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Welcome back to Route Fifty’s Public Finance Update! I’m Liz Farmer and this is the second installment of my series on Chester, Pennsylvania’s bankruptcy. (Click here to read Part I.)
As with most—if not all—municipal bankruptcies, there’s a lot of blame being thrown around. But in Chester’s case, sentiments on all sides appear particularly caustic. So much so that for nearly two years, the receiver’s team has been working out of a sparsely furnished office a half-block away from City Hall. In courtroom testimony earlier this month, receiver Michael Doweary described being called the “N-word” during a verbal altercation with Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland. Doweary, meanwhile, has accused city officials of nepotism and fiscal malfeasance, if not outright corruption.
ROUTE FIFTY
by LIZ FARMER
JANUARY 24, 2023