NewsLanc and its associated companies are seeking qualified applicants for well paying, attractive jobs.

Manor Management Corporation seeks applicants to manage the 276 unit Manor House Apartments due to the transfer of the current long term manager to another location. The resident manager’s position does not call for experience in apartment management (it may even be detrimental!) but does require a nurturing individual with leadership potential and organizing and sales skills. There should be some history of dealing with the public. It is a well paying career position with good benefits. Interested parties should send a resume to eanderson@themanorgroup.com.

Manor Hotel Corporation seeks a regional general manager for its four hotels located in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  Successful experience in hotel management and food and beverage are requisites. This is a well paying position with good benefits. Interested qualified parties should send a resume to leshleman@themanorgroup.com.

NewsLanc is seeking a part time working to hand out newsletters on Friday mornings at the Central Market, at ball games, and other special events. $15 per hour. Must be outgoing and conscientious. Apply info@newslanc.com.

In an Associated Press article “Mexico’s drug law worries U. S. police; Decriminalizes drug possession”, San Diego Police chief William Lansdowne is quoted as saying “For a country that has experienced thousands of deaths from warring drug cartels for many years, it defies logic why they would pass a law that will clearly encourage dug use.” The article points out that “Brazil and Uruguay have already eliminated jail time for people carrying small amounts of drugs for personal use…Arengentina’s Supreme Court ruled out prison for pot possession Tuesday.”

The New York Times reports “In February, a commission led by three former Latin American presidents issued a scathing report that condemned Washington’s ‘war on drugs’ as a failure and urged the region to adopt drug policies found in some European countries that focus more on treatment than punishment.”

WATCHDOG: Chief Lansdowne fails to recognize that it is the very illegality of mild drugs such as marijuana that creates the unregulated marketplace which results in crime, violence and corruption. If marijuana were taxed, regulated and controlled as we do the sale of far more dangerous alcoholic beverages, about 70% of efforts to suppress drugs would be eliminated and both savings and tax proceeds would be available for treating the small portion of the population struggling with various forms of drug addiction (including alcohol and nicotine) and for other good purposes.

In its editorial “Kennedy: liberal lion of Senate”, a box acknowledges “the New Era and Kennedy have disagreed on practically every major political issue of the past half century.” The article concludes: “The best tribute to the senator will be health care legislation carefully constructed, eloquently explained and broadly supported.”

WATCHDOG: We respect the editors for their respectful candor.

And a wag of the tail for their conclusion. Let’s spend the next few months in civil discussions and as an opportunity to separate facts from myths and lies. Meanwhile, the Obama administration can develop its recommendations, rather than relying on Congress to take the lead.

Then if a reform of health care isn’t past by next November, the congressional elections will serve as a referendum.

An August 27 news article headed “Lawsuit against county dismissed” seizes the opportunity to perpetuate one of the greatest scandals in Lancaster County history: The witch hunt conducted by the newspapers, then District Attorney (and now Judge) Donald Totaro, and aided by President Judge Louis Farina, all benefiting Penn Square Partners and other supporters of the Convention Center Project.

The article states “[Gary Heinke’s] lawsuit claimed that newspaper reporting regarding his resume and role in selling the county’s Conestoga View nursing home were false.”

It continues “Questions about Heinke’s hiring ultimately sparked a grand jury investigation. That investigation led to questions about the role Heinke and other government officials had played in the sale of Conestoga View. The investigation resulted in all three commissioners pleading guilty to violating the state’s Sunshine Act by meeting secretly before the nursing home sale.” The article says nothing about the grand jury exonerating Heinke on the charge of misrepresentation. Nor does it place the plea in proper context!

To say the commissioners met “secretly” implies clandestine actions on their part. Rather, they met under the guidance of the county’s solicitor and there is nothing in the law or precedents set under the law to condemn their actual actions. In fact, the Grand Jury report spends pages explaining why the Sunshine Law is unenforceable and calling for revisions!

So what did occur? The commissioners agreed to what was tantamount to a ‘plea bargain’ to end an investigation which continuously turned up no violations but which Farina allowed Totaro to continue for almost a year, jumping desperately from one fallacious accusation to another. Even though Totaro controlled the writing of the  grand jury report, it is clear from its body and especially footnotes that the investigation was nothing if not a witch hunt.

