{"id":355,"date":"2011-10-20T23:05:24","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T23:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/?p=355"},"modified":"2012-09-12T06:40:18","modified_gmt":"2012-09-12T06:40:18","slug":"governor-of-pennsylvania-signs-senate-bill-1151-declaring-fiscal-emergency-and-appoint-a-receiver-for-the-city-of-harrisburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/governor-of-pennsylvania-signs-senate-bill-1151-declaring-fiscal-emergency-and-appoint-a-receiver-for-the-city-of-harrisburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor of Pennsylvania Signs Senate Bill 1151 Declaring Fiscal Emergency and Appoint a Receiver for the City of Harrisburg"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ryan C. Wood<\/a><\/p>\n

On October 20, 2011, the Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, signed Senate Bill 1151 authorizing the declaration of a fiscal emergency and install a receiver to attempt to develop a recovery plan for the City of Harrisburg.\u00a0 The news release from the Governor\u2019s office provides the Governor signed the bill to help enforce the state\u2019s law that when a municipal city fails to adopt a fiscal recovery plan the state will intervene.\u00a0 Wait a second; the City of Harrisburg filed a Chapter 9 bankruptcy case to do just that, implement a plan of reorganization to lead to solvency.\u00a0 It is the Governor\u2019s and State of Pennsylvania\u2019s position that the filing of the Chapter 9 bankruptcy case was in violation of state law and Harrisburg could not file the bankruptcy petition in the first place.\u00a0 It seems they are backing up that position by installing a receiver pursuant to Pennsylvania State Law, Act 47 and Act 26.\u00a0 Act 47 allows a municipality such as Harrisburg to develop a fiscal recovery plan that is acceptable to the secretary of Department of Community and Economic Development.\u00a0 The plan can be accepted and then the takeover and installation of a receiver is stopped.\u00a0 The question is whether a plan of reorganization under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code is a possible way to satisfy this provision of Act 47?\u00a0 We will find out on November 23, 2011.<\/p>\n

The Harrisburg Chapter 9 bankruptcy case is also facing a request for dismissal from the Mayor of Harrisburg, the Honorable Linda D. Thompson.\u00a0 The Mayor is arguing that the person who signed the bankruptcy petition is an unauthorized council member who lacks the authority to file bankruptcy for the city.\u00a0 The Mayor is arguing that the only person who is authorized is her as the executive branch of the government of Harrisburg.<\/p>\n

The Bankruptcy Court has entered an order setting the date of the hearing on whether this bankruptcy case should be dismissed for November 23, 2011, at 9:30 a.m.\u00a0 All parties seeking to dismissal of this case must file and serve their briefs by October 28, 2011.\u00a0 Responses to the briefs requesting dismissal are due by November 7, 2011.\u00a0 The actual hearing will be held on November 23, 2011, at 9:30 AM in Bankruptcy Courtroom One, Third Floor, Ronald Reagan Federal Building, 228 Walnut Street, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.\u00a0 It will be interesting how the court rules and if the court agrees with both the Mayor of Harrisburg and the State of Pennsylvania regarding their state law and the authority granted to the Mayor.<\/p>\n

For more information about bankruptcy you may find contact our Foster City bankruptcy lawyer<\/a> for answers to your questions.\u00a0 You may also contact our bankruptcy lawyer in Redwood city<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On October 20, 2011, the Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, signed Senate Bill 1151 authorizing the declaration of a fiscal emergency and install a receiver to attempt to develop a recovery plan for the City of Pennsylvania. The news release from the Governor\u2019s office provides the Governor signed the bill to help enforce the state\u2019s law that when a municipal city fails to adopt a fiscal recovery plan the state will intervene. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":721,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions\/721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}