An earthquake of a Magnitude 3.4 was felt in parts of Lancaster County shortly after midnight on Saturday, December 27th.

A report from the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program can be found here.

The following observations were made from the Library System of Lancaster County “Operating Expenses, Years Ended December 31, 2007 and 2006.”

(NewsLanc has requested a copy of the proposed 2009 budget, will pose questions to System Executive Director Susan Hauer, and report further at a later date.)

Salary increases: Page 5 of the County funding request lists several assumptions made, among them that “salaries reflect a 2.3% inrease from 2008, based on coast of living indexes reposted by the U.S. government”. Also, one new position will be added in the IT department for a developer.

Business information budget: Appears the cost of a database was shifted to the District (the 15 independent libraries) –which frees up funds for the System.

Expenses: Per Supplemental Information in the next to last page of the audit report, you can see some expense detail for 2006-07, some of which might raise eyebrows: I would want to see the 2008 Budget figures and ask what these expenditures were for rather than outright blasting them.

a) Conferences and continuing education $21,124 ($10,410 in 2006)
b) Board expenses $3,470 ($6,223 in 2006)
c) Parking & milage $4,146 ($11,570 in 2006)
d) Dues & memberships $4,550 ($4,292 in 2006)
e) Furniture & equipment $73,692 ($82,188 in 2006)
f ) Maintenance – Equipment $16,176 ($18,301 in 2006)
g) Contracted services – other $32,216 ($18,028 in 2006)
h) Library Programs $64,970 (175,161 in 2006) —this directly benefits member libraries

In addition, the System is located in an expensive first class off building located at 1866 Colonial Village Lane, Suite 107, Lancaster, PA 17601, which is a questionable use of funds considering its non-public functions.

Executive Director Susan Hauer reportedly is compensated more than the mayor of Lancaster and county commissioners.

Concerns about System spending does not negate the equal or even more important problems of under funding of libraries by muncipality, county and state and the problems of inefficency and governance due to the fragmentation of System and District into 16 pieces rather than creating a unified libary county authority as is common elsewhere.

At their Dec. 17th meeting, County Commissioners Scott Martin assured a member of the audience that the new vendor’s prices for the prisoners’ commissary are comparable with those at Walgreen’s and other local merchants.

NewsLanc obtained a list of the prices charged prisoners for their sundry items and arranged for comparisons at local stores.

Most prices charged do not seem to be unreasonable. Some of the prices are less than the prices at other local public institutions. For example, items 1204, 1205 and 1208, priced at $.65 to inmates, are priced at $.75 in the vending machine of a local government break room.

Inmates must pay $1.05 for most of the candy bars. Local convenience stores and pharmacies are charging $.80 to about $1.00.

Some of the personal hygiene items are far more expensive at the prison. For example, Vo5 shampoo costs an inmate $4.05 but can be purchased at Rite Aid for $1.29. Both are 15 oz. bottles.

It is difficult to compare prices of food items since the price list does not indicate brand names or quantities. The price for a six packs of donuts is similar to what is charged at Turkey Hill or Sheetz.

The county will receive 37% of revenue from the sale of sundries. In turn, the money is contributed to an inmate fund for the purchase of items to benefit the prison population.

CONTRIBUTOR:

“I have been warning the convention center authority that Interstate having a contract with the authority and the PSP can’t serve both well since the authority is EXPECTING a deficit.

“Interstate will be tempted to PUSH expenses to the public side of the project and lower expenses to the PRIVATE side of the project. If it’s toilet paper or wine, the public’s property could be shifted to the hotel side any time of the day or night. There’s nothing to stop it and frankly all the financial reward to do just that.”

NewsLanc:

The position above reminds us of the charge of conflict of interest leveled by convention center sponsors against PKF Consultants when they performed the 2006 feasibility study. We believe that institutions such as PKF and Interstate Hotels and Resorts are far too large and have too much at stake to compromise their standards to placate local interests.

Also the current Convention Center Board under Art Morris and with some exceptionally knowledgeable and devoted members will serve the public, not special interests.

