City leaders announce near deal on Harrisburg debt crisis
State-appointed receiver William Lynch held a press conference with Mayor Linda Thompson on Wednesday July 24, 2013 at the City Government Center in Harrisburg to announce that they're close to a deal with all parties involved to resolve the city's debt crisis, and intend to close before year's end. Christine Baker | cbaker@pennlive.com
( Christine Baker | cbaker@pennlive.com)
HARRISBURG – A Commonwealth Court judge issued a flurry of orders late Friday allowing the capital city’s $588 million debt restructuring plan to proceed.
The rulings by Commonwealth Court Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter accepted fourfilings of supplemental exhibits to Harrisburg’s “Strong Plan,” as it’s been called by the Office of the Receiver overseeing the municipality financial recovery.
The additional documents total at least 1,300 pages.
Only a submission of previously released documents had been posted to websites for the receiver's office or Commonwealth Court as of Friday evening.
In response to a request from PennLive Friday, court personnel provided digital copies by email of Leadbetter's decisions granting acceptance of the exhibits and notices filed this week by attorneys for Harrisburg's state-appointed receiver Gen. William Lynch.
The notices contain some, but not all, of the exhibits.
PennLive did, however, obtain some documents not provided or posted by court personnel including the settlement with the city's biggest creditors Dauphin County and Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp.
Lynch's spokesman Cory Angell hasn't responded to questions about when the additional information is expected to be uploaded, or whether still more exhibits are expected to be filed Monday morning and when those would be posted online.
The Harrisburg Authority’s settlement to a lawsuit filed by suburban sewer customers for $25 million in excessive charges is among the new documents included in Friday’s submission.
The authority's board unanimously approved the agreement, which calls for the municipality to pay $11.2 million of the claim during the next five years, Friday after the plaintiffs did so earlier this week.
Some of those sewer customers ceased paying for service in March 2012.
That issue wasn't resolved in the settlement, said The Harrisburg Authority board's Chairman Bill Cluck Friday afternoon.
Cluck said he did not know how much those communities paid, versus what they should have paid, for sewer service since then, but that those figures are being tabulated.
The incinerator sale is scheduled to close Monday, along with the parking transaction.
Pre-closing sessions that started 11 a.m. Friday are expected to continue through the weekend Harrisburg and Lancaster, along with the Philadelphia office of bond attorneys for the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority leasing city garages for the next 40 years.
Preparations have grown increasingly hectic during the past couple weeks as Harrisburg's state-appointed receiver Gen. William Lynch have worked to meet their goal Dec. 23 closure date.
While continuing to negotiate what have been described as relatively minor points of each deal, they've also been monitoring the pricing and sales of more than $400 million worth of bonds needed to finance them.
The Lancaster authority finished pricing last week, but the parking deal's bonds weren't finished until late Tuesday.
That was later than expected, leaving less than six days - including a weekend - to complete what Lynch's consultants have previously described as a process that takes about two weeks.
The compressed timeline seems a fitting end to the deal that's evoked an increasingly apparent sense urgency from Lynch, his team and the deal's stakeholders.
This story was updated to include links and documents
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