WITF: Harrisburg activist questions plan to lease parking facilities in the city

WITF reports:

The Harrisburg Parking Authority has approved a deal that would lease the city’s parking garages to a private company for 75 years, but the plan also needs to pass through City Council and the authority’s union. As both groups examine the proposal, one community activist is voicing his opposition to the plan. Darnell Williams, a self-described “City Council activist,” says he was for the parking lease before he read the actual document. He says he’s worried the private companies that assume control will take advantage of a clause that allows them to double parking rates twice each year.

Link to WITF.

Link to audio file.

Patriot News: Lease company promises not to expand parking meters in Harrisburg

The Patriot News reports:

The company seeking to lease 8,500 public parking spaces in Harrisburg has no plans to enforce street meters after hours or on the weekends, and it won’t push to expand meters into residential sections of the city.

Jacob Frydman, principal of the New York company seeking the 75-year lease, made the pledge after the prospect of plugging meters around the clock and of meters popping up on residential streets rallied some city residents against the $215 million deal.

“For the record, there is no plan to increase the number of meters or to expand the hours of operation of the meters,” Frydman said this week. “Anyone saying otherwise is simply misinformed.”

And later in the article:

Frydman said the contract clause is necessary because the lease must be a forward-looking document that will cover the next 75 years. He said the face of the city could change dramatically in that period and the contract language would allow the company to request additional meters as the city’s central business district expands.

“Certainly, Harrisburg didn’t look like it does today 75 years ago,” Frydman said. “As the community changes, there may be a time in the next 75 years when the central business district grows and there may be a request to expand the meters. It is not our intent to expand meters into residential or non-business areas.”

Link to The Patriot News

Central Penn Business Journal: Parking union: We were lied to

Central Penn Business Journal reports:

The partners who want to lease Harrisburg’s parking garages made a forceful case in a three-and-a-half-hour meeting with the City Council last night, but the immediate decision makers were not sitting in front of them.

Those decision makers are the members of the Harrisburg Parking Authority union, which can block the $215 million deal under the terms of its contract. Union members occupied the left flank of the hearing room and reiterated their passionate opposition to the lease.

“The HPA employees feel like they’ve been lied to from the beginning of this whole thing,” union leader Gail Lewis told the council.

Employees said they were promised repeatedly that they would remain employed by the authority, but the deal now on the table would put them on the payroll of the leasing partnership. Lewis also said Jacob A. Frydman, a leader of the leasing partnership, originally said he would not fight if the union decided against the deal.

Link to Central Penn Business Journal

WGAL: Mayor Reed, Union At Odds Over Parking Garage Lease

WGAL reports:

“It would be incorrect to tell you people should expect no rate increases, but we’re suggesting maybe we’d raise rates a dollar a day, a dollar an hour and possibly 15% or so on monthly parking,” said Jacob Frydman, a proponent of the lease deal. “That’s certainly not unreasonable.”

If the union opposes this deal, the deal – and everything Reed promised with it – will die.

And because of a clause in the contract, the city would owe the parking company up to $2 million dollars for not going through with the deal.

The first of three public hearings was held Thursday night.

The next public hearing will be June 19th with the final hearing June 30th.

Link to WGAL.

Patriot News: Parking rate hikes would come with city lease deal

The Patriot News reports:

Motorists who park in Harrisburg’s public garages would face a $1 increase in the daily and rates if a private company is successful in leasing the facilities.

Those who pay monthly rates for garage parking would see a $15 to $20 increase if the lease deal closes as proposed by Oct. 15.

Jacob Frydman, principal of the New York company seeking the lease, defended the parking fee increases as “fair and competitive” in lay out his $215 million lease offer before City Council tonight.

Harrisburg’s current public parking rates are $120 monthly, $18 daily, $3 for first 2 hours in garages, and 25 cents for 10 minutes at meters.

Under the lease agreement, the lease company would have the right to double city parking rates twice a year. But Frydman called the contract clause a “legal technicality, not a practical reality.”

“In reality, rates are really controlled by the market,” he said.

Link to the Patriot News.

Patriot News: Harrisburg Council will discuss parking lease

The Patriot News reports:

Is the $215 million offer to lease 8,500 public parking spaces in Harrisburg for 75 years fair? Which law firms and consultants would make money off of the deal? Is it even legal to turn over enforcement of street meters to a private company?

