At today’s County Commissioners’ Work Session, Mary Stehman, Chief Clerk/Registrar of the Lancaster County Election Office met with Commissioners Stuckey and Martin to discuss the “Adoption of Election Night Policy and Procedures.” The procedures are largely the same as those currently in place, but are being mildly adjusted for the upcoming elections in 2010.

The procedures, as usual, will involve the delivery of all general returns (including “blue supply bags, electronic data cards, keys to optical scanner tubs, and any other items returned by the local election board”) to County employees at the Lancaster County Board of Elections:

“The employees shall ensure that all items are recieved. The electronic data cards will be transferred to the first floor office, or designated space, and members of Board by ‘runners’ who are also employees of the County.” Then “the officials necessary for conducting the tabulation shall receive the electronic data cards for each local election district. They shall insert the electronic data cards into the tabulation computer, and shall produce consolidated returns for the County of Lancaster.”

Periodically, consolidated returns will be posted on the County Website. The media will not have access to the floor or designated space where returns are counted, but will be provided a designated area to cover the event.

The only altered element in the Election Night Policy is that the Election Office will no longer provide computer hardware to the visiting media. Press and media representatives will, however, be allowed to use their own PC with a wireless internet connection.

Yesterday morning (April 27) NewsLanc’s publisher accompanied Senator Arlen Specter on a drive from Lancaster to Harrisburg and, except for the impression that he had had the most collegial conversation of their almost 60 year acquaintance, Specter’s change of party affiliation came as no less of a surprise today than to others…and probably moreso.

During the ride, Specter gave a ten minute interview to the Fox network.  It covered several important issues and Specter showed command of language and cogency of thought.

Some local and national matters were briefly discussed, but Specter seemed unusually reflective, asking “Robert, what makes you so intense?” and reciprocating as candidly in kind.

Specter expressed the same reason for running for reelection today as he confided yesterday:  He believes his seniority and experience positions him to bring about much good for the country.

Some may regret, as does NewsLanc’s publisher, that he did not make the change in 2002 when his influence on important events might have altered the course of history and better served the nation.

In any case, Specter hasn’t so much changed as reverted, since his initial party affiliation was as a Democrat.

We wish him good health and God speed!

“Up the Ridge” is an award-winning documentary about the United States prison INDUSTRY which moves HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts – such as moving people from North Philly to Lancaster. More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year and the federal government $5 billion more.

Although, the Prison Board has run willingly into the arms of Carter, Goble, Lee, I hope that some of our citizens will consider how foolish it is to construct a new prison. It is well-known and completely researched that prisons are a failure. They do not rehabilitate. The prisons do great and costly harm to citizens. The new prisons have been defined as instruments of torture in and of themselves. The prison industry results in the suicides of not only inmates; but many prison employees as well.

We did not need to pay R. Kimball $100,000 to tell us how big a prison we need. This resolved nothing. Noone was rehabilitated. The tax money that is collected from blacks, Hispanics and women is going to pay for this new prison  construction. The $55 billion dollars a YEAR in public funds is going into the pockets of white men; and making them incredibly rich. Five states — Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware — now spend as much as or more on corrections as on higher education. Locally, Maryland is near the top, spending 74 cents on corrections for every dollar it spends on higher education. Virginia spends 60 cents on the dollar.

The projected $169.4M for a new Lancaster County Prison would go directly into the white hands of Carter, Goble, Lee. CGL has grown from performing $5,000 planning studies to one of its most recent contracts, construction of justice, law enforcement and jail facilities in Wake County, N.C., with estimated construction costs of $450 million. There are no people of color on the CGL website http://www.cartergoblelee.com/about/history.php; and I have not seen any black employees of CGL at Prison Board meetings.

America is still making money from black people. But instead of slavery and plantations, we incarcerate them in maximum security prisons. We can take a quick look at the completely disproportionate ratio of black contractors and black employees of Lancaster County Prison compared with the number of black inmates.

And, where the plantation owner used to whip his slaves, we now have high-tech TASERs and EBID Electronic Bodily Immobilization Devices. These are the same devices used to stun animals for meat-processing. They have resulted in a number of deaths of African-Americans. Most recently, on April 14, 2009, Cora Mitchell’s 16-year-old son, Robert Mitchell, who was a special education student, panicked when police pulled over a car driven by his friend and he jumped out of the car and ran. He was killed by the police with a TASER. The friend’s car was pulled over for an unexpired licenseplate.  Robert Mitchell did not have any warrants; and his body did not have any contraband on it.

Oh, but this could not happen in Lancaster! I have witnessed mentally ill, mentally retarded black women beaten by sadistic guards in Lancaster County Prison. The guards have used these devices on women, who have committed minor crimes such as disorderly conduct at the unemployment office.

