{"id":3304,"date":"2013-05-07T10:36:15","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T14:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=3304"},"modified":"2013-05-07T12:19:39","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T16:19:39","slug":"harrisburg-just-keeps-getting-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/harrisburg-just-keeps-getting-worse.html","title":{"rendered":"Harrisburg just keeps getting worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nAfter Harrisburg, PA\r\n\r\ndefaulted on its incinerator bonds<\/a>,\r\nstarted\r\n\r\nselling off pieces of itself<\/a>, and\r\n\r\nthreatened bankruptcy<\/a>\r\n(twice<\/a>),\r\nnow the SEC is suing the city for fraud.\r\n<\/p>

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nJames O’Toole wrote for CNN Money 6 May 2013,\r\n\r\nSEC sues financially troubled Harrisburg<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe Securities and Exchange Commission has sued the city of\r\nHarrisburg for fraud, alleging that officials in the Pennsylvania\r\ncapital misled the public about the city’s financial condition.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe SEC says the misleading statements came in the city’s 2009\r\nbudget report, its annual and mid-year financial statements and a\r\n“State of the City” address. The case marks the first time the SEC\r\nhas charged a municipality with misleading investors in statements\r\nmade outside of securities documents.\r\n<\/p>

\r\nHarrisburg has been mired in\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nfinancial difficulties for years. The\r\nsituation dates back to over a decade ago, when the city decided to\r\nupgrade a trash incinerator. Harrisburg was counting on revenue from\r\nthe project to cover the cost of financing it, but instead, it left\r\nthe city with over $300 million in debt.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“In an information vacuum caused by Harrisburg’s failure to provide\r\naccurate information about its deteriorating financial condition,\r\nmunicipal investors had to rely on other public statements\r\nmisrepresenting city finances,” the SEC’s George Canellos said in a\r\nstatement.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nLack of transparency can land a local government in a heap of trouble.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\nBut at least aren’t we glad we\r\n\r\ndidn’t get saddled with a biomass incinerator<\/a>?\r\nAt least we’ve only got\r\n\r\nsome land site<\/a> silly\r\n\r\nlawsuit<\/a> to deal with.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

And we got\r\n\r\na smallish solar installation<\/a>\r\nwhich is\r\n\r\nnow being expanded to a megawatt<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n plus\r\n\r\nanother megawatt at DuPont<\/a>.\r\nWhat say we\r\n\r\ngo deeper into solar for jobs and profit<\/a>?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Harrisburg, PA defaulted on its incinerator bonds, started selling off pieces of itself, and threatened bankruptcy (twice), now the SEC is suing the city for fraud. James O’Toole wrote for CNN Money 6 May 2013, SEC sues financially troubled Harrisburg, The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued the city of Harrisburg for fraud, alleging […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[120,14,70,23,24,3],"tags":[8738,728,714,8704,8728,8701,4242,4131,8702,12,7,2568,8700,6],"class_list":["post-3304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biomass","category-economy","category-ethics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-transparency","tag-biomass","tag-bonds","tag-debt","tag-economy","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-harrisburg","tag-incinerator","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-sec","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-Ri","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3304"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3324,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304\/revisions\/3324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}