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Plan C: Who's going to kill the rats?

YESTERDAY PASSED with no vote in Harrisburg on the city's sales-tax hike. That means layoff letters go out to city workers starting tomorrow.

YESTERDAY PASSED with no vote in Harrisburg on the city's sales-tax hike. That means layoff letters go out to city workers starting tomorrow.

Welcome to Plan C. If you're wondering what life in the city is going to be like . . . well, join the club. We've been wondering that for so long it's hard to believe it's actually going to happen.

Ever since the current version of Plan C was announced in August, we've been balancing skepticism and dread. We'd had no problem believing there's a real crisis, or that something drastic will have to be done to fill the $700 million hole in the five-year plan if Harrisburg doesn't approve an increase in the sales tax. We also have no problem saying that Harrisburg is acting irresponsibly for leaving any major city in today's economy hanging like this.

But close all the libraries? Shut down the parks and rec centers? Surely there had to be a little theater, a little brinkmanship in that play to keep the pressure on Harrisburg. We get it.

Even if Harrisburg doesn't. They seem blissfully impervious to . . . well, pretty much everything. Including the real disaster that faces the city.

So now what?

A city shutting down major services including the courts, with major layoffs of cops and firefighters, is a city in a state of emergency - maybe not according to FEMA, but certainly according to its citizens. And the mayor who initiates that state of emergency - for whatever reason - needs to be talking with citizens about exactly how he's going to lead the city through this catastrophe, and how the city is going to function without those things.

Citizens need to know, despite the fact that police and fire services are being cut, health centers closed, weekly trash pickup curtailed and courts shutting down, that the city is not going to fall apart because the mayor has a strategy for dealing with the consequences. Without that strategy, Plan C is not a plan, it's a to-do list.

The Plan C reality is so ugly that we understand not wanting to have to paint too detailed a picture until absolutely necessary. But the city's political leadership, including City Council (which signed off on this plan), need to answer some tough questions. People need to know more than that their library is closing or more than 900 cops are losing their jobs. How will those things affect them?

How exactly will the city function?

What changes do citizens need to make to adapt to this new reality?

How will Mayor Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey ensure that there won't be an outbreak of crime, especially in those areas where police patrols are being cut?

In fact, how is Ramsey going to do his job?

How will the mayor ensure the safety of citizens with firefighter jobs being cut? What's the deployment strategy?

How will the city ensure the safety of children who use the libraries as after-school havens? What arrangements should parents be making to find alternate locations? Will the school district step in?

Where can people who need access to computers go to look for jobs and write resumes?

How exactly do parks close? Does it mean we can't sit on a bench? Can rec-center basketball courts be used?

If the city goes to every-other-week trash collection, how does City Hall plan to ensure that health issues won't be a problem? Who will be responsible for keeping the streets clean?

Who's going to kill the rats that will be running through people's garbage?

There's still a chance these questions will be moot by the end of tomorrow. But even if they never come to pass, it would be good to know that someone has figured out how to answer them.