The petition states that the city is “in imminent jeopardy through six pending legal actions by creditors” who are associated with the city’s failed trash incinerator project, which has saddled the city with debts that are more than quadruple its annual budget. Meeting those legal demands would “substantially interrupt the city’s ability to provide health or safety services to its citizens,” the petition said. The amount of debt, the petition states, “is vastly beyond the ability of the city to pay.”

Chapter 9, the part of American bankruptcy code that allows municipalities to restructure their debts, is relatively rare, but a number of cities have been wrestling with it recently. Central Falls, R.I., filed for Chapter 9 this summer, and Jefferson County, Ala., moved to avoid it this month by agreeing with bondholders in a reduction of $3 billion in sewer debt. It is still unclear whether Harrisburg will actually go down that path. Bankruptcy experts say it is onerous and most cities try to avoid it.

But supporters argue that putting the city on the path to bankruptcy would give it more leverage over its creditors, increasing the city’s chances for writing down some of its debt.

The move exasperated the business community. “Just when you think it couldn’t get any more ridiculous, it did,” said David E. Black, president of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber of Commerce and Capital Region Economic Development Corporation. “It’s kind of like Congress enacting a law without the president’s signature.”

The filing comes a week before the State Senate is set to consider a bill, already passed by the House, that would authorize Governor Corbett to assume responsibility for most of the city’s finances, something that some members of the Council had been trying to prevent. Under that possibility, the city would be placed in a kind of financial receivership and the governor would choose a manager to steer the process.