City of Harrisburg v. Intergovernmental Cooperation Auth. for Harrisburg

247 A.3d 1183 (Table)

CITY OF HARRISBURG, Mayor Eric Papenfuse and Bruce Weber, Petitioners

v.INTERGOVERNMENTAL COOPERATION AUTHORITY FOR HARRISBURG, Respondent

No. 180 M.D. 2020

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued: December 8, 2020

Filed: January 7, 2021

MEMORANDUM OPINION BY JUDGE WOJCIK

Before the Court are the preliminary objections of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority for Harrisburg (Authority) to the petition for review filed in our original jurisdiction by the City of Harrisburg (City),¹ Mayor Eric Papenfuse (Mayor), and Bruce Weber (Director), the City's Director of Financial Management, pursuant to the Declaratory Judgments Act (DJA), 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 7531 - 7541. The petition for review seeks a declaration that Director, as an ex officio member, has the right to participate fully in the Authority's executive sessions, and an injunction to enjoin the Authority from excluding and precluding Director from participating in all of the Authority's public and executive session meetings. The Authority preliminarily objects to the City's and the Mayor's standing to initiate and prosecute this matter.² We sustain the preliminary objections, dismiss the City and the Mayor as parties to this action, and direct the Authority to file an answer to the Director's petition for review.

The relevant facts of this case as gleaned from the petition for review may be summarized as follows. The Authority was created pursuant to Section 201(a) of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authorities Act for Cities of the Third Class (Act 124),³ which was enacted to help Cities of the Third Class, such as the City, to achieve financial stability and exit distressed municipality status under the Municipalities Financial Recovery Act (Act 47),⁴ the statute enacted to assist such financially distressed municipalities. See Section 706(2) of Act 124, 53 P.S. § 42706(2) ("The distressed status of a city under [Act 47] shall terminate when an intergovernmental cooperation agreement is entered into by the city and an authority under section 203(d)."). As stated in Section 203(a) of Act 124, the Pennsylvania General Assembly created the Authority "for the purpose, without limitation[,] ... of assisting the assisted city in solving its budgetary and financial problems." 53 P.S. § 42203(a). To this end, Section 203(b)(1) outlines the extensive powers conferred upon the Authority with respect to the City's finances "[t]o assist the assisted city in achieving financial stability in any manner consistent with the purposes and powers described by this act." 53 P.S. § 42203(b)(1). The primary goal of the Authority is to negotiate and finalize a five-year financial recovery plan and an intergovernmental cooperation agreement with the City. See, e.g. , Sections 203(b), 209, and 210 of Act 124, 53 P.S. §§ 42203(b), 42209, 42210.

Additionally, Section 202(a)(1)(vi) of Act 124 provides, in pertinent part:

[T]he director of finance of an assisted city shall serve as [an] ex officio member[ ] of the board. The ex officio members may not vote and shall not be counted for purposes of establishing a quorum. [T]he director of finance of an assisted city may designate in writing a representative of [his] respective office[ ] to attend meetings of the board on [his] behalf.

53 P.S. § 42202(a)(1)(vi). Thus, by statute, the Director is an ex officio member of the Authority.

Although the Director, or his designee, has attended monthly Authority board meetings, on at least three occasions, the Authority has excluded the Director from executive sessions in spite of his stated intention to attend. See Petition for Review ¶¶22-25. The Mayor has also asked the Authority to permit the Director to participate in the executive sessions, yet the Authority has denied these requests without explanation and has not provided the Director with summaries or minutes from the executive sessions that he has been prevented from attending. See id. ¶¶26-31. As a result, the City, the Mayor, and the Director filed the instant petition for review seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to compel the Authority to permit the Director to attend and participate in the Authority's executive sessions.

In ruling on the Authority's preliminary objections, we initially note that our Supreme Court has explained:

In Pennsylvania, the doctrine of standing at issue in this matter is a prudential, judicially created principle designed to winnow out litigants who have no direct interest in a judicial matter. For standing to exist, the underlying controversy must be real and concrete, such that the party initiating the legal action has, in fact, been "aggrieved." As this Court explained[,] "the core concept [of standing] is that a person who is not adversely affected in any way by the matter he seeks to challenge is not ‘aggrieved’ thereby and has no standing to obtain a judicial resolution to his challenge." A party is aggrieved for purposes of establishing standing when the party has a "substantial, direct and immediate interest" in the outcome of litigation. A party's interest is substantial when it surpasses the interest of all citizens in procuring obedience to the law; it is direct when the asserted violation shares a causal connection with the alleged harm; finally, a party's interest is immediate when the causal connection with the alleged harm is neither remote nor speculative.

Thus, while the purpose of the [DJA] is to "settle and to afford relief from uncertainty and insecurity with respect to rights, status, and other legal relations, and is to be liberally construed and administered," the availability of declaratory relief is limited by certain justiciability concerns. 42 Pa. C.S. § 7541(a). In order to sustain an action under the [DJA], a plaintiff must allege an interest which is direct, substantial and immediate, and must demonstrate the existence of a real or actual controversy, as the courts of this Commonwealth are generally proscribed from rendering decisions in the abstract or issuing purely advisory opinions.

Office of Governor v. Donohue , 98 A.3d 1223, 1229 (Pa. 2014) (citations omitted).

In Count I of the petition for review, the following injunctive relief is requested:

a. An injunction, permanently enjoining the [Authority] from taking any action to prohibit, impede, discourage or otherwise prevent [the Director] or his designee from fully participating in all public and executive sessions of the [Authority]; and

b. Such other further relief as this Honorable Court deems just and proper.

Petition for Review at 11-12.

In Count II of the petition for review, the following declaratory relief is requested:

a. Judgment declaring that the [Authority] has violated Act 124[’s] enabling legislation by precluding [the Director] from attending executive sessions;

b. Judgment declaring that the [Authority] has no lawful authority to exclude [the Director] from the [Authority's] executive

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