Can we stop to look at who is the monster in the picture? Jim Laughman, who is a public servant of Lancaster County, and is paid to care for our mentally ill citizens; and who states in an official report about a prison suicide that Luis Villafane “chose to seek suicide.” A person who suffers from a disease characterized by suicidal ideation turns to Lancaster County MH/MR and Primecare for help with his illness; and dies a couple days later. Jim Laughman and Primecare deny responsibility; and blame the death on the patient. There are real monsters in Lancaster County Prison; but they are not the inmates.

There are now two good handouts that can help draw more business (trade & tourism) into Lancaster if they are widely circulated (including on the city, county and tourist websites).

One is the 168 page “One Lancaster, the essential guide to Downtown Lancaster” with a comprehensive pictoral and verbal description of many of Lancaster’s highpoints for visitors and residents alike.

The other is a handy pocket-sized brochure briefly listing arts & culture, shopping, dining, learning, heritage; faith, services, living; lodging, city events and two easy to use local maps.

This is part of the positive approach toward making both Lancaster and the Convention Center a success.

Let’s stop talking down about our city and county.

“The Audit Bureau of Circulations reports that circulation for 395 of the country’s biggest papers dropped 7.1 percent in the six months through March, compared to the same period a year earlier…

Advertisers too have abandoned newspapers for the Internet. Papers actually have been hurt more by the plunge in ads than the drop in circulation.” April 28, 2009

WATCHDOG: This underscores the wisdom, albeit somewhat belated, of the merger of the Intelligencer Journal and the New Era. Except when the publisher’s other business interests or chronyism get in the way (most recently re TRRAAC), The Lancaster Newspapers serve our community well, and sometimes exceptionally.

I sent your article about the severe funding cuts received by the Lancaster County Drug and Alcohol Commission (LCDAC) to a retired employee of the LCDAC.  In response, she wrote: “This Commission is also the source of the major funding for the Council’s D&A programs in the schools.  But this truly is tragic that many will die waiting to get treatment or enter rehab.  If one has insurance, especially employer insurance, there will be no problem getting help.  But if one is poor and needs taxpa yer funding, good luck.  Very sad.”

An April 19 Sunday News article entitled, “Slots in the city? Don’t bet on it” gave voice to the view held by some observers that the future of the Convention Center may eventually include the introduction of slot machines. Unfortunately, the article, though fairly extensive in its investigation, did not draw statements from the most important voices on the matter. So NewsLanc set out to obtain those statements, once and for all.

After bringing the question to the County Commissioners (drawing an unequivocal “no”), we contacted High Industries and Lancaster Newspapers Inc. (LNP), both members of the Penn Square Partners, for their response to the question of slots. Both inquiries yielded a rather equivocal non-answer: Neither High nor LNP would directly deny the possibility of slot machines being introduced in the Convention Center.

NewsLanc first spoke with Harold Miller, President and CEO of LNP. When posed with the question of whether LNP would ever support the introduction of slots, Miller would not directly answer, simply stating, “There is no basis of fact to anything that you’re saying.” NewsLanc’s reporter then asked if “no basis of fact” can be taken to mean that the possibility of incorporating slot machines has never been on the table. Miller maintained that he would not provide any such statement, insinuating that the question was itself so absurd that it did not merit an answer.

NewsLanc then brought the same question to a representative of High Industries, who also declined to comment. The High representative referred NewsLanc to published statements by Josh Nowak, “representative of Interstate Hotels, the professional management company hired by the integrated facility’s ownership entities.” In the aforementioned Sunday News article, Nowak is quoted as saying, “There will be no slot machines in this integrated facility.”

Re “EDITORIAL: The real solution for SDL’s athletic program”, [Assistant School Superintendent] Drue Miles is the one who’s neck is always saved.  Kids come and go and so do coaches, but he stays, and gets more money and less responsibility.

NewsLanc has had the opportunity to observe first hand the negative results from a “dual language” program established in a Mayan Village in Guatemala where all the native speaking Mayan students were being taught in both Mayan and Spanish over the early school years rather than experiencing total immersion into Spanish at the first grade level.  By fifth grade, students from a total immersion class in the same school were far more proficient in Spanish than those from the fifth grade  “dual language” course.

(A draw back from “total immersion” into Spanish at the first grade  level was the high Mayan student drop out rate.  The problem could have better been addressed by preschool exposure to Spanish cartoons and children programs.)

What is proposed in the School District of Lancaster program is that the group be split about half and half between native Spanish and native English speakers, so they both can learn from one another and progress rapidly.  This appears to be a sound approach.

