At a special Board Meeting on Tuesday evening, June 30, the School District of Lancaster (SDoL) Board settled on a final budget for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. With a 7-2 vote, the Board adopted the budget as proposed several months ago by district chief financial officer Matt Przywara. Under the budget plan, local property taxes will increase by 3.52%—a modest hike in light of previous budgets and considering the possible 5.8% increase permitted by the State.

The vote comes at a time when a partisan standoff in Harrisburg is holding $6.2 million dollars worth of SDoL funding in limbo. Przywara indicated that the State budget may not be finalized until as late as August.

A “worst case scenario” was detailed for the Board, in which over $6 million could be clipped from the proposed budget. Some of the cuts would include the elimination of all new unfilled and other administrative support positions ($1.6 million), reducing department and building budgets ($1 million), and the tapering of class-size reduction efforts ($2.2 million). Superintendent Pedro Rivera explained that these potential cuts, although painful, have been carefully selected to present minimal impact on the quality of students’ educational experience.

After a failing motion to raise the tax increase to 4.41%, the Board voted to approve the proposed budget as well as the previously discussed tax hike of 3.52% ($79 for a $100,000 property). After the final vote, Board President Patrick Snyder cheerfully declared, “We have a budget.”

Following the budget vote, the Board was given a formal presentation by representatives of Camelot Schools LLC, which the administration has recommend to take over management of Buehrle Alternative School. Camelot runs three similar schools for troubled students within the City of Philadelphia, as well over a dozen other programs throughout the country. The presentation offered impressive figures regarding these schools’ post-secondary placement rates and their graduation rates-between 96% and 100%.

Board Member Jacqueline McCain, who had visited one of Camelot’s operations and called it “wonderful,” expressed some concern about the firm’s policies on physical constraint of students. Camelot representatives said they would provide the Board with thorough documentation to outline the policies, and asserted that these incidents are handled with great care. Staff members are provided with extensive training on how to respond to situations in which a student threatens to physically harm himself or others; and, immediately after the incident, the school initiates a thorough follow-up process that includes a student nurse visit and a special meeting with parents.

Following the presentation, the Board voted unanimously to approve the hiring of Camelot Schools. Next, the administration will negotiate a contract with Camelot, which the Board must also approve.

Courtesy of LookingAtLancaster.com

June 18, 2009 was a cloudy and dismal day in downtown Lancaster, PA. Perhaps this was appropriate for the long-delayed ribbon-cutting ceremony held the day before the official opening of the taxpayer-financed hotel and convention center project. Even more appropriate was the location of the ceremony, held indoors where it was shielded from the light of day, inside the tax-exempt hotel which was used so often by the private “partners” to squeeze more and more concessions from taxpayers.

When the construction bonds for the convention center were sold at the end of March in 2007, the opening date was announced to be on March 1, 2009. Repeated unexplained construction delays resulted in an opening that was one hundred and ten days late.

At the same time, it was announced that the “final” cost of the project would be $177.6 million; no explanation was given as to where the additional funds would come from. Invoices from contractors and vendors are likely to still be submitted for quite a few weeks, so it is possible that the final cost will be even higher.

There is no doubt that the hotel and convention center project will generate a fair amount of economic development in downtown Lancaster. But at what cost?

Over $140 million taxpayer dollars – plus interest – is a LOT of money to create two to three hundred low-paying service jobs, especially considering that the cost to keep the convention center open – including lost real estate tax revenue – will amount to several million dollars every year, basically forever. This amounts on a negative return on investment, no matter how the facts are spun.

To add insult to injury, as of June 18, 2009 the convention center has only booked a little more than half of the total revenue which was expected for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. At this late date, it is highly unlikely that any more major events will be booked before the current fiscal year ends on March 31, 2010.

Particularly weak has been the market for “other” events: competitions, galas/ceremonies, entertainment, and meetings/conferences. As of June 18, 2009 only 29.1% of expected business had been booked for the current fiscal year. This is most likely because the vast majority of smaller events are being booked in the hotel’s space by the joint manager of both the hotel and convention center. A certain amount of this may be attributed to groups booking hotel rooms that are given the use of meeting space for free, thereby avoiding the convention center’s booking fees.

Looking beyond March of 2010, things look even worse. “Other” events booked are above expectation, only because of one large “competition”. But the real money makers are “tradeshows”, which are booked from 12 to 36 months in advance; only a single one-day event has been contracted for the next fiscal year, and into the future.

