Harrisburg City Council Calls Out Governor Corbett

Statement released by Harrisburg City Council Majority:

HARRISBURG CITY COUNCIL CONDEMNS CORBETT ADMINISTRATION’S DISPLAY OF WILLFUL IGNORANCE

Raises Serious Questions as to Who the Administration is Trying to Protect and Why  

HARRISBURG: Although the Corbett Administration failed to support its own receiver’s call for a criminal investigation into  possible criminal  wrongdoing involved with the Harrisburg incinerator financing fiasco, it continues to insist that the City of Harrisburg move forward with the flawed recovery plan already rejected by City Council. This display of willful ignorance raises serious questions as to who the Administration is trying to protect and why.  Had Tom Corbett shown this little interest in ferreting out criminal behavior in the legislative corruption scandal he might not be Governor today.

Spokespersons for the Governor as well as the  Department of Community and Economic Development indicate that the Administration is unwilling to call for a moratorium on the sale of city assets since no criminal charges have yet been filed regarding incinerator financing.  Their position steadfastly ignores allegations of serious corruption and calls for a criminal probe that could lead to the very charges being referenced.  By moving forward without answers to serious questions the Administration almost certainly  guarantees that what happened in the past will stay in the past: that no one will be held accountable for either the corruption or the criminal activity.

That view is confirmed by Lancaster Waste Authority chief executive officer James D. Warner  as reported by The Patriot-News.  “If we complete transaction and become owner, all of the history behind (the incinerator) will be just that.”  It will be history. No harm, no foul. And that’s not fair in any sense of the word.

The residents of Harrisburg deserve to know the truth even if the Corbett Administration has no interest in pursuing it. This City Council will keep on fighting on their behalf. No matter how hard the participants in the financing deals and their allies in the Corbett Administration try to bury the past under mounds of trash.