The commissioners, two of whom wanted to run for re-election and felt they could not effectively do so until clear of charges, agreed to a minor violation for having improperly discussed matters outside the public forum. In actuality, the commissioners believed (as did the county solicitor) that they were properly conducting discussions by avoiding all three meeting, and also because the subject was exempt from the Sunshine Law since it pertained to personnel.

Although they all acknowledged in retrospect that they had used poor judgment by later not allowing enough time for public discussion, their intention was to avoid unnecessarily upsetting the 400 employees at Conestoga View until they had decided among themselves on a likely course of action. What business owners would want employees to know the possibility of a sale was under consideration? How would such information have distracted the attention of nursing home personnel from the care of their patients?

By headlining the commissioners’ ‘plea bargain’ for days straight as though it was tantamount to the end of World War II or the murder of the century, the newspapers purposefully created an impression that a dubious minor violation was tantamount to corruption or criminality on the part of opponents to taxpayer guarantees of Convention Center debt.

As for the accusations against Heinke that was used by Totaro and Farina to take the rare step of convening a special grand jury, the jury quickly determined that Heinke’s official job  application was in order.    But had Totaro and Farina ended the investigation then, as they should have, it would have made Toaro look bad and harmed his chances to be elected a judge, and would have freed up Dick Shellenberger and Molly Henderson to run for new terms without the grand jury investigation over their heads.

It is very disturbing to NewsLanc and much of the Lancaster population that the Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. has yet to acknowledge and apologize for what minimally were its ongoing and purposeful violations of journalistic ethics in furtherance of its financial interests.

According to Pat Brogan, Mayor Rick Gray’s Chief of Staff, the City plans to first engage an engineering study regarding the feasibility of a streetcar system in Downtown Lancaster before investing additional funds in studying the economic feasibility of such a system. Brogan said that the City is taking this route in case the engineering study shows the proposed system to be technically unfeasible.

Funding for this initial study will be provided by a $20,000 County Urban Enhancement Grant as well as a required $20,000 match from the City.

Last week the Commissioners passed the $20,000 grant for the City of Lancaster to engage what was described as a $150,000 engineering and economic feasibility study regarding the possible introduction of a streetcar loop in Downtown Lancaster City. With $40,000 lined up in City and County funds, a source for the remaining $110,000 was not clearly identified—although one County planning official indicated the possibility of contributions from the Red Rose Transit Authority.

Yesterday, NewsLanc asked Brogan to clarify the source of remaining funds. In the course of her response, Brogan reiterated the three driving questions behind City’s consideration of streetcar feasibility: One is the economic benefit (“if any,” Brogan asserted) of such a system; another is whether such a system could operate without taxpayer subsidy; and, finally, is the question of whether such a system could reasonably work within the City’s existing infrastructure.

Brogan concluded that the Mayor wants to determine the answer to that last question before spending any additional money on the others. For this reason, the City will not yet be in need of funding beyond the $40,000 that has already been allocated.

Brogan plans to meet with Public Works Director Charlotte Katzenmoyer today to begin developing a Request for Proposals for the initial engineering study.

At the August 26 County Commissioners Meeting, Ben Vonderhiede concluded a series of three appearances representing the concerns of Daddy Justice, a local group committed to promoting the custody rights of fathers. After the group concluded their remarks, the Commissioners weighed in on the issues raised, and Commissioner Scott Martin explained his plan to bring these concerns into a dialogue between District Attorney Craig Stedman, President Judge Louis Farina, and the County Commissioners.

In previous appearances, Daddy Justice has presented the Commissioners with complaints regarding the use of protection from abuse orders (PFAs), which are imposed twice as often in Lancaster County than in York County; and regarding the staffing of the County’s Domestic Relations Office, which is 92% female.

Following the group’s presentation at the previous Commissioners Meeting, Martin requested that speakers who described personal grievances with Lancaster’s Domestic Relations Office provide him with their complaints in written form. Vonderheide, during the August 26 meeting, indicated suspicion regarding Martin’s request: “It is my understanding, in my experience, that while the Commissioners and government officials will look out to defend all the action of their employees and agencies, if we make one misstatement on there, that’s what they’re looking for.”

Commissioner Dennis Stuckey sought to rebut Vonderheide’s implication—that, in Stuckey’s words, “Commissioner Martin asked for information so that we could circle the wagons.” Stuckey asserted that Martin’s interest, first and foremost, is in the well-being of the County’s citizens: “Believe me, no one is more passionate about working with things and seeing that people are treated fairly than Commissioner Martin.”