(These facts and figures were taken from Interstate Hotels and Resorts’ presentation to the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority’s Public Relations, Marketing, and Hospitality Committee on June 18, 2009, which can be downloaded at this link)

Further clouding the future of the convention center is the announced resignation of LCCCA board chairman Art Morris at the end of July 2009. Former Lancaster mayor Art Morris brought an accountability to the project which was lacking throughout its previous history. As acting executive director of the project in 2007 (a position which he had volunteered for), Art Morris – working closely with fellow board members R.B. Campbell and Laura Douglas – uncovered millions of dollars in deficiencies inside the construction budget which was created by his predecessors. Mr. Morris was able to prevail upon former State Sen. Gib Armstrong to come up with yet another three million State taxpayer dollars in an attempt to make ends meet.

Art Morris leaves the hotel and convention center project at a critical time: not all of the construction bills are in yet, and no one knows exactly how much money the convention center will lose now it is operation. Whoever replaces Art Morris as LCCCA chairman will likely soon find themselves begging the County Commissioners to increase the “hotel tax”, in order to keep the convention center open for business.

The downtown Lancaster, PA taxpayer-financed hotel and convention center project has been controversial ever since it was first proposed in mid-1999, ten years ago. In spite of heavy “spin” by project supporters and the local mainstream media, this project will remain controversial for the remainder of its existence.

Lately, NewsLanc has been hearing from local citizens who had only learned of the Marriott Hotel’s tax-exempt status in the wake of the recent grand opening. One reader commented, “Did I miss something? I thought the tax revenues were the big selling point.” Indeed, those who met the tax exemption announcement with surprise did miss something: This legal arrangement has been essentially in the bag since 2005.

In the late 90s, the Watt & Shand building had rested vacant for several years, and was becoming a dim monolith on the southeast corner of Penn Square. Around this time, a proposal was put forward to renovate the historic structure into a new Lancaster branch of the Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC). This proposal, of course, did not ultimately come to pass. And ironically, one prominent criticism—from City Hall on down—was that this operation would have to be exempt from real estate tax.

Flash forward to the Spring of 2005: The Penn Square Partners (PSP), owners of the Watt & Shand property, were aggressively pursuing plans to develop the space into a luxury hotel in accordance with the Convention Center Authority’s approaching project next door. That March, the PSP approached the School District of Lancaster Board, requesting special tax breaks to ease the cost of construction. The PSP stressed to the SDoL Board that their compliance with this financing plan would make or break the project.

Despite immense pressure from a number of public figures in support of the project, the School Board did not approve the PSP’s financing plan, instead endorsing a plan of its own, which would allow for some tax exemption, but required higher rates and stronger guarantees of compensation. The PSP rejected SDoL’s plan as financially impossible, and, days later, declared the project “dead.”

Even as workers began scraping promotional Marriott signs from windows of the Watt & Shand, then-Mayor Charlie Smithgall worked relentlessly to find a solution that would save the project, which had already lined up millions of dollars in State-level grants.

Within weeks, Smithgall offered his solution: The Redevelopment Authority of the City of Lancaster (RACL) would buy the Watt & Shand, more or less eliminating the property from local tax rolls and bypassing opposition from the School District. The PSP could then lease the property from the City, which would also share considerable responsibility for much of the PSP’s construction debt. The next month, City Council approved the measure, establishing an arrangement that has remained largely intact.*

On the day of the Convention Center/Marriott June 2009 opening, the Lancaster County Property Assessment Office deemed the Marriott Hotel tax exempt. This announcement—which could not technically occur until the facility opened for business—was little more than a formality, only confirming what City Council had assumed four years ago in approving the leasing arrangement with PSP.

At the Tuesday evening, June 30, County Commissioners Meeting, the Board will vote on a request from the Mental Health/Mental Retardation/Early Intervention (MH/MR/EI) Program to conduct a comprehensive Efficiency Study of all County Human Services departments. If approved, the $82,000 study will be paid for by existing funds in the MH/MR/EI budget.

James Laughman, Executive Director of MH/MR/EI, explained the goals of the study: “The primary purpose of this contract…would be to look at efficiencies in human services departments for Lancaster County. What the Brinkley Kanavy Group would do is specifically look at fiscal operations and also look at clerical…operations.” The final deliverable, according to Laughman, would be an executive summary of overall recommendations along with a detailed assessment of operations within these departments.

Laughman cited one area in which department efforts could be more effectively streamlined: “Whether you’re billing for Children and Youth, Drug & Alcohol, Mental Retardation, or Office of Aging, you’re all billing under billing codes. The codes my differ, but the processes that you go through is extremely similar.”

