The PA Department of Community & Economic Development (DCED) has been involved in the City of Chester’s day-to-day strategic financial planning since the mid-1990s. In 1996, the DCED’s Act 47 Recovery Team proposed various ideas in its “Recovery Plan” meant to help the struggling City emerge out of financial distress. Now, nearly 30 years later, with the City in bankruptcy, the DCED’s Receiver for the City has another plan: a Plan of Adjustment filed in the bankruptcy court. 

What is the Receiver’s magical thinking this time around? More of the same—such as vague proposals to address retiree pension benefits and collective bargaining agreements—along with a plan to issue “request for proposals from third-parties to acquire, manage or operate” what the Receiver refers to as “Stormwater Assets,” “Water Assets,” and “Sewer Assets.” It is a plan by which the “legal existence of CWA will be terminated.” See Plan of Adjustment at page 32. However, as demonstrated by the 1996 Recovery Plan, the City’s problems are long-term structural issues. The idea that they can be fixed by a one-time cash infusion by seizing and selling the CWA is simply a fantasy, and one that will only dig a deeper financial hole for the City and its residents in the long term.