The following is an excerpt  from “The Astounding Effectiveness of Dual Language Education for All“ by Virginia P. Collier and Wayne P. Thomas, George Mason University:

Two-way programs have the demographics to invite native-English-speaking students to join their bilingual and [English learner] peers in an integrated bilingual classroom. Two-way classes can and should include all students who wish to enroll, including those who have lost their heritage language and speak only English. These bilingual classes do not need to enroll exactly 50% of each linguistic group to be classified as two-way, but it helps the process of [second language]  acquisition to have an approximate balance of students of each language background. For our data analyses, we have chosen a ratio of 70:30 as the minimum balance required to have enough [second language] peers in a class to stimulate the natural second language acquisition process.

During this recession, Lancaster taxpayers are being asked to spend up to $32 million to move a railroad yard to expand Franklin & Marshall’s campus.

Alternate sites would cost much less and not endanger public health, but aren’t even considered!

(Senator Arlen Specter thinks it’s OK to carelessly spend your money for his friends’ private projects. We think that’s just plain WRONG.)

F&M and General Hospital want to spend tens of millions digging up and moving a dump containing asbestos so that this deafening eye-sore can be moved adjacent to residential neighborhoods. The yard will be expanded from the existing two-track yard to FIFTEEN.

The Rail Road Action and Advisory Committee (TRRAAC) has asked the project partners and our government officials for an independent study of equally good sites that don’t require moving a dump. TRRAAC has also asked for Norfolk Southern’s original expansion plan, copies of the economic impact analysis, environmental impact studies including impact noise and air quality studies, and a $700,000 PennDOT study paid for by our tax dollars, and still hasn’t received them.

The response: a stone wall of misinformation, disingenuous statements, and downright fabrications to TRRAAC and government officials!

Meanwhile, the Lancaster Newspaper group (their partner in the grant-sponsoring Economic Development Council) repeatedly falsifies information, fails to publish retractions, and refuses to expose the outrages that have been taking place.

Here are several examples:

1. Lancaster Newspapers reporting “approval” of $4M in federal air pollution funding when it was only a recommendation.  The real vote is this Monday, April 27.  Call Commissioner Martin between 8 am and 11 am and ask him to vote no. Attend the meeting at 12:30pm Monday at 150 North Queen Street, 7^th Floor.
2. Never asking for the original expansion plans for the rail yard that did not include the dump
3. Failure to report on how stormwater potentially contaminated with asbestos may be sent to the sewage treatment plant.
4. Failure to report evidence of dumping foundry slag and sand in the township dump in 1980, after DEP claims there is no evidence of dumping after 1962.
5. Blindly accepting F&M’s claims of 55,000 truck trips eliminated annually, thousands of jobs created and millions in tax revenues without ever seeing any documentation

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Log onto www.trraac.com and look at the proposed alternative sites that would accomplish the project partners’ expansion goals with reduced taxpayer dollars.

Call County Commissioner Scott Martin at 299-8300 before 11 am on Monday, April 27^th. Tell him that you want him to vote “no” on CMAQ money or at least delay the funding until an independent study on alternative sites is issued. Ask him for a public hearing and independent analysis of purported air pollution reductions. Attend the April 27^th meeting at 150 N. Queen Street at 12:30 pm.

Email or call Senator Specter and tell him you want your tax dollars used for public benefit, not private gain, and he could lose your vote in the up-coming elections. Tell him we know Keith Orris of F&M is hosting a fund raiser for him. Ask him to mandate an independent study of alternate locations. Josh_snyder@specter.senate.gov or 782-3951.

Email or call Senator Casey and tell him you want him to rethink his initial support for this private use of public funds. Ask him to mandate an independent study. Ed_williams@casey.senate.gov (202) 224-6324

Email or call Representatives Mike Sturla (295-3157) and John Bear (626-1776 or jbear@pahousegop.com ), and tell them you do not support their votes on this project in an ‘under the wire’ method and ask them to support an independent study.

Write a ‘Letter to the editor’ for the Intell (rshaw@lnpnews.com), New Era (eschreiber@lnpnews.com)and Sunday News (madams@lnpnews.com). Tell them you are sickened by their publishers’ corrupt behavior and lack of disclosure about this project. The public has a right to transparency and the truth. Then cancel your subscription!

Write a check to TRRAAC, P.O. Box 4155, Lancaster, PA 17604-4155. Also, volunteer your services. We can’t stand up against these bullies by ourselves.

DO WE OPPOSE RELOCATION OF THE RAIL YARD? NO!

Lancaster’s growth is important to us all. But decisions should be made in the open and in the interest of the public…not conceived behind closed doors and rammed through at exorbitant expense by a powerful, self serving few.

Should our $32 million be spent without considering alternatives, safer and cheaper locations? WE DON’T THINK SO! Do you?

www.trraac.com