IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

City of Harrisburg, Mayor :

Eric Papenfuse and Bruce :

Weber, :

:

Petitioners :

:

 v. : No. 180 M.D. 2020

: Argued: December 8, 2020

Intergovernmental Cooperation :

Authority for Harrisburg, :

:

Respondent :

BEFORE: HONORABLE ANNE E. COVEY, Judge

HONORABLE MICHAEL H. WOJCIK, Judge

HONORABLE ELLEN CEISLER, Judge

OPINION NOT REPORTED

MEMORANDUM OPINION 

BY JUDGE WOJCIK FILED: January 7, 2021

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 

1 The City is a City of the Third Class. See 122 The Pennsylvania Manual 6-5, 6-46, 6-53

(2017); Emert v. Larami Corporation, 200 A.2d 901, 902 n.1 (Pa. 1964) (“Courts will take judicial 

notice of geographical facts such as the county in which a town or city is located.”) (citations 

omitted).
2

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),4the 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 

2 Pa. R.C.P. No. 1029(a)(5) states, “Preliminary objections may be filed by any party to 

any pleading and are limited to the following grounds: . . . (5) lack of capacity to sue[.]” When 

ruling on preliminary objections contesting a party’s standing to initiate and maintain a matter, this 

Court must “accept as true all well-pleaded allegations of material facts as well as all of the 

inferences reasonably deducible from the facts. For preliminary objections to be sustained, it must 

appear with certainty that the law will permit no recovery, and any doubt must be resolved in favor 

of the non-moving party.” Gregory v. Pennsylvania State Police, 160 A.3d 274, 276 (Pa. Cmwlth. 

2017) (citation omitted).

3 Act of October 24, 2018, P.L. 751, 53 P.S. §42201(a). Section 201(a) states, in relevant 

part: “A body corporate and politic to be known as the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority 

for (name of city) is established as a public authority and instrumentality of the Commonwealth 

for each city that shall exercise public powers of the Commonwealth as an agency and 

instrumentality thereof.”

4 Act of July 10, 1987, P.L. 246, as amended, 53 P.S. §§11701.101–11701.712.
3

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 
4

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.
5

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 sessions; and

 c. Such other and further relief as this Honorable Court 

deems just and proper.

Petition for Review at 14.

Based on the allegations and the relief requested, it is clear that the 

Director has standing to initiate this action and prosecute the instant petition for 

review. In a similar case involving the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s 

(Board) exclusion of the Commonwealth’s Treasurer from Board executive sessions 

based on his status as an ex officio member, this Court stated:

Simply on the basis that the Board seeks to preclude 

the Treasurer from participating in deliberative sessions, 
6

the Treasurer has a substantial, direct and immediate 

interest in the outcome of this litigation. If this Court does 

not grant the relief sought by the Treasurer, it appears that 

he will not be permitted to participate in deliberative 

sessions. Accordingly, we hold that the Treasurer does 

have standing to bring the petition for review in this 

matter.

McCord v. Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, 9 A.3d 1216, 1220 (Pa. Cmwlth. 

2010).

However, neither the City nor the Mayor have such a substantial, direct, 

and immediate interest in this matter. It is undisputed that both the City and the 

Mayor are very interested in the actions of the Authority as they will impact City 

operations once the five-year plan and intergovernmental cooperation agreement are 

implemented in the future pursuant to the provisions of Act 124. Nevertheless, these 

future interests do not equate to a present substantial, direct, and immediate interest 

so as to confer standing in the instant matter, which is most properly prosecuted by 

the Director, as only his interest is directly related to his participation in the 

Authority’s executive sessions.

Accordingly, the Authority’s preliminary objections are sustained; the 

City and the Mayor are dismissed as parties to this action; and the Authority is 

directed to file an answer to the Director’s petition for review.

MICHAEL H. WOJCIK, Judge

Judge Crompton did not participate in the decision of this case.
IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

City of Harrisburg, Mayor :

Eric Papenfuse and Bruce :

Weber, :

:

Petitioners :

:

 v. : No. 180 M.D. 2020

: 

Intergovernmental Cooperation :

Authority for Harrisburg, :

:

Respondent :

O R D E R

AND NOW, this 7

th day of January, 2021, the preliminary objections 

of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority for Harrisburg are SUSTAINED; 

the City of Harrisburg and Mayor Eric Papenfuse are DISMISSED as Petitioners; 

and the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority for Harrisburg is directed to file 

an answer within thirty (30) days of the date of this order to the Petition for Review 

filed by Bruce Weber.

__________________________________

MICHAEL H. WOJCIK, Judge