Based on our experience in the hospitality industry, we believe that S. Dale High was correct in insisting that there be a common sales and marketing entity for both the convention center and the Marriott hotel.

It isn’t only the Lancaster Newspapers that are becoming thinner, month by month.

Published reports indicate that even the advertising revenue for the vaunted New York Times fell about 21% in November as compared to a year earlier. This is after a 16% drop in October.

Classified ad revenue, one of the most profitable segment of newspapers, fell by a full third!

The one bright spots was an increase in the Internet as a contributor to revenue from unde 11% to over 12%, month to comparable month. The question is whether Internet revenue can ever grow sufficiently to maintain the print medium over the decade to come.

Few enterprises can experience such drops in revenue and remain profitable. Lancaster can no longer look to the Steinman enterprises to continue to altruisticly and financially take the lead.

Hopefully Lancaster General Hospital, our last relatively public spirited and highly profitable institution, will step up to fill the leadership and funding gap.

An article in today’s Intelligencer Journal (not available online) provides a link to the State website that has information about the new Pennsylvania Open Records law.

For anyone who files “Right-To-Know” requests, this site provides important information.

http://openrecords.state.pa.us/

“The Journal Register is the old Ingersol group… They were facing backruptcy in the early 1990s because they had so much debt in junk bonds.

“These people are ruthless, don’t give a damn about newspapers other than to make money. It is sad that they were able to acquire so many publications. The debt from those acquisitions is now their albatross.

“I suspect we’ll see some other groups that have had major acquisitions in the last decade facing the same problems. The shrinking of classified ads, the end of real estate and auto ads (some of their biggest costomers) turned those investments sour.”

“I wonder if Lancaster Newspapers is not already in default mode, already assuming that its readers are getting the important news from other sources.

“The front page of today’s New Era has a huge story — ‘Extra! Extra! Read all about it, folks!’ — about people who wear shorts year-round. I am relieved that Cindy Stauffer’s byline lists her as a staff writer, because if this is the best that the New Era could come up with for their front and center news today, it would be troubling to think that Ms. Stauffer thinks of herself as an investigative reporter.

“As for ‘Nation & World’ coverage, one-third of the page is ads. There is no coverage of Caley Anthony, no coverage of the N.Y. Senate seat, and only a slim short piece making reference to Illinois Gov. Blagojovich.

“Looks like if we want any real national or international news, we’d better be online, watching cable new, or buying a Big City Paper.

“And you wonder why newspapers are dying???”

Presumably the City went to the great expense of installing parking meters throughout downtown for two reasons:

1) To ration scarce parking space, in some locations to half an hour, others an hour, and others two hours.

2) To raise revenue. (Just this year the City raised the cost from $0.25 for 15 minutes to $0.25 for 12 minutes to general annoyance.)

So why during the busiest time of the year, the Christmas shopping season, has the administration put hoods over the meters?

If it makes sense to provide free parking for two hours and forego the revenue in December, wouldn’t two hours free parking make even more sense the rest of the year when merchants are eager to attract customers?

Limiting street parking to two hours effectively prevents all day parking. (‘Meter Maids’ mark a tire with chalk.) Free parking makes downtown competitive with the suburban shopping centers.

Let’s keep the bags or get rid of the meters.

“It is not unusual to have concrete floors and rented carpeting. Carpeting only makes sense when you know what the core events are going to be. It needs to be replaced every five years.

“However, many of the large venues have a mix of floor finishes. At Long Beach, for instance, most of the halls do not have carpet. At the Gaylord houses, they all are carpeted. But if it is carpeted, you are charged for floor protective plastic, billed by the foot. After all, you’d be bringing in scissors jacks, genies, and forklifts.

“In Anaheim, for example, you rent the carpet that is rolled out to order where you want it. As per my notes a long time ago, it is the rental of pipe and Drape, staging (and carpeting) and catering that makes the money, not the venue. The CC should not own the carpet, it would be brought in…besides, there is wildly insufficient storage for all the staging, drapery, carpeting, seating risers, etc. Rod Shumaker will get all the business.”