Front page on May 31: “Man is shot in stomach in city”, “Best in two out of three” about Meghan Ecker finishing first for women in Red Rose Race, “Putting the brakes on youngest drivers”, “Chased by police, driver abandon cars; it drifts into house”; “Welcome wore out” about a celebrity moving from a neighborhood.

Lancaster section:  “Boy struck, dragged by car”; “There’s no place like home”, still another article on Habitat for Humanity; and “Seven staff members win statewide awards” from a “statewide journalism contest” that is an orgy of self congratulations!

WATCHDOG: Where was the “News” in “Sunday News”? We sat down for a leisurely read over breakfast and was through the paper before we got to the orange juice. Exception: “Best in two out of three” about teenage drivers.

Oh yes, Marv Adams had a very good column about the Urban League. (Although his daughter Abigail’s quip once again stole the show.) But it read like an expanded version of the article NewsLanc carried earlier in the week and featured in our newsletter.

Marv and Gil: This week the Watchdog wants its money back!

Rick Kastner, Executive Director of the Lancaster County Drug & Alcohol Commission, estimates there are between five thousand and ten thousand Lancastrians addicted to heroin.

About six hundred of them are receiving treatment with methadone at a clinic or Suboxone from a physician. This enables most to resume near normal life with family, friends and gainful employment. They may be your neighbor or co-worker. You wouldn’t know.

Another six hundred could be treated if local physicians were willing to accept them as patients. But the doctors won’t, largely because fees are low and these patients are mistakenly deemed undesirable.

Lancaster General, a non-profit institution, earned $113 million last year.

For a subsidy of a quarter of a million dollars a year, Lancaster General Hospital could provide a full time clinic to treat 600 more with Suboxone.

A recent study by the federal government established that half of men arrested tested positive for drugs. The savings to society in health care, law enforcement, and welfare would be many times the investment.

It’s the public’s $113 million, largely resulting from the high cost most of us pay for health insurance. For the sake of the public, Lancaster General should use a tiny fraction of those earnings to provide space and a doctor and nurse for a Suboxone clinic, even if they cannot recoup all of the cost from government, insurance and private sources.

A May 30 report, headed “Murdoch: Future of Newspapers is Digital”, reports:

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said on Thursday that the future of newspapers is digital, but it may be 10 to 15 years before readers go fully electronic.

Murdoch, in an interview with the News Corp.-owned Fox Business Network, also said that newspapers, faced with eroding print advertising revenue and circulation, are going to have to start charging readers on the Web…

“‘Instead of an analog paper printed on paper you may get it on a panel which would be mobile, which will receive the whole newspaper over the air, (and) be updated every hour or two,’ he said.”

WATCHDOG:

This is what NewsLanc has been saying and the sooner the Lancaster Newspapers begin moving in this direction, they better off it and the community will be.

The public needs daily local newspapers. They must be paid for somehow. Perhaps when money is coming from web subscriptions rather than from advertising, they will even return to investigating.

Your Penn Square photo reminded me of a stupid design at the entrances to Lancaster’s Linear Park.

Check out the attached photos:  The gate blocks the entire entrance walkway, which forces you to walk/bike in the mulch/mud.  What an inviting entrance to a city park.

It be interesting to see how a wheelchair bound person would access the park.

By Cliff Lewis

In Lancaster City, you don’t need to break the bank to enjoy a meal of fresh and exotic flavors. Just east of the corner of King and Duke, La Cocina sits in a quaint storefront on 111 E King St, just across from Demuth’s Tobacco Shop. The restaurant serves an extensive and inexpensive array of Dominican foods in a colorful and classy setting.

On a busy weekday lunch hour, the café is a relaxed escape from the loud bustle of Downtown. Even with music playing, the place seems quiet. All at once, the restaurant is warm, relaxed, clean, and organized. It works for a business meeting or a bite on the run.

At the front counter, patrons select from a lively spread of dishes, including empanadas, plantains, stewed pork, fried fish, stewed goat, and more. These items are not only diverse, but they are also deliciously well-prepared. For instance, the empanadas-fried pastries filled with cheese and meat-were stuffed with a savory shredded steak instead of the usual ground beef. A plate of food is generously piled with a thick stew of rice and beans along with any other chosen items.

And the price is certainly right. A heaping plate of rice and beans with plantains and meat costs around $6. Empanadas run for a dollar each. With food like this at such a lean price, what’s the point of fast food?

At the Thursday, May 28, Lancaster County Convention Center Authority (LCCCA) Board Meeting it was announced that, largely due to recent setbacks, the current construction budget has fallen to a negative $423,106. As explained by Laura Douglas, Chair of the Finance & Audit Committee, the nearly half-million-dollar budget overrun is the result of recent change orders.

This announcement comes in the wake of two opening delays in the space of three months’ time, the second of which provided no replacement date. Budget overruns such as this are no surprise, given that construction, with all of its necessary expenses, has continued for at least three months beyond what was originally projected.

LCCCA Chairman Art Morris asserted that the Board is going to make every effort to close this $423,106 budget gap. As Morris elaborated, one way to save money is put a freeze on unnecessary expenses, like over $200,000 that had been set aside for stadium-style bleachers. Morris explained that, for the time being, expenses like this will be put on hold.

Also at the meeting, a few positive pieces of news were offered. Executive Director Kevin Malloy announced that an annual $3 million state grant will arrive in July, which is four months earlier than expected; Facilities Programming Committee Chair Ted Darcus announced that the fences surrounding the construction site will be removed within two weeks; and Morris announced that 72% of Convention Center and Hotel employees will be residents of Lancaster City, within walking distance of the Center.

More than five years after his violent death, a federal grand jury is at last investigating the murder of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Luna, according to a letter from the Lancaster County PA district attorney’s office.

Luna vanished from his desk at the Baltimore federal courthouse shortly before midnight on December 3, 2003. His body was found face down in a Lancaster County PA stream the next morning, covered in stab wounds.

During the administration of former President George W. Bush, the U.S. Justice Department hinted that Luna committed a far-fetched suicide. Luna was said to have driven himself across four states in a wildly improbable midnight ride, supposedly stabbing himself dozens of times before throwing himself into an icy stream.

The press, the public, and Luna’s friends and family, were repeatedly told by FBI agents that the case was closed, and that the murder was a suicide, or a matter involving Luna’s personal life, and so was not subject to federal investigation. All along, the Lancaster County coroner’s office ruled the death a homicide.

The good news is that the Obama Justice Department appears to be taking Luna’s murder very seriously.

To read more, click here or visit the main Luna page.

The May 28th front page, three column wide photo of a dejected youngster appears under the heading “Speller falls short; Early error costs Stevens girl at bee.”

WATCHDOG: Is it poor taste on the part of the editors to portray (shame?) a young contestant in such a manner? A fourteen year old isn’t an adult celebrity and shouldn’t be treated as such in her moment of anguish.

The article only merited a short mention inside the newspaper without a photo, as a follow up to the earlier feature story.

A May 27 article headed “Study finds half of men arrested test positive for drugs” reports:

Not only do the findings show “a clear link between drugs and crime,” they also highlight the
need to provide drug treatment, says Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, which will make the data public Thursday.

WATCHDOG: Yet only about 300 of over 5,000 Lancastrians who suffer from heroin addiction can obtain Suboxone from physicians to enable them to live normal, productive lives. Only a hand full of local doctors are willing to treat this population, in large part because government fees are low.

And what is Lancaster General Hospital doing about this? Very little, despite the non-profit institutions $113 million in profits last year. NewsLanc will report more on this next week on the web, the radio, and in print.