view their respective interests. My intent is to provide transparency without revealing the substance of draft documents being negotiated and better inform the taxpayers so they are able to participate in this discussion. Let’s look at the parties and their interests and issues:

3. Harrisburg Authority- does not have a quorum, can not conduct business. Wants to lead, but has little leverage. The authority staff is competent and the incinerator operator has the facility up and running rather smoothly. The issues are financial not operational. The Authority wants to pay contractors (unfairly being held hostage), fix turbine blade (to generate up to $1 million additional revenue in electric sales), repair steam line (possible $4 million in revenue), increase receipts and revenue (get higher paying waste from outside county), decrease operating expenses (find solution for ash disposal). A proposed amended budget that you haven’t seen reveals it may be able to start paying between $7 and $12 million annually in debt service. Current debt load too high- debt service is approx $22 million annually.

4. This year’s dilemna- $35 mil due in December because authority, city and county kicked the can down the road in 2007 by borrowing to pay debt service for 2007 and 2008. if that amount is refinanced, expect an additional $2 million in debt service.

5. This year’s budget for debt service includes amounts to reimburse the county, city, covanta and bond insurer. So far this year, on behalf of the authority, the city has paid $637,500, county has paid $1,126,254 and the insurer has paid $425,193. Payments from the debt service reserve fund this year total $5,074,733. All of those payments must be reimbursed or replenished. And, about $10 million in debt service is left to be paid before end of year (not including the $35 million notes).

6. City has limited resources to back up its guarantee. What should the city do? Are the recommendations from management consultants enough to deal with this financial crisis? Is there the political will and leadership to put the parking garages and other assets into play? Can the residents sustain a tax increase? Taxes did not increase in the city over the years because these financings typically would kick a few million to the city’s general fund so taxes would not go up.

7. County refuses to raise tipping fees to raise additional revenue for authority, won’t cooperate in enforcing flow control costing authority up to $600,000 annually in revenue, insists on additional $4.90/ton being added to tipping fee to go to county’s office of solid waste, requires its own engineer, financial consultant and attorneys to oversee authority (and get reimbursed by authority).

8. Covanta wants to be repaid on the $22 million it has put out to fix the Barlow mess. It has not been paid the last two quarterly installments of $637,000. So, Covanta will not release any more funds to pay contractors who did work (about $2.2 million).

9. AGM the bond insurer. Publicly has stated it will not reduce principal or interest on the debt. will not allow use of the $3.6 million from the Barlow settlement to be used to pay contractors or fix turbine blade until city comes up with a plan.

There are all kinds of legal issues involving the rights and remedies of each of these parties. The county has sued the city and authority for reimbursement of the money they have paid and wants the court to order the city to budget for the debt service and raise taxes or sell/lease assets. Covanta has put forth a list of its terms it wants in a forebearance agreement. AGM has put forth its terms for a forebearance agreement. The forebearance agreement initially was to buy time to enable the city to come up with a plan, but now the document is turning into the outline of a plan, which explains why it is taking so long to finalize. The authority can only sit on the sidelines until it gets a quorum.

So that is a status report on where things are as of now. Will the mayor and city council continue the stalemate over adding at least a third member to the board? Who will provide the necessary leadership to make the unpopular recommendations to do some combination of leasing or selling assets, raising taxes, raising tipping fees, asking the state to assist in restructuring the debt and/or allowing the filing of chapter 9, or even sell the water system or sewage treatment system?

At least you now know what we know. We promise to keep you informed and hopefully hold public forums on these issues.

It’s easy to be a “Monday Morning Quarterback” after watching any event fail. But being someone who makes his living booking, promoting and presenting nationally touring bands nearly two hundred nights per year, I feel that my opinion on the abysmal failure of the “Harrisburg Jazz and Multi-Cultural Festival” and how it could have been better is clearly both valid and warranted.

Yesterday, I had lunch with an unnamed source who was close to the inner-workings of this years festival and, combined with the information I was given from my source and the knowledge of the industry I hold, the following are my assertions on how the festival failed and how to ensure that never, ever, EVER happens again.

First and foremost-

1. Changing of The Name
Harrisburg’s American Music Fest – despite it’s lackluster calendar- was an annual event that hundreds of thousands of people from the region attended. What’s in a name? Well, simply put, the American Music Fest was called the American Music Fest because it was a pretty good choice of a pretty broad representation of music. No one can argue that the lineup for the previous years American Music Festivals weren’t varied. World, Blues, Gospel, Rock, Country, Bluegrass, Singer/Songwriters were all represented. And if that isn’t “multi-cultural” in itself, then I don’t know what is.

Additionally, I heard from several vendors, attendees and even performers that “Jazz and Multi Cultural Festival” …how do I say this…sounds pretty, um…urban? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but when factoring in the demographics of the greater 200,000 people living in a 30 mile radius, I’d want a festival to have a welcoming name. And really, what was wrong with “American Music Festival”?

