Harrisburg is in a real bad place with it's budget battle in recent weeks. Loans. Layoffs. A Capital City conundrum. And while it is against company policy to use this blog as a forum for my own personal opinion on this or any political situation, I can't help but make one observation about city council and the mayor.
Like some children, they don't play well with others.
Sure, that blanket statement doesn't apply to ALL of them. But it's clear to this reporter that anything resembling a working relationship will not happen soon. You can cut the tension in the air at these recent meetings with a licorice whip. People are getting fired (layed off is not a euphemism I'm particularly fond of) and each political body wants to blame the other.
The mayor says it is council's failure to pass first a $14 million loan and now a $10.5 loan that has resulted in cutbacks. He says the problems are real and they can't be ignored or wished away.
The most vocal of the city councilmembers says it's the mayor's mismanagement of the budget that brought them to this point in the first place, and that borrowing money only leads to more debt.
I am in no position to offer advice to either side. I'm sure each argument contains some truth. It seems beyond belief to suppose both council and the mayor are lying about their reasoning for their actions. It would be easy to say they should learn to trust one another more. But trust doesn't happen by spontaneous combustion. Trust is a two-way street that takes time to build. And, unfortunately, time is of the essence.
I've begun to think of the two sides as a couple of gunslingers staring one another down. Neither one budging. Each with their own convictions. A town's fate caught in the middle.
But there are no good guys or bad guys here. And there are no winners. Only losers: the 32 city employees who were let go last week, the 25-plus police officers who are rumored to be axed during the next two rounds of layoffs, and, I fear, a city full of people who could lose faith in the entire system as a result.
(The preceding blog in no way, shape or form, represents the viewpoint of CBS 21 or ClearChannel Television.)
