OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

MAYOR'S BIOGRAPHY

Mayor Stephen R. Reed

Stephen R. Reed was elected Mayor and Chief Executive Officer of the City of Harrisburg at the age of 32, taking office in 1982 and having been reelected six times since. In his past five-reelection bids, he was the unprecedented nominee of both political parties. He is the longest serving mayor in Harrisburg history and is currently the longest-tenured mayor of any city in Pennsylvania. Prior to taking the helm of government in Pennsylvania’s Capital City, he served three terms as a member of the state’s House of Representatives (1974-1980) and he also served as a Dauphin County Commissioner (1980-1981). He was both the youngest legislator and youngest commissioner ever elected in Dauphin County and the second youngest mayor in City history. He was born August 9, 1949, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He is a 1967 graduate of Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg and he attended historic Dickinson College in nearby Carlisle, PA.

Mayor Reed has initiated a wide range of programs and policies aimed at stimulating business and residential programs throughout Harrisburg. As a result, over three decades of decline in the City’s economy have been reversed with major net gains in the number of businesses, private sector jobs and livable homes, with major increases, after 25 years of sharp decline, in property values. The highest level of private investment in City history has now been realized in the period since 1982, amounting to over $4.4 billion in new investment in Harrisburg. The number of businesses on the City tax rolls has increased 454%, and property values have risen eight-fold from $212 million in 1981 to over $1.7 billion today. Programs he initiated have resulted in substantial reductions in the crime, fire, unemployment and vacant property rates.

Mayor Reed has also focused on restoring the City’s financial health, resulting in the City’s credit rating, non-existent in 1981, being restored and upgraded. Today the City is able to routinely enter the public finance market with credit endorsements at an AAA rating, the highest in the U.S. market. His financial programs and policies have earned Harrisburg the nation’s top two financial awards, the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award and the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting, making Harrisburg one of 26 out of the 2,460 municipalities in the state to do so.

Some of Mayor Reed’s work was also recognized when the National Civic League twice selected Harrisburg out of hundreds of communities nationwide as an All-America City. MONEY Magazine, in recommending that readers invest in communities where property values would increase the fastest, wrote that Harrisburg was one of the top three cities in the nation where property values would increase the most over the next ten years. KIPLINGER Magazine rated Harrisburg as being in the top five best places to live for retirees. Harrisburg was also selected by the U. S. Conference of Mayors as one of eight profile cities in the nation to showcase economic development success.

Programs and projects undertaken by Mayor Reed have further resulted in Harrisburg being selected for: The Outstanding Community of Pennsylvania, which is the highest community award in the state, from the state Chamber of Business and Industry; the Samuel E. Cobb Award of Excellence from the state Department of Environmental Resources, the state’s highest award for forestry and conservation; the Tree City USA for twenty-one consecutive years (1987 to present), the nation’s highest conservation award; the First Place National Pretreatment Award from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, the highest national award for water pollution control; upgraded three times by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for success in floodplain and emergency management, becoming the only Pennsylvania community to be upgraded and resulting in a 15% reduction in property owners’ flood insurance premiums; and National Police Accreditation, the highest recognition in law enforcement in the United States (of over 21,000 police agencies nationwide, less than 500 have ever achieved Accreditation).

Additional honors bestowed upon the city during Mayor Reed’s leadership include: the Government Finance Officers Association award for the 20th consecutive year, the nation’s highest award for financial reporting and accounting; the Director’s Award of Recognition from the Partnership for Safe Water; Country Home Magazine named Harrisburg in the top 25 green cities of America; Street and Smith deemed the Harrisburg Region as the second best minor league sports market in the nation; the International Festivals and Events Association conferred gold and bronze awards to the city for special event publications and memorabilia; Harrisburg Magazine in 2007 chose the city’s Kipona Festival as the region’s best festival, City Island as the region’s best picnic site, and the city’s fireworks displays as the best entertainment in the region.

Mayor Reed has undertaken hundreds of projects in the City, with benefit to both the City and region, including development of the Harrisburg waterfront where Commerce Bank Park, the Skyline Sports Complex, the RiverSide Village Park, three Marinas, the John Harris Trading Post and numerous other facilities have been built, bringing well over 15 million people to Harrisburg City Island since 1987. The Mayor brought professional baseball, football, soccer and basketball franchises to Harrisburg during his tenure, and under his comprehensive Parks Improvement Program, more than $80 million has been invested in the City’s parks and open spaces. The Mayor has also created and implemented world-class tourism and visitor attractions, including The National Civil War Museum, the Pennsylvania National Fire Museum, the Hilton Hotel and Towers, the Crowne Plaza Hotel, the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts, the Susquehanna Art Museum, Danzante Performing Arts Center, the Harrisburg University for Science and Technology, and many, many more.