These questions and others will be posed as Harrisburg City Council begins scrutinizing the proposed lease of city parking facilities at the first in a series of public hearings.

Link to The Patriot News.

Central Penn Business Journal: Parking partners hit impasse with union

Central Penn Business Journal reports:

Members of Harrisburg’s parking union are not budging despite the latest round of wooing by a private partnership offering to lease the city’s parking facilities for $215 million.

It’s been more than two weeks since the partnership led by New York City-based real estate investor Jacob A. Frydman mailed individual letters to union employees that promised higher pay and job protections if the deal goes through.

“The members have gotten the letter. We have talked about the letter. They are not interested. And a lot of them just don’t want to talk about it anymore. They’ve made their decision. And that’s basically it,” said Gail Lewis, who leads the union.

The letter was sent after union members voted unanimously not to negotiate with the partnership, Harrisburg Public Parking. Many parking authority employees declined to talk last week when approached by reporters. A handful who did were adamantly opposed to the lease.

Garage attendant Paula Mills had this blistering message for Frydman:

“Get out of Harrisburg,” she said.

Attendant Charles Franklin Jr. had a similar view.

“No one wants this,” he said.

Link to Central Penn Business Journal. 

Central Penn Business Journal: Parking adviser gets cut of deal

Central Penn Business Journal reports:

The financial group that advised the Harrisburg Parking Authority on the proposed $215 million lease of its parking facilities is a stakeholder in the deal.

RBC Capital Markets would be paid a “success fee” of $4.3 million if the lease goes through. If a deal of $200 million or more is approved, RBC makes 2 percent, according to a copy of the firm’s contract that the Business Journal obtained from the parking authority. If a lease valued under $200 million is secured, the company makes 1.5 percent. The contract suggests that RBC would walk away empty-handed if no deal is struck. RBC Capital Markets is a unit of the Royal Bank of Canada, based in Toronto.

Link to Central Penn Business Journal.

Central Penn Business Journal: Parking company to union: Let’s partner

Central Penn Business Journal reports:

The private company that wants to lease the city’s parking facilities yesterday mailed a letter to members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 521b. The union local has publicly opposed the deal.

The letter promised an hourly pay increase of 75 cents, a cash bonus equal to 20 percent of salary and other perks if the union agrees to remove a contract clause blocking the $215 million, 75-year lease.

“We view you as our future partners in this project,” officials of Harrisburg Public Parking wrote. “HPP wants you to have all the facts necessary to make your own independent and informed decision.”

Harrisburg Public Parking promised to keep all union employees on board and to give them first dibs at any new jobs it creates. The company wrote that it would reject a “no-layoff” clause because it needs the ability to cut jobs in response to market conditions, which it said was an unlikely prospect.

Among the benefits promised in the letter:

• A one-time cash bonus equal to 20 percent of 2007 salary, paid by the city’s Harrisburg Parking Authority.
• Paying employees for lunch, which amounts to an average annualraise of almost $1,800.
• Raising the hourly wage by 75 cents.
• A three-year extension of the union’s contract, to the end of 2015.
• Strict limits on subcontracting.

Link to Central Penn Business Journal.

Central Penn Business Journal: Harrisburg City Council to hire independent counsel to review parking deal

Central Penn Business Journal reports:

Harrisburg City Council plans to hire independent counsel to review Mayor Stephen R. Reed’s 75-year lease proposal of the Harrisburg Parking Authority’s parking facilities and meters, council members said last night during their legislative meeting.

The independent counsel should include an attorney and a financial consultant not connected to the city, which can make an unbiased recommendation to the legislative body, said Dan Miller, council vice president.

“The decision cannot be reversed once we make it,” Miller said. “I encourage council to hire independent counsel and hope we are not forced into any artificial timelines.”

After an ordinance was read, which introduced the proposal to council, President Linda D. Thompson placed the ordinance in council’s administration committee. It will be further discussed in committee, she said. The next administration committee meeting has yet to be scheduled, said Beth Ann Gabler, city clerk.

Council is obligated to take a piece of legislation like this and perform the due diligence necessary to make sure the deal is in the best interest of Harrisburg, Thompson said. She said it is the third largest deal that has come before her on council. The deal would deliver $215 million to the city up front but hands parking operations over to an outside company.

Link to Central Penn Business Journal.