What it boils down to – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

2. Mayor Thompson either fired or lost her top fundraisers for Parks and Rec
Gloria Giambalvo and Tina King were a dynamic duo of fundraising awesomeness for the many programs held throughout the year in the city. I don’t have the exact figures, but Gloria and Tina certainly raised considerable amounts of dough for festivals like Kipona and the American Music Fest. And without them on her payroll, who was going to raise the money? Festivals like this are great exposure for corporate contributors and, while there were the usual, low-hanging-fruit like Comcast and Blue Cross, the festival lacked the long-tail funding that it has had in years past.

So, in a nutshell, you get what you pay for. $160,000 isn’t nearly enough to stage a three day, outdoor, riverfront festival designed to bring in a couple hundred thousand attendees.

3. Chuck Schulz- acting director of Parks and Rec- resigned two weeks before the festival.
Word on the street is that the Parks and Rec department whittled down from five or six people in the office to only one – Chuck – and one man simply cannot keep all the plates necessary spinning.

4. There weren’t any local bands on the bill
If you book twenty local acts on a festival like this, they’ll create buzz strong enough to garner the attention of the community. That’s how the Stage on Herr stage at Artsfest succeeded. Regardless of budget or how much (or how little) the acts were getting paid, having a couple dozen local acts playing throughout the weekend equals a couple dozen acts (of four or five people each) telling their entire mailing lists, Facebook friends, Twitter followers and word-of-mouth benefactors where they are going to be.

5. Save the preachers for the churches
I got a text message from a friend at 3:40PM on Saturday the 3rd which said “Main stage had some guy talking about God and the savior. No band. Just prerecorded backing country music. He was inviting members of the 20 people there on stage to share their love of Jesus”.

[facepalm]

Nobody wants to see that at a city-sponsored event. Period.

6. There’s nothing wrong with admitting defeat. In fact, it’s more respectable.
My sources tell me that Linda was urged on multiple occasions to just cancel the event. Save the money and the embarrassment and simply call it off. That would have been the prudent thing to do. But based on the recent departure of the final of her top-level cabinet staff, all signs point to “Linda don’t listen to nobody but Linda…and God” and that’s no way to run a city.

None of these six points contained anything other than realistic, honest-to-goodness analysis. Sure, it’s her first term in office and she’s going to make a few mistakes…but this is getting out of control. It’s time to batten down the hatches and start to admit that she has faults…or the same body who elected her will remove her from office sooner than she can yell “Praise Jesus!”

Addendum one – Read this story about the state-funded Philly Jazz festival and it’s failures.

Yesterday, I wrote about Harrisburg City Council’s latest Resolution – 31-2010 – which is basically a hodgepodge of new rules for city council meetings. It’s a housekeeping measure that happens every so often to keep things current.

What I reported and reacted to was this brief paragraph that was posted on PennLive -

Harrisburg City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to eliminate the public comment at the end of its meetings and allow people only to speak on city business at the beginning. Comments would be limited to three minutes and must be focused on agenda items before council that evening.

The way that reads (and the way that the Patriot reported it) sounds like comments at Council Meetings are limited to ONLY business listed on the agenda. “Comments would be limited to three minutes and must be focused on agenda items before council that evening.”

But after speaking with councilman Brad Koplinski before last night’s Rendall pep-talk, I gained some clarity on what is ACTUALLY happening with the new rules in Council Chambers.

The way the Resolution is worded does allow constituents to speak before council on ANY topic they wish, not just topics on the agenda. And had the Patriot News reporter done his job and reported accurately, there probably wouldn’t have been as much blowback on this- here it is, word for word:

COURTESY OF THE FLOOR
RULE NO. 9 Courtesy of the Floor is the order of business during which residents or taxpayers of the city of Harrisburg may address Council on any matter of concern, official action or deliberation which is or may be before City Council, prior to taking action. A sign-in sheet shall be prominently displayed, and all persons wishing to address Council must print their name, address and telephone number or e-mail address. The President shall set guidelines for such courtesy and has the option of establishing time limits consistent with the number of people who will address the members.

So there it is. It’s not, as the Patriot reported, that council has voted to “limit” public comment….it has voted to merely move public comment from the end of the meeting to the beginning of the meeting.

Furthermore, what citizens and taxpayers may speak about is not limited to agenda items, as clearly dictated in the following sentence from the new Resolution: “Courtesy of the Floor is the order of business during which residents or taxpayers of the city of Harrisburg may address Council on any matter of concern, official action or deliberation which is or may be before City Council, prior to taking action”

So there you have it. We CAN still speak before council on ANY topic that we see fit – but it has to be done at the BEGINNING of the meeting.

Which, in my opinion, is better anyway because now we don’t need to sit through the entire meetings to speak to council about bankruptcy or the Amusement Tax or potholes or prostitutes or dog fighting or whatever other ailments we feel the council needs to hear about.

So, thanks Brad “Cufflinks” Koplinski for clearing that up.