The Lancaster County Drug & Alcohol Commission helps provide counseling and rehabilitation services to those with life-disrupting addictions to substances like heroin or amphetamines.

At their quarterly Advisory Board meeting on April 28, Rick Kastner, Executive Director of the Lancaster County Drug & Alcohol Commission, explained, “A lot of our clients, they live on the streets; they don’t have any of the records that we have at home in our safety deposit boxes.”

“They don’t have a permanent address and can’t get government documents [like birth certificates and social security cards]… and so it’s just this endless cycle of things getting in their way,” added Dr. Lisa Koogle, Chair of the Board.

“It can be really daunting,” said Kastner. “Because you simply can’t go in and say, I’m Rick Kastner, give me a [Medicaid] card. You have to prove that I AM Rick Kastner and this is where I was born and you have to prove that.”

He added that “with the need to know who’s who, with Homeland Security and everything, getting a valid ID card is a lot harder than it was before 2001.”

“And also most jobs nowadays, you have to bring in your birth certificate or driver’s license or something,” Kastner said. “Because they don’t want to hire someone and then find out that they’re an illegal alien or a terrorist or whatever.”

“If you don’t have those legal documents to go grab and use, you’re stuck. It’s like you’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” he concluded.

Kastner explained how his agency tries to assist clients, many of whom are homeless, to establish their identity. He cited one case where a social worker voluntarily accompanied a client to Harrisburg and guided the client through various agencies in order to establish positive identity so that the person could report to a new job.

In a rather uneventful meeting, Wednesday, the County Commissioners approved the expenditure of funds on two infrastructure projects.

The first involves repair to two of the County’s bridges: the Auction Road Concrete Arch Bridge in Rapho and Penn Townships near the Manheim Auto Auction, and the Weavers Mill Bridge in Caenarvon Township.

The Weavers Mill Bridge had been temporarily repaired after being struck by a tractor trailer last year, said Acting County Engineer Keith Harner.

The cost of repairing the Weavers Mill bridge is $74,500, which is being covered completely by insurance, Harner said.

The replacement of the Auction Road bridge is costing $965,854.50, which comes out of “Liquid Fuels Funds” from the State.

The Commissioners also approved state funding for “roof greening” experiments, including $46,000 dollars to two organizations for consulting services, and $94,976 to the National Novelty Brush Company, whose new building at 505 East Fulton Street will feature green roofs.

Roof greening is the practice of covering the roof or exterior of a building with plant life so as to increase energy efficiency and reduce storm runoff.

Senior County Environmental Planner Mary Gattis said that green roofs “reduce the urban heat island effect,” by absorbing solar radiation rather than re-radiating it as hard surfaces do, allowing buildings to stay cooler in the summer.

She also said that green roofs”capture the runoff of 90% of storm events,” absorbing as much as “1.8 million gallons a year.”

More than 35 people crammed into Mount Joy’s small Borough Hall, Tuesday night, for a chance to air their questions and comments regarding the Government Study Commission’s Draft of a Home Rule Charter (available here).

Among its more significant changes, the Charter proposes to:
> increase the number of Commissioners to 5, with staggered terms and with 1 seat guaranteed to the minority political party
> create the position of a County Executive to oversee the administrative functions of County government
> establish an Office of Management and Budget
> establish a politically balanced Board of Elections
> consolidate certain row offices, and> allow citizens to place, by collection of a thousand signatures (“initiative”), resolutions before the Commissioners for a vote.

One point of division among the audience (and the Commission) concerned whether citizens, after collecting signatures, should have the ability to place questions on the ballot. Unlike most initiative processes, the draft Charter does not call for a public vote.

Currently, the Charter only provides the electorate with the ability to place resolutions before the Commissioners for a definitive up or down vote (inaction results in passage by default).

Carl Moyer of Lancaster Township passionately voiced his opinion that the populace at large is prone to emotional appeals and pointed out that, as written, the citizens can sufficiently build momentum for an issue “by demanding a vote, and then a re-vote, and then another re-vote.”

“I read newspapers and magazines from the State of Vermont. I have a daughter living in California. It is a disaster,” Moyer said.

Randy Goodling of Elizabethtown disagreed.

“A charter without a strong and powerful initiative and referendum section is a very weak charter,” he said, adding that he would like to see the powers of recall elections, votes of no confidence, and citizen ballot initiatives added.