The resulting recommendations may include the alignment or elimination of certain positions, Laughman noted. However, he stressed that the report will merely provide recommendations. The response to these recommendations will fall under the discretion of the Commissioners.

In May, Laughman somberly presented the Commissioners with the Lancaster County Mental Health Plan for Fiscal Year 2010-2011—a plan expected to be met with considerably insufficient State funds. At the heart of this proposed Efficiency Study is the desire to see the narrow funding for Human Services result, as directly as possible, in the provision of actual Human Services.

The Editorial “New Era: Voice for Republicanism” goes on to say “New Era editorials will speak out forcefully issues, large and small, and offer solutions that reflect the spirit of Republicanism.”

WATCHDOG:  Whose “Republicanism?” Dwight D. Eisenhower’s or George W. Bush’s?

Indeed, are local issues subject to such interpretations, in which case are we to assume that the New Era vigorously opposed the largely tax payer funded and guaranteed Convention Center Project despite its publisher’s sponsorship of the project? We don’t recall that.

It is heartening to be advised that the New Era supports “pro-life”, “right to bear arms’, “freedom of speech,” “freedom of religion,” and is “for the Bill of Rights as written.” But aren’t these nuanced issues?  Where will the New Era stand on stem cell research? Does the New Era support assault rifles and armor piercing bullets?

Are Democrats really against free speech and freedom of religion? Do Democrats have another version of the  Bill of Rights? Strikes us that liberals are trying to restore the Fourth Amendment concerning search and seizure. Yes, there are more than two amendments!

The Watchdog was a Republican for most of his life.  Eight years ago he registered Democrat.  He misses the Party of Eisenhower, Nixon (far more progressive than most realize), and George H. W. Bush. (Notice someone missing?) If the New Era doesn’t speak to all of the Republicans who have been forced to become independent or Democrats, their editorials will be more canned rants than opinion pieces.  And the Watchdog won’t be able to come home.

(Eighteenth in a series)

“I don’t believe in serving on boards where I am not wanted.”

– John Fry, then President of Franklin & Marshall College, in his letter of resignation from the Convention Center Authority board to Commissioner Dick Shellenberger, 2005.

“Quite simply, the Convention Center Authority was the worst organization I have ever encountered, let alone been a part of. It is very clear that the Authority had no regard for the source of its revenues, the taxpayer.”

– Laura Douglas, appointed by Lancaster County Commissioners Shellenberger and Henderson in September 2005, referring to her service on the Convention Center Authority board of directors

In September of 2005, the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority (LCCCA) board of directors would have been firmly counted in the sponsors’ column.

At the LCCCA’s inception in September, 1999, both the County Board of Commissioners and the Lancaster city mayoralty were controlled by strong supporters of the project. This meant that sponsors were able to name all seven members to the LCCCA board. And the decisions the board made consistently reflected the sponsors’ positions on the project.

In 2003, as LCCCA terms ended, Commissioners Thibault and Shaub, and Mayor Smithgall, were again able to appoint or re-appoint those who reflected their support of the project. According to the enabling County Ordinance 44, the LCCCA terms were two, three, and four years in duration.

One problem the sponsors did not anticipate until 2007 was the composition, and cooperation, of the LCCCA board.

In 2007, the ’swing vote’  would revert to the County – now effectively Shellenberger and Henderson. That was when the sponsors expected the county would pose a problem to the LCCCA board.

It happened earlier than the sponsors anticipated.

On, September 1, 2005, the three county-appointed board members were: Judy Ware, John Fry, and Garth Sprecher.

Ware was a former art teacher and a philanthropist whose four-year term was ending on September 15, 2005. During her time on the board, Ware was regarded as an enthusiastic supporter of the project. Although Ware and the sponsors of the project wanted her to be re-appointed to the LCCCA board, Shellenberger and Henderson chose to replace her when Ware’s term expired.

Ware’s replacement on the LCCCA board was Laura Clampitt Douglas, a tough, smart, Texas-born businesswoman who didn’t suffer fools. At Douglas’ first LCCCA board meeting, she peppered then-board chairman, Ted Darcus, and executive director, Dave Hixson, with questions and comments on bills the board was paying. Normally, the board paid the bills without discussion.

John Fry was then president of Franklin & Marshall College, the private, liberal arts college located in the northwest section of Lancaster city. In 2003, Fry was appointed to replace Jim Pickard on the LCCCA board. Pickard’s second term had begun only a month earlier. (Pickard, the Board’s first Chairman and Executive Director, stepped down from those positions in 2002, but remained a voting board member until resigning from the board entirely in 2003.)