Mayor Reed has focused extensive resources and effort upon the reconstruction of city neighborhoods blighted by decades of previous abuse and decline. Over 5,500 owner-occupied housing units have been newly constructed or restored, along with a significant expansion in the number of affordable housing units based in the city. New city renewal programs enable residents to make basic systems repairs to their homes, fix up their facades, redo sidewalks and even start their own businesses. His commercial and retail development efforts have resulted in thousands of new jobs for city residents, and Harrisburg today has its lowest unemployment rate in city history.

Mayor Reed has established new programs and policies to solve serious financial problems that once threatened the very existence of the City’s pension system and its daily operating budget. He serves on the Boards of the Capital Region Economic Development Corporation, the Whitaker Center for the Science and the Arts, Penn State University - Harrisburg, the Harrisburg University for Science and Technology, and many others.

A long-time proponent of regional cooperation, Mayor Reed spearheaded Central Pennsylvania’s first-ever regional coalition of governments, the South Central Assembly for Effective Governance, for which he serves as co-founder and Chairman. He was also one of the first proponents of a light rail commuter transit line to alleviate midstate traffic congestion, and he also advocates the creation of a multi-county regional asset district to better serve midstate tourism and recreational facilities and attractions. He has also served as the catalyst for international trade and exchange programs with such nations as Mexico, India, Colombia and China.

Mayor Reed is the author of a variety of publications including a crime prevention manual and a crime victim and witness handbook, both of which have been used across the nation. His public safety leadership has resulted in substantial improvements in fire and police operations. The Harrisburg Fire Bureau is the largest professional firefighting force in Central Pennsylvania and through the Mayor’s efforts has realized a 76% decrease in the fire rate. Elements of the Bureau comprise both the state and federal Urban Search and Rescue Teams, amongst the most elite disaster response agencies in the nation, for which the city serves as base and administrator.

Mayor Reed’s efforts to combat crime have also realized improvements, with the city crime rate down 51%, more than 150 city blocks covered by organized Crime Watch groups, and the largest professional police force in the midstate. At Reed’s direction, the city police force has been held to the highest standards in the U.S. and is one of the longest-tenured recipients of National Police Accreditation, one of only 600 police agencies in the U.S. to be so named. In 2005, the Commission on Law Enforcement Accreditation bestowed its prestigious Flagship Agency award upon the city, making it a model for cities around the world in professional law enforcement operations and administration – an honor which remains in place today.

As a result of his leadership, Harrisburg’s emergency response operations and capabilities regularly receive rave reviews from state and federal evaluators, and have often realized the saving of lives and properties during floods, blizzards and other natural and manmade disasters. Mayor Reed also serves on a federally appointed review panel for judges being considered for appointment to the federal bench in Pennsylvania’s Middle District Court.

In 2000, the Pennsylvania State Legislature undertook the unprecedented action of removing control of the declining Harrisburg School District from its elected school board and placing it solely in Mayor Reed’s hands, making him the first mayor in the state to be tasked with also running a school district.

Then considered the worst-run district in the state, Reed’s efforts in just eight years of leadership have already realized increases in the graduation rate – up 116%; number of graduates going on to higher education – up 383%; enrollment – up 39%; amongst many other positive indicators. The dropout rate has dramatically declined from 8.4% to 4.8% and the teenage pregnancy rate is down 35%. Reed’s focus on early childhood education has resulted in the city’s first-ever daily pre-school programs for children aged three to five, thus better preparing them for elementary school and lifetimes of learning. Thanks to Mayor Reed’s vision, Harrisburg is currently one of the only cities in the nation that has full educational opportunities for students from age three to post-graduate studies.

The Mayor also undertook the establishment of the city-based Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, the first new university to be formed in the state in over 100 years. The University focuses on the STEM skills of science, technology, engineering and math, and is innovatively linked to business incubator and workforce development programs as well as the Harrisburg School District’s Science and Technology High School, or Sci-Tech High, which prepares local students for higher education in the mathematics and science fields.