Media response by Koplinski:

"With her renewed commitment to the ill conceived recovery plan Mayor Linda Thompson has once again demonstrated a failure to protect the interests of Harrisburg in favor of protecting those that helped create the financial crisis the city faces. She is endorsing the sale of assets before a full accounting of responsibility for the incinerator fiasco, thus absolving the County, the bond deal participants and the bond insurer from any possible liability. Her support of the recovery plan as written ignores former receiver David Unkovic's appeal for more concessions as well as his admonition about political pressure to accept it as is.

I and most of my colleagues continue to believe that many questions remain unanswered and that any proposed remedy must follow a satisfactory conclusion to an investigation. Some of those questions center around the time Mayor Thompson was President of City Council and include questions about people close to her Administration. That may explain her anxiety to move forward without looking back.

But, city taxpayers shouldn't be sold down the river to protect the reputations of powerful political players or the money men with whom they cavort. Mayor Thompson should worry less about protecting her sponsors and advisors and more about the ordinary citizens who are being asked to pay for deals in which they had no part. The state's proposal is less of a plan than it is a plot to force the city to divest assets while at the same time protecting the guilty."

Photo/Natalie cake