“We are lucky to have someone of John Fry’s caliber on the board,” said a beaming (soon to be ex-) Commissioner Paul Thibault, announcing Fry’s appointment, in October, 2003.

Fry, like Judy Ware, was known as a committed supporter of the downtown project.

It was assumed Fry’s term ran until 2007. However, when Fry was named to the LCCCA board at a regular Commissioners’ meeting in 2003, it was recorded in the minutes of the meeting that his term would end in 2005. A letter sent to Fry confirming his appointment transcribed the error from the minutes, with the letter also stating that the term would end in 2005.

One afternoon in late September, 2005, with these two documents – the minutes and the letter – Commissioner Shellenberger brought County Treasurer and fellow Republican, Craig Ebersole, to meet with Fry. Shellenberger showed Fry the letter and minutes indicating his term was expiring. The next day Fry submitted his resignation to the County Commissioners.

“I don’t believe in serving on boards where I am not wanted,” Fry wrote in a letter to Shellenberger. “For reasons that are not clear to me, you have requested that I immediately submit my resignation as a member of the Authority.”

Shellenberger and Henderson appointed Deb Hall, president of the Ephrata Chamber of Commerce, to replace Fry on the LCCCA board. Like Douglas, Hall was intelligent and tough-minded. If anything, she had a harder edge than Douglas, and she, too, had questions about the project.

In October of 2005, businessman Garth Sprecher, was one of only two original board members still serving on the LCCCA board. Citing fatigue, Sprecher announced he was resigning from the board on October 15.

“Don’t read anything into this,” Sprecher said of his resignation at his last LCCCA meeting. “I’m just tired.”

Sprecher’s seat was temporarily filled by Timothy Lease, general manager of a large Mountville motel. Lease resigned suddenly after less than a week due to personal issues. He was replaced weeks later by another Shellenberger and Henderson pick, Jack Craver. Craver was a former hotel executive with decades of top-level experience in the hospitality industry, including management of the world renowned Plaza Hotel in New York City.

The changing face of the Convention Center Authority board meant that the days of unquestioned ‘rubber stamping’ of agreements and consultants’ fees were coming to an end. If the LCCCA board was going to debate amongst itself about documents and invoices, then the project could be delayed, perhaps even terminated.

The addition of county appointees Laura Douglas, Deb Hall, and Jack Craver to the LCCCA also promised to make it a much more confrontational board.

“We selected these people because they were going to ask questions that we were not getting answers to,” said Shellenberger. “We hoped the [LCCCA] board would answer their questions.”

The LCCCA board that Douglas, Hall, and Craver joined was led by Chairman, C. Ted Darcus.

If former County Commissioner Paul Thibault (an academic raised in Canada) was an unlikely player in insular Lancaster politics, Ted Darcus was an even rarer find. Darcus, short, black, and Republican, who grew up in Fairmount, West Virginia, found himself, in late middle age, something of a political powerhouse in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Before coming to the LCCCA board in 2003, Darcus was president of the Lancaster City Council. In 1999, Darcus voted with the majority of city council to establish the LCCCA.

Darcus, the longtime executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Lancaster, was also closely involved in the building of the new Bright Side Baptist Church in Lancaster city. Bright Side, founded in 1980 in Lancaster city, is a large Baptist church and community center that currently leases space to a branch of Fulton Bank within its walls.

Bright Side, in its new, $5 million facility built in 2003 on the corner of Hershey and Wabank Avenues, serves a mostly African-American population, providing education, youth, and employment services. It is a center of the African-American community in Lancaster. Bright Side particularly serves the local youth community, Ted Darcus’ clientele, and has many services for them, including after-school programs, education tutorials, day camps, and summer excursions.

A clue to Darcus’ seeming change in disposition on the LCCCA board can be found on one wall of the large, full of energy Bright Side center. On that wall, one will see plaques listing the major donors for the new Bright Side, including High, Buckwalter, and Fulton.

Some critics have wondered whether Darcus, a leading fundraiser for Bright Side, was influenced in his actions on behalf of the convention center project by the substantial financial donations to Bright Side from project sponsors.

On January 12, 2004, the 63 year-old Darcus was voted by his fellow board members chairman of the Convention Center Authority board.

