Pennsylvania’s Senate on Tuesday postponed its hearing on the Harrisburg incinerator bond financings, originally set for Aug. 29.
No new date has been set, according to Lee Derr, a director of the local government committee and counsel for state Sen. John Eichelberger, R-Blair Township, said the committee, which Eichelberger chairs, has requested “additional information from some folks.”
Pressed further, Derr said: “The same folks who did not cooperate with the [Harrisburg Authority] audit report.”
The authority, the public-works agency that owns the incinerator, released a forensic audit in January that blamed multiple parties for cost overruns in the incinerator retrofit project that left Pennsylvania’s capital city more than $300 million in debt and under state receivership.
At the time, the authority said several parties would not cooperate with the report. Its scope was subject to “the extent to which persons and entities voluntarily cooperated,” the authority said.
David Unkovic resigned as receiver in late March, citing “political and ethical crosswinds” in a handwritten resignation letter. He has also asked for federal investigations into the bond financings, as have a majority of City Council members.
Eichelberger, in a video interview earlier this month with the Roxbury News web site, said the investigation would be wide-ranging and could last several days.
“We have a lot of issues to look at, a lot of issues. Did somebody break the laws and just ignore them, and if so, what are the penalties for these folks? And are the laws subject to interpretation?” Eichelberger said.
