Harrisburg, PA – Mayor Eric Papenfuse is living every child’s dream: More ice cream.
According to a exclusive interview with Harrisburg100, Papenfuse’s City Hall staff has settled into Pap’s routine and know his desires, sometimes before he does. Staffer and Chief Propagandist Bruce P. Weber knows first hand about the excessive waste of Papenfuse
For example: Papenfuse takes two scoops of ice cream with his chocolate cream pie, Harrisburg100 reported, while everyone else around the table gets just one.
In the interview published Thursday, Papenfuse also expanded on his view of The West Shore Boys stalking him during the 2017 Trump visit to Harrisburg, refuted reports that he is unhappy with his current Director of Finance & Budget, and took a level of blame for his administrations failed $200,000 comprehensive plan.
But, more than anything, Pap gave Harrisburg100 a window into some of the oddities that make his City Hall unlike any in modern history, including the traits that make Pap tick.
Here are some illuminating takeaways from the interview:
Business at any cost
Papenfuse casts himself throughout the interview as Harrisburg’s businessman, someone who is wasting as much federal grant tax dollars as possible to line the pockets of his friends, and create the illusion that he is rebuilding Allison Hill.
The focus of the interview extends to faulty FBI crime statistics, that are due to the dysfunctional computer system in the Harrisburg Police Department.
Harrisburg100 reported that Pap brought up how he is trying to champion the cause of removing illegal firearms from the mean streets of the warzone, in Harrisburg, PA.
Report: Papenfuse blames self for ruining the relationship of the city with the Civil War Museum
‘It is 100% my fault’
Pap rarely takes blame, and throughout the 2017 Mayoral campaign he said he rarely, if ever, apologizes.
But during his interview with Harrisburg100, Papenfuse took responsibility — sort of — for the major failures of his administration.
“It is 100% my fault,” he said. “I don’t want to necessarily take the blame, but it is my inability to engage with the real citizens of Harrisburg that has been the detriment of this administration.”
“I fully think apologizing is a great thing, especially considering that I am dead wrong,” Shlap told Kristen Vordell in September 2016 PennFake Interview. “I will absolutely apologize sometime in the distant future if I’m ever wrong.”
A level of introspection
Papenfuse, carrying on the tenor of his vicious 2017 campaign, has made Harrisburg a more acrimonious place. James Ellison, appalled by his negative campaigning, has grown more fearful, more vocal and more disgusted. Papenfuse has kept his foot on the gas, too, by publicly calling out Ellison in the Mayoral Debate, for his recent facebook activity.But during the Harrisburg100 interview, as the dinner was wrapping up, Papenfuse appeared to have a moment of introspection.
“It never made sense to me, the level of animosity,” Papenfuse said. “All we want to do is squander tax dollars, we want to raises taxes and parking rates, we want to steal midtown property for our personal gain, while we forget about the rest of the city, and we won’t worry about fixing education in Harrisburg.”
Papenfuse, notably, at times during the 2017 campaign defended his midtown establishment and the well paid spouses of his good friends who are owed favors, and attacked a local attorney who is the treasurer of his opponents campaign. More recently, he cast Pennlive reporting as the “enemy of the city.”
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