By: George Feigley
Cofounder
Steven Reed is the mayor of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's
Unfriendly City and capital of the putrefying state. We strongly
urge that he be prosecuted and sued.
Like other opportunists, Mayor Reed pretends to be a Democrat. In reality, he's a selfish Republican in sheep's clothing. He should be prosecuted for a variety of what appear to be felonies and sued to recover some of the fortune he's misused. He belongs in prison with the rest of the political crooks. The national news whines about graft amounting to 90 or a hundred thousand dollars. With Reed, the amounts involved appear to exceed $8,000,000.00. That's organized crime or a giant scale! Through political and legal manipulation, Mister Reed contrived to form a so-called "authority," a kind of municipal corporation. He packed it with his cronies. They wouldn't interfere with his draining off the coffers. Among other things, the "authority" was supposed to collect trash and operate a decrepit and mismanaged incinerator. The "authority" borrowed a lot of money. In addition, to having their trash hauled away, citizens had to pay huge fees to the authority. Mr. Reed manipulated it so that he got his greedy hands on the money paid to the authority. Nobody seems to know how many millions of dollars are actually involved. Nobody seems to know how much of the money went to Reed personally and/or to his cronies and other crooks. A few million dollars of the money seems to have been diverted from it's legally intended use. It was squandered on a truly silly "Civil War Museum." Harrisburg had very little to do with the Civil War. The "museum" looses about $2000 a day. The real reason for the "museum" seems to have been to allow Mister Reed to personally buy great numbers of artifacts and antiques. Many of them are of dubious authenticity. It seems to have been (or to still be) a fetish of Mister Reed to spend money and act like a rich collector. I've seen some of the photographs from the "museum." They are clearly NOT what they are purported to be. To me it seems that Mayor Reed is afflicted with some bizarre malady. He seems unable to control his need to spend money for trash and "collectibles." I'm sure some clever psychologist has a scientific term for it. I just call it "reed-o-phrenie," the need to spend other people's trash money. It seems to make him feel important - a "Trump Syndrome." The Civil War Museum is such a great flop, a real money trap, that Steven Reed decided to squander millions more on a - get this, now, Wild West Museum! Nothing in Harrisburg or in the Harrisburg Area; nothing in Pennsylvania, for that matter, has anything to do with the "Wild West." I suppose that Mayor Reed's going through a mid-life crises and hopes to recover his fabled childhood. His obsession with cowboys and Indians may be a neurotic throwback to watching westerns as a kid. Who knows? Nobody seems to know exactly how much public money Mayor Reed squandered on "Wild West" dreck. There seems to be very few accurate receipts and almost no accounting of where the money went or for what. Again, many of the purchases are of very dubious authenticity. All were greatly overpriced. To add to the travesty, Mister Reed sent people, mostly city cops, out West to pickup his treasures. They went at public expense, of course. Mayor Reed wasted at least $7,900,000.00 of public money on just the "Wild West" part of his mania. It may actually be a lot more. As I say, nobody seems to know. Reed isn't telling. Thanks to Mister Reed's misappropriations, Harrisburg went broke. The incinerator went bankrupt. More money had to be borrowed. Taxes and fees had to be greatly raised. The public outcry from Harrisburg's complacent sheep finally roiled. Mister Reed was compelled to sell his precious "Wild West" collection. It was auctioned. The auction realized 1.35 million for what Reed had spent 7.9 million! He lost over 6 and a half million dollars of public money. Mayor Steven Reed should be prosecuted and sued. If this isn't a crime, what is?
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any of our material.
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