Darcus seemed to take his meeting management style from his predecessor on the board, Jim Pickard, who ran the LCCCA meetings with an imperious iron gavel. As with Pickard, under Darcus, questions from the public – during public meetings – went unanswered.

Ted Darcus could be a rude and belligerent chairman. Darcus had a habit of intentionally looking down at his desk when a member of the public was speaking, often pretending to read or write while citizens tried to make their points. Questions from board members were openly discouraged.

With Darcus as Chairman, no LCCCA committee met on a regular basis.

Rodney Gleiberman, general manager of the Continental Inn and a plaintiff in lawsuits against the LCCCA, and who attended dozens of meetings chaired by Darcus, had this blunt assessment of the Chairman:

“Ted Darcus was a hot-headed, dimwitted, single-minded presence on the Authority board. The man has very poor communication skills. While these might be tolerated qualities in a private company, they are totally inappropriate for running a ‘public’ entity. He was an embarrassment as chair of the LCCCA board of directors.”

Laura Douglas, the businesswoman appointed by the County Commissioners in September,2005, and who served until 2008, said of her time on the LCCCA board:

“Quite simply, the Convention Center Authority was the worst organization I have ever encountered, let alone been a part of. It is very clear that the authority had no regard for the source of its revenues, the taxpayer. … Mr. Darcus was a very strongly divisive force on the board. He was blinded by certain issues, and instead of considering them, would go ahead and move forward.”

The other three city appointees were notable for not being noticed.

Willie Borden Jr. was the only original member still on the LCCCA board. Borden, a journeyman electrician with power company PP&L, barely spoke at the meetings, and almost never voted against Pickard and the majority of the board. His was a dependable vote. Borden held the board position of Treasurer.

Dave Schwanger owned a successful heating oil company with his brother. In 1998, Schwanger was recruited by Sen. Gib Armstrong to run against Rep. Mike Sturla for Sturlas’ seat in the state legislature. (Schwanger was trounced on election day; Armstrong won easily). Schwanger was also close personal friends with project sponsor, Lancaster Mayor Charlie Smithgall, who named him to the LCCCA board. Schwanger was even less noticeable on the dais than the practically mute Borden. He, too, voted with the other city members en bloc.

The fourth member of the city’s LCCCA appointees was Joseph Morales, a native of Brooklyn who came to Lancaster during his teenage years in 1978. Morales worked as an instructor and administrator for IU13, an education services organization that serves public and private schools in Lancaster and Lebanon counties. Morales was more vocal during public meetings than either Borden or Schwanger, occasionally commenting on an agreement, or making a statement, but, he like the other city appointees almost never broke ranks when it came time to vote.

(Since leaving the LCCCA board in 2007, Morales has been the well-paid executive director of the controversial Lancaster Community Safety Coalition [LCSC], a privately-owned organization that has hundreds of surveillance cameras throughout downtown Lancaster. The LCSC is a subsidiary of the Lancaster Alliance, the organization founded by Dale High, Rufus Fulton, Jack Buckwalter, and nine others in 1993.)

So while the city appointees, with the exception of Ted Darcus were not demonstrative, and none had expertise in the hotel or convention center industry, there was little question how the city’s appointees saw their roles on the board.

The schism between the city and county appointees on the LCCCA board was used by supporters of the project as an example of the County Commissioners’ supposed anti-city bias on the project.

“I always had a problem with the idea that I was ‘anti-city,” Shellenberger said after he left office. “I was very familiar with the city, and I wanted to do what was best for the city. We [the Commissioners] supported Clipper Stadium, invested in the Northwest Corridor, and other important city projects. Again, the convention center involved county taxpayers’ money, and we didn’t want the public’s money wasted, or poorly spent.”
The LCCCA had two more people on the board who would have to be considered in the sponsors’ camp.

One was David M. Hixson, the board’s Executive Director. Hixson was the third Executive Director hired by the Authority. The first was Pickard, who was both Chairman and acting Executive Director at the board’s inception in September, 1999. Pickard stepped down as Executive Director in the spring of 2002, and Michael Carper, a former banker and property manager with hotel executive experience, was hired shortly afterward to replace him.

Carper quit suddenly after just six months on the job. The circumstances of Carper’s departure were sealed in the confidential termination agreement between Carper and the Authority.

Hixson was hired in the summer of 2003 to oversee the Authority’s day-to-day activities and manage all phases of the project – contracts, construction, personnel, bill paying – from the Authority’s position.