In response to questioning from NewsLanc as to whether the position of Commissioner would become a part-time one, like that of school board members and council members, the Study Commission indicated that the Charter does not specifically address that matter, deferring to more of a “whatever it takes” approach.

Salaries of the commissioners remain the same no matter how many hours they work.

Government Study Commission members Bill Saylor and James Miller both indicated that they fully expect that the task of the commissioners would remain essentially “full time.”

Miller said that the workload will remain comparable while the concentration changes to a “more global functioning,” including conferring with the Planning Commission and the municipalities on matters of importance.

Saylor said, “To me, the role of the County Commissioner is not diminished at all by this Charter.”

Challenged by commission member Sam Mecum, Goodling conceded that he thinks ballot initiatives should be limited to certain subjects. Goodling said that he believes decisions including the sale of Conestoga View and the expenditure of County funds on the Convention Center should have been subjected to a public vote. “Initiative and referendum are really the backbone of what a Home Rule Charter is,” he said.

Commission member James Miller expressed doubt that citizens will ever vote for a tax increase on the ballot, no matter how noble the purpose. Miller said that “the Founding Fathers established us as a republic, not a democracy,” arguing that town hall meetings do not produce sound decisions, especially on complex matters.

Commission member Heidi Wheaton favors citizen ballot initiative. She cited a study by a University of Southern California professor on citizen initiatives and fiscal gridlock concluding that they “do not appear to be a significant obstacle to balancing the state budget in California.”

The study Wheaton cited also noted that 24 states have citizen ballot initiative. She said she considers ballot initiative necessary for Lancaster County to control its escalating level of debt.

Commission Chairwoman Carol Phillips asked for a show of hands among those present as to who favors a strengthened section on citizen initiative, including permitting citizens the ability to place at least certain kinds of questions on the ballot. All but about 10 of those present raised their hands.

Phillips promised that the Commission will reconsider the subject of initiative, and other citizen input, before its vote on the Home Rule Charter on May 6.

The next and final public hearing before the May 6 vote is this Saturday, May 3, at 9 a.m. at the Garden Spot Village in New Holland.

At their Tuesday worksession, the County Commissioners announced that they had met in executive session “regarding personnel matters” preceding the meeting.

In response to questioning from NewsLanc as to whether “any progress has been made, or at least a established a process for, finding Mr. Esterbrook’s replacement,” Commissioner Chairman Dennis Stuckey said with a wry smile, “that’s why we met in executive session,” declining to elaborate further.

The Commissioners repeatedly refused to comment even on whether a search process of any kind is going forward.

Said Commissioner Scott Martin, “When we’re ready to – we know exactly what direction we’re headed, we’ll be sure to let everybody know.”

This has lead to speculation by some that Mr. Esterbrook was nudged out for personal or political reasons in favor of a hand-selected successor.

In other news, the County is appointing the law firm of Barley & Snyder to serve as special counsel at a rate of $260/hour to represent the County in the ongoing litigation related to 150 North Queen Street.

It was recently reported – and County Solicitor Don LeFever confirmed – that Dr. Ira Trocki, the former owner of the building, is appealing a lower court’s decision, which awarded him $7.8 million in addition to the $8.3 million the County had initially paid for the building.

Trocki believes that the building was worth $21 million when the County took it by eminent domain.

In other matters, the County is expected to authorize the expenditure of $965,854.50 to replace the Auction Road concrete arch bridge in Penn and Rapho Townships, and $74,500 to repair the Weavers Mill covered wooden bridge in Caernarvon Township.

The County is also expected to approve state funding for experimental “roof greening.” Roof greening is the practice of covering the roof of a building with plant life in order to increase energy efficiency and reduce runoff.

The National Novelty Brush Company at 505 East Fulton Street in Lancaster will be participating in the experiment.

In the first of a series of educational presentations about County government, there will be a presentation on what the Register of Wills does at Wednesday’s public Commissioners meeting, which is held at 9:15 am on the fifth floor of the County Courthouse.

The Wednesday 9:15 AM Commissioner Meeting is a permanent time and date in my book. It is so very evident that Scott Martin is running the show using Dennis Stuckey as the front.

Craig Lehman enjoys being the martyr so to speak.

All three answered yes when asked if Dale High contributed to their campaign and Scott Martin has his sights on Senator Rick Santorum’s old job.

Martin was the ring leader for getting rid of Mark Esterbrook. I will bet the house on that as well!