In his comments, Martin was careful to recognize the sensitive balance of power in County Government. For instance, Martin asserted, the Commissioners would not hold the authority to enter a Domestic Relations office and demand the release of documents and confront their staff. “They aren’t our employees,” he said.

As a model for the Commissioners’ potential for influence in these matters, Martin looked to their recent efforts to reduce the prison budget by adjusting corrections policies and procedures. The Commissioners had no authority to order the introduction of reforms such as on-site hearings, work release expansions, and an expedited judicial process; however, Martin explained, the Commissioners did bring together the DA and the President Judge to discuss the potential of such practices.

Martin will take a similar approach with the issues discussed by Daddy Justice: “I’d like to take that same type of relationship that we’ve had looking at changes in the criminal side of things…and having those same kinds of dialogues with those same entities in regard to the issues that have been brought to us regarding PFAs and Domestic Relations.”

Martin said that he has already been compiling a file of citizen complaints for discussion and will arrange a meeting when Stedman returns from vacation.

(Twenty-fifth in a series)

by Christiaan A. Hart-Nibbrig

The bitter acrimony among the Lancaster citizenry that would mark the next decade of the convention center’s history began to show itself by the year 2000.

Dozens of Lancaster County hotel and motel owners—who now paid a 5% tax for every room rented—filed a joint lawsuit against the project sponsors in March.

Ron Harper, Jr., with his video camera, website, and indefatigable energy, was unleashed and asking uncomfortable questions to proponents of the project wherever he found them.

Downtown store owners, like the respected Rick Atwater, whose family owned and ran Oblender’s Furniture for a century, were left sour after feeling forced to sell out on the cheap.

At regularly scheduled Lancaster County Convention Center Authority (LCCCA) meetings, questions from the public went unanswered. A pie was thrown; insults hurled.

Nearly an entire city block of historic buildings were targeted for demolition.

But the project, stewarded by James O. Pickard, Chairman of the seven-member LCCCA board of directors, proceeded apace.

Jim Pickard ran LCCCA meetings with an imperious hand and an iron gavel. A former republican Pennsylvania Secretary of Commerce (Thornburgh administration, 1983-87), Pickard was also Lancaster Mayor Charlie Smithgall’s handpicked Economic Development Director. From that position, Pickard was a key player in the 1998 purchase of the historic Watt & Shand building by Penn Square Partners.

Pickard, owner of a successful, international, niche saw and knife export business, was a client of Stevens & Lee LLC,, the Reading-based law firm that authored the Convention Center Act of 1994. Stevens & Lee was also the solicitor for the LCCCA and the County, and High Industries’ registered lobbyist in Harrisburg.

The LCCCA business offices were located within the Lancaster branch of Stevens & Lee, on the second floor of the Fulton Bank building on Penn Square, across the street from the proposed facility. The other Penn Square Partner, Lancaster Newspapers, occupied another corner of the Square.

During 2000 and part of 2001, nominally “public” meetings were held in both the County Commissioners’ meeting room, and the tiny Commissioners conference room, where there were, at times, no seats available to the public. By mid-2001, the meetings moved to the City Council Chambers at the cavernous Southern Market Center on Vine Street.

Meeting attendees usually included only board members, whose attendance was often sporadic, and a scant few members of the public. Harper was one of the few citizens regularly present, as were a few hotel and motel owners, such as Rodney Gleiberman of the Continental Inn and Peter Chiccarine, of the Best Western Eden Resort.

As chairman, Pickard displayed a penchant for removing the audience from a meeting mid-stream, while he held executive sessions with only board members and the solicitor – Stevens & Lee partner, and County Attorney, John Espenshade – present. These ‘executive session’ actions caused the attendees and reporters to stand out in the hallway for extended periods until Pickard re-convened the public part of the meeting. (This was a practice later used often by Ted Darcus, a successor to Pickard as LCCCA chair.)

The meetings themselves were often testy and oddly rude exchanges for a community with a reputation for civil comity. If a hotelier made a public comment during a meeting, and they were often the only members of the public there, Pickard would announce, before the speaker said anything that the speaker was a litigant against the Authority.

Sometimes the histrionics devolved into farce. At one meeting in early May, 2001, Harper presented Pickard with a chocolate cream pie—“humble pie,” Harper called it. With mock deference, Harper placed the pie in front of Pickard, who sat in his center seat on the raised dais. In a rage, Pickard roughly grabbed the pie and threw it back toward Harper. He missed, but the entire act was recorded by the local television news cameras and played for the folks at home. Pickard looked unhinged. The small crowd was stunned.

