Harrisburg's government has ceased to function properly.

Here are the facts: Residents have watched Mayor Wanda R. D. Williams preside over an administration defined by allegations of favoritism, retaliation disputes, missed deadlines, lost money, stalled projects, and basic failures of communication. The latest crisis came from inside City Hall itself. Former communications director Mischelle Moyer was fired after the city said she authored a letter to City Council accusing Mayor Williams of favoritism in hiring and promotions. In that letter, Moyer wrote:

“The Mayor has once again fast-tracked jobs showing favoritism over qualifications. Look over the past management job hires. She has tried to put ex-employees and friends in positions where they are not qualified to fill. Specifically look at the way she is handling the budget manager position. She wants to hire a past finance director through an agency to make is seem legit.”

Moyer also accused officials in the Parks and Recreation Department of “fumbling” $1.9 million and being rewarded with raises. The city has disputed parts of the letter, but the central fact remains: the city’s own communications director raised serious concerns about favoritism, qualifications and City Hall conduct, and was then removed from her job.

That episode now sits beside yet another alarming personnel decision. Harrisburg fired Finance Director Robert Kennick after he opposed several salary increases. Kennick said the raises, whose beneficiaries he did not name, “lacked justification sufficient for me to approve with a clean conscience.” A city government cannot maintain public trust when its finance director says he was fired for refusing to approve questionable raises.

This is not one disgruntled employee; there’s a distinct pattern. This is just the latest example of a city administration repeatedly failing at the basic work of government.

• Under Mayor Williams, Harrisburg forfeited roughly $2.8 million in state parks funding after projects missed deadlines and ran over budget, and the City Council is now exploring how to repay an additional $2.3 million to the state. Reservoir Park remains unfinished. Council President Danielle Hill said it plainly: "The ball was dropped." At the same time, years of federal housing and homelessness funding accumulated before being brought before the City Council.
• The Broad Street Market rebuild has become another monument to City Hall's inability to execute. The market's brick building burned in July 2023. Three years later, the construction schedule now stretches to 2027, while the cost of rebuilding has climbed to $23.7 million — driven upward by repeated change orders, including $2.5 million after a wall collapsed during construction.
• Then came the July 4 storm, which knocked out power to thousands of Harrisburg residents during dangerous summer heat. As a result, trees fell, utility lines came down, and older residents and people with medical needs were left in apartments without air conditioning. Yet for much of the next day, residents received no clear, timely emergency bulletin explaining what help was available, where cooling centers were open, who to call, or what the city was doing to assist vulnerable residents.
• A major pedestrian safety project on State Street— once ranked among America's most dangerous roads — was halted weeks after work began, on Mayor Williams' orders. The city paid a contractor $162,787 for work it was never allowed to perform. The city repeatedly promised a redesign and a path forward. Years later, the work remains unfinished and the plans are shelved.
• Meanwhile, the Williams administration has been consumed by ethics and personnel controversies. The Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission found that Mayor Williams used her office to obtain a city-owned dumpster for personal use at her home without paying the normal fees. The mayor settled the case and agreed to repay the money — then paid more than a month past the deadline, while the case cost city taxpayers nearly $33,000 in legal fees. Former Public Works Director Nate Spriggs sued the city, alleging that Mayor Williams retaliated against him after he refused to promote her son and raised concerns about favoritism. The mayor denied the allegations, and the city admitted no wrongdoing, but Harrisburg ultimately paid $150,000 to settle the lawsuit.
• The mayor then spent months locked in a bitter dispute with the City Council over acting department heads who had not been confirmed. The fight escalated into vetoes, defunded positions, and a lawsuit between branches of our own city government before an agreement was finally reached limiting how long acting directors could serve.

To recap: under the Williams administration, there’s been money awarded and then lost, projects announced and then stalled, directors hired without confidence, directors fired after objecting, employees alleging favoritism, lawsuits settled with taxpayer money, ethics violations, emergency communications that arrive too late, and a City Hall that seems more consumed by internal warfare than public service. At this point, Harrisburg’s government is incapable of performing many of the basic functions residents depend on.

Nearby Steelton Mayor Ciera Dent recently announced her resignation, saying that “communication, governance and different perspectives” had made it difficult to achieve the collaboration she had hoped for, and that part of leadership is knowing when to step aside.

Mayor Williams should show the same humility. She was elected by the voters of Harrisburg, but an election is not a four-year blank check. Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania. Its residents deserve more.

We, the undersigned, call on Mayor Wanda R. D. Williams to resign as Mayor of Harrisburg.