Although there exists no financial relationship between NewsLanc and the Lancaster Post, NewsLanc “paper boys” handed out the Post with a NewsLanc newsletter insert at the Central Market on Saturday morning.

Response was very gratifying, as six hundred copies were quickly distributed.

Hopefully Post readers will encourage merchants to permit the free distribution of the Post on their premises.

A few asked why NewsLanc was helping to distribute the Post. Our answer: Lancaster desperately needs competition in news reporting and commentary. The more, the better!

Please take a look at the Wall Street Journal Friday and Saturday of this week.

Cities are bagging their downtown projects due to economic conditions and four cities are cited.

Saturday’s WSJ article was about Wachovia Bank. They are being investigated for two problems: First for targeting seniors and now for laundering drug monies from Mexico and Columbia.

After reading this article, one will want to take any money they have with Wachovia and run. If you are a borrower, no problem. The bank is in deep doo doo.

Editor’s response:

Wachovia is too big a bank to be allowed to fail. The worse case scenario is that it will be merged into another institution. The bonds will continue to be guaranteed, although the credit rating might go from AA to something less. Or they may even go up! But probably neither will happen.

More likely, Wachovia will cut back on staff and expansion. Its stock will drop in price. But it will stay in business and ultimately fully recover.

Yes, the bonds were offered to other banks who declined to guarantee them. Wachovia took a giant risk, and they may have done it as a quid pro quo for some benefits elsewhere. But the latter is speculation.

The following is excerpted from www.blackboxvoting.org:

The entire premise of technology-based elections is based on support for the “verifiable voting” concept. But before designing technology for elections, we must first determine how it will empower citizen controls, enabling the counting of votes in public rather than counting them in secret. We do not consent to any form of secret vote counting, administered and controlled by government insiders and their vendors.

Any system that forces the citizenry to trust government insiders to count their votes represents a change in the original design of this nation. The United States of America was designed to uphold the right of citizen sovereignty over the government. In addition to hiding the counting of votes from public view, computer-counted elections hide the chain of custody of the vote data. Citizens are never allowed to view the original input in order to compare it to the output, and are relegated to trusting circumstantial evidence controlled by insiders. Such a system is, in fact, a transfer of power…

The core of elections was and again must return to the principle of citizen sovereignty over government. Elections can never be based on a requirement to trust government insiders and their vendors to count our votes, nor can elections be dependent on experts to tell the citizenry that the system is okay, nor should the detailed mechanics of elections be impossible for the average citizen to understand. Models which depend on experts and insiders create centralized control, and remove all control from government’s rightful owners – the citizens. This represents a violation of the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence.

Many of us can recall times when McCaskey High School was a strong contender in county and state-wide sports. But not now.

On the positive side, McCaskey youths continue to excel in boys’ and girls’ basketball with 22 and 5 and 17 and 11 win / loss records respectively during the winter of 2008. Students also compete well in boys’ track with a record of 8 and 1 and in cross country with boys 13 and 8 and girls 10 and 11.

Football was 3 and 7, off from past years. Boys’ wrestling was 5 and 8.

But, deplorably, the boys’ soccer team went 1 and 17 while the girls’ were 6 and 10 with 2 ties.

Girls’ volleyball was 3 and 14. Girls’ tennis 1 and 13. Girls’ field hockey 2 and 16.

Boys’ baseball 4 and 16. Girls’ softball 5 and 14.

Boys’ swimming was 1 and 10; girls’, 0 and 11.

When it comes to soccer, observers have noted the lack of drills and lessons at the middle school level and the sole reliance on scrimmaging. Spectators at practices fretted that the kids were learning no skills and simply practicing their mistakes.

Moreover, a failure to post the starting date for soccer practice on the McCaskey web site prevented most of the youngsters from attending practice until school started.

It is not enough for coaches to be well-meaning and good players. They need to be versed in teaching skills and team play.

To this end, several soccer coaches from the School District of Lancaster attended a training clinic by ONE on ONE Soccer. McCaskey boosters funded the session. However, an offer by the boosters for additional training and coaching assistance was declined.

Inner-city youngsters have enough problems with self-esteem without belonging to teams that continuously lose. The school district owes more to its youngsters than 1 and 17 and 1 and 13 records. It isn’t the kids. It’s the athletic program!

NewsLanc will continue to explore the issue of the breakdown of the SD of L sports program. We are not suggesting lack of zeal or commitment; rather a failure to teach the teachers and possible reluctance of coaches to learn.