The round-faced, bespectacled, Hixson wasn’t a particularly articulate or dynamic speaker. Hixson had no experience in either the hospitality or convention center industries. Most of his former positions were as a political press spokesperson. He had a supervisory position with the department of labor in the Ridge administration before coming to the Authority.

Hixson didn’t appear to grasp some of the more complicated details of the project, seeming rather lost at times during meetings. But whatever ability Hixson lacked didn’t discourage Jim Pickard from recommending him. On that basis, Dave Hixson was hired for the $80,000 a-year (plus benefits) position. One month after Hixson was hired, Pickard resigned from the board.

When either Ted Darcus or Dave Hixson had a question, they would look to the end of the dais for the answer. Seated there, as he had since the first LCCCA meeting in 1999, was a quiet, suited, bespectacled, middle-aged man intently monitoring each meeting. This was John Espenshade the LCCCA’s solicitor of the law firm of Stevens & Lee.

Although the LCCCA board was divided 4-3 in favor of the sponsors, with Hixson and Espenshade, it was more like a 6-3 division, with the sponsors controlling the Executive Director, Chairman, and Solicitor positions.

Whether it was a one vote, or three vote advantage, for the time being, sponsors of the project clearly controlled the LCCCA board. Holding that advantage would not be easy.

###

Chapter Nineteen: Witch Hunt

“Unlike commercial media which must strive for circulation and viewers and do not want to offend advertisers, NewsLanc.com does not hesitate to praise and to criticize. No individual or institution is exempt.

Our purpose is to protect the public from the foolish, the provincial, the greedy, and the predatory.

Our mission is to help create a better Lancaster.

If you don’t occasionally get angry at what we write, we are not doing our job. And if you stop visiting because an article made you angry, then you don’t appreciate what NewsLanc is about.

Instead, write us a letter for anonymous publication and take us to task! NewsLanc should be a forum, not just the product of staff.”

Two articles that appear on the June 28 Sunday News when juxtaposed provide revelations concerning the economic impact of the Convention Center Project on the hotel industry.

“Kneeded: Hundreds of guest rooms for pretzel maker” relates that Josh Nowak of Interstate Hotels & Resorts claims that the Auntie Anne’s event will require hundreds of additional guest rooms beyond those available at the Marriott. Later the articles says “Others will generate a significant number of overnight stays, such as the Mid-Atlantic District Barbershop Chorus Contest scheduled Oct. 2-3″ although only the Barbershop Chorus Contest, scheduled only for one night, Oct.2-3, is mentioned.

According to another article “Room tax revenues are on the decline”, the hotels in the county are taxed approximately $6 million dollars annually to support the Convention Center project. For the half of 2009 that remains, that amounts to $3,000,000

Okay, let’s give the Project the benefit of the doubt and say that it will generate a total of 2000 guest room nights yet this year beyond those accommodated by the Marriott. That’s for half a year.

Two-thousand room nights at an average of $100 per night = $200,000 in extra revenue for the regional hotels.

What hoteliers would choose to pay $3 million dollars in Hotel Room Tax in order to generate $200,000 in revenue?

In his weekly column, Gil Smart speaks out “In defense of security cameras.” Smart opines that in contrast to private areas, in public areas “…there is no expectation of privacy and where a camera sees exactly what a cop on the beat might see.  And if we don’t have a problem with the latter, why do we have a problem with the former?”

WATCHDOG: That was also NewsLanc’s position.  But having read the Letter entitled “The Right to Privacy” posted under News & Commentary, we are not quite so sure anymore.

In Marv Adams’ column “It’s a new era, come Monday”, he states:  “A big benefit from the merger is that daily and Sunday editors and reporters will work together to develop more investigative reports…”

WATCHDOG: It will indeed be a “new era” the day the Intell of Sunday News runs an investigative report on any advertiser or member of the establishment. Perhaps Adam means more crime reporting and puff pieces.

Can you imagine even Gil Smart taking on Lancaster General Hospital for misdirecting their third highest in the state earnings, largely derived from a monopoly position, almost entirely to hospital expansion while skimping when it comes to public healath?  (Case in point: At least 600 heroin addicts going without Suboxone treatment due to doctor apathy and lack of funds, thus generating crime, destroying families, and straining the social safety net.)

Or how about challenging some of the ongoing mendacities emanating from John Fry and his stooges from the executive staff at Franklin and Marshall College. (We are proud of the College; we are ashamed of Fry.)

Would the Sunday News care to investigate how Dale High managed to siphon the greater portion spent on the Convention Center Project into his companies’ coffers, mostly without competitive bidding?

The answers to all three:  We don’t think so!