Spirit of Giving Aids City in Need

YORK, Pa. -- When the mail came Monday morning to the weather-beaten limestone City Hall in this troubled Pennsylvania town, secretaries and city workers peeked into the office of Mayor John Brenner and gaped in awe.

Stacked atop a copier were three bulging mounds of letters that stretched U.S. Postal Service rubber bands to the breaking point. The letters contained checks totaling roughly $10,000, many sent by suburban residents heeding the mayor’s desperate plea for a financially strapped city facing a bleak Christmas.

Dozens of checks have been flooding in, earmarked for the “332 Fund,” a bank account hastily set up by city officials last week after Brenner urged York County officials to help the city stave off layoffs and make up for a $1-million budget shortfall -- the equivalent of one $3.32 McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets meal for each of the county’s 302,000 adult residents.

“That would buy a lot of chicken, but we’ve got better things in mind,” said Brenner, astonished at the city’s windfall.

The spate of donations will not single-handedly lift York out of the budgetary chaos that is plaguing cities across the nation this winter. Brenner’s immediate target of $700,000 in extra funds would not be enough to prevent the looming Dec. 31 layoffs of nine police officers and six firefighters. But the outpouring of aid represents a start in stemming further layoffs in this county seat, whose heritage stretches back to the post-Revolutionary War era. And the wave of goodwill has cemented bonds across urban borders at a time of the year when many of the city’s 40,000 residents were expecting the worst.

York’s burst of civic-minded charity also comes as no small sign of reassurance after a hard year of torment. Brenner’s predecessor, Charlie Robertson, was tried for murder in the fall along with two other men in the slaying of Lillie Belle Allen, a black woman gunned down during the city’s devastating 1969 race riots. Although the others were convicted in October, Robertson was acquitted -- but only after he was assailed as a bigot and York’s police department was publicly embarrassed by its failure to prevent Allen’s death and properly investigate the case.

Robertson’s trial had no effect on the city’s financial troubles, because the costs were borne by county prosecutors and police. But Brenner and other city officials say the city’s financial plight was worsened by a series of ill-conceived expenditures and personnel moves that Robertson made during his long term as mayor.

The bitterness of the Robertson era lingered as late as last week, when the two remaining defendants in the Allen case were finally sentenced. But by then, many York residents were already turning their attention to the city’s financial woes. The first checks were trickling in, growing to a tide that reached $25,000 by Christmas Eve.

“It’s nice to have some good news for a change,” Brenner said.

Suddenly, suburban families who have cocooned themselves off from York’s blighted core for years have suddenly been showing up at City Hall’s massive oak doors, dropping off $3.32 in cash and checks as happily as if they were tossing coins into a Salvation Army kettle.

“We just felt we had to give something back, because we come down here so much,” said Mike Weiler, 36, a computer designer who braved stiff winds with his wife and two children to drop off their donation.

Weiler said he was giving a $6.64 check because his son, Mitchell, 13, and daughter, Kassia, 11, often use a city library and lunch at an old city marketplace downtown.

Weiler’s wife, Deborah, 40, who waits tables at a Pizza Hut, brought $5 from her tip jar. “I think the city could use it more than I could,” she said.

That became gloomily evident this month, after Brenner and York financial officials had spent months trying to devise a strategy to ward off the same nightmarish budget woes that have afflicted thousands of American cities pinched by the sluggish economy.

Flailing to avoid imposing a 40% hike in the city’s property tax rate, York officials concluded that they would have to lay off up to 18 police officers and 14 firefighters. After several grim internal meetings, Brenner decided that there was a third option -- asking for charity.

Brenner, elected this year, was in a bind. “We didn’t want the city to get an image of begging for help,” he said. “But we had to be realistic. We needed help.”

City officials began meeting with dozens of tax-exempt religious groups and social agencies, asking them to donate half of what their typical tax burden would be if they did not have exempt status. Brenner said their aid could provide as much as $350,000.

But the city needs $720,000 to keep the layoffs at current levels -- and $1.2 million to stave off the layoffs altogether. So Brenner again pleaded for help, asking York County to make up the city’s shortfall. Grasping for a way to grab the attention of county officials, Brenner picked up on a comment he remembered from an in-house meeting.

“We knew there were about 300,000 people in the county and we wanted to make the case that if each of them contributed the same amount, it would give us the $1 million we needed. And someone said: ‘Hey, that’s the price of a McNuggets meal.’ ”

The line fell flat with York County’s commissioners, who rejected the idea. Within weeks, city employees began receiving layoff notices: They would be gone Dec. 31.

But a movement was quietly gathering. Local newspaper columnists and talk show hosts picked up the drumbeat. By last weekend, the movement was in full swing. Insurance executives and bank presidents were calling Brenner at home, promising $3.32 contributions on behalf of their employees.

Many of the checks flooding into City Hall came with notes attached. Some explained they were written on behalf of spouses, children and pets, or for companies that have business in York.

“Here is our $3.32,” read one letter. “I would hate to see someone laid off at this time of year.” Another donor dreamily recalled tearoom lunches and bags of peanuts bought from city vendors: “I appreciate what the city has to offer.”

Not all York County residents are so magnanimous. While York is the county seat, the two jurisdictions have separate budgets. York’s tax base is weak and “flat-lined,” Brenner admits, while York County’s tax base has been growing steadily with new housing and commercial development. As York’s population has declined for years, many affluent families have fled to York County to ward off the perils of city life.

York Council President Joseph Musso was stunned when one suburban acquaintance sneered that city officials “ ‘Should go out with buckets like those homeless guys.’ That’s the kind of attitude we’re up against.”

Mark Hodges, a transient holding a milk jug for donations to the homeless near the York County Courthouse, said he could handle the competition from the city.

“The city should have seen this coming,” Hodges said. “But hey, if they need it, they need it.”

He shook his milk jug, rattling his donations until a passing businessman tossed several coins inside. “A city’s like any man, you know? Both got to have money to survive. And this is the season to keep it coming.”