“You’ll get no apology from this chair,” Pickard snarled at Harper. Pickard was criticized by the Lancaster Newspapers, and later apologized for his actions (but not to Harper) at the next meeting.

The other six members of the LCCCA board of directors were a relatively unknown mix of business executives, lawyers, and working stiffs, none of whom, save one, had any experience with conventions or trade shows.

The original members appointed by the County were: Pickard; Garth Sprecher, a communications executive; Camilla Collova, a retired corporate executive; Paul Wright, retired general manager of a large retail store. The city appointees to the LCCCA board were: Willie Borden Jr., a journeyman electrician, Bradley Clark, vice president of a commercial realty firm; and Christina Hausner, an attorney.

Clark was the only member to have any experience with trade shows, or event planning and promotion, and it was not extensive.

The hotelier litigation provided Pickard the justification to prevent the board from answering questions from the public during LCCCA meetings. But the policy proved to be public relations problem and eventually forced Pickard to address it publicly.

Pickard wrote a public “clarification” published in the Lancaster Newspapers:

“We wish to clarify what the public comment section of the agenda is for — and will add this above point of clarification to all of our agendas. We also wish to clarify what the “public comment’ portion of the agenda is NOT: It is not a question and answer session. It is not an opportunity for plaintiffs or defendants in a lawsuit to conduct discovery. The Authority has complied with all the requirements of Sunshine Act and welcomes public input and comment during our meetings. It is not the intention of the Authority to avoid being responsive to legitimate questions, but the lawsuit filed by the hoteliers has had a chilling effect on our ability to respond. We have been advised by our legal counsel that it is inappropriate to respond to questions or comments from the public that impact the pending litigation. …” [capitalization in original]

In a rarely critical comment against the LCCCA, a Sunday News editorial (“Misguided Policy, The Convention Center Autority Overreacts To Requests For Information About The Project”) suggested the authority board open itself up to questions from the public.

The external pressure didn’t faze Pickard, who refused to answer questions, from anyone, regarding the authority’s finances, including the status of the authority’s budget or its building plans.

In a letter to the Lancaster New Era, Mark Clossey, General Manager of the Lancaster Host Resort and Hotel, and a litigant against the Authority, wrote:

“When you cannot ask questions at a public meeting, and are silenced for asking for more information, it reflects how wrong the project truly is. I have never been allowed to enter the arena since a few politicians and bureaucrats said the hotel and convention center is going to be built. I guess that means at any expense. This type of process defeats such projects, not a lawsuit.”

At a later LCCCA board meeting, after Clossey asked a question during the public comment portion, Pickard glared at Clossey, “I’m not obliged to answer any of your questions,” He then added: “The question you just asked falls in the classification of not being responded to.”

###

Chapter Twenty-Six: 2000-2001 Part III: Convention Center Authority doesn’t let history stand in the way

Unlike some agencies which receive State funding, the Lancaster Public Library has not yet been deeply hit by the current budget impasse in Harrisburg. The greatest challenge so far brought by the stalemate has been the inability to definitively plan for the Library’s 2010 budget. As Board President John McGrann explained at the August 25 board meeting, “At this point, the impasse has not exactly affected us…The bigger challenge that we’re facing is that we haven’t been able to effectively plan because we don’t know where we stand.”

Meanwhile, the Library Board has been investigating cost-cutting measures to reach a more balanced budget for its next fiscal year. In a partly confidential document distributed to the Board, considerations included staff and hour reductions and—in the most extreme scenario—the elimination of education support programs like “Ready to Read,” which provides literacy training to parents of pre-school aged children.

The budget cuts in question could serve to reduce the budget deficit and endowment fund dependency for the funding-strapped library, which saw a 35% funding decrease between 2006 and 2008. According to Interim Executive Director Joyce Sands, the document assumes funding consistent with that of the 2009 budget. But the passage of the State Budget, which could include a 55% cut in library funding, would dramatically recast the question of cuts: “This is going to be grueling. But this is an idea of what things are there that could [be cut],” Sands said.

Future budget uncertainties aside, the impasse has recently affected the library’s finances in one concrete way. Treasurer Karen Haley Field reported that the District Library Center, which runs on a fiscal year of July-June, is presently unfunded in the absence of a State Budget. The District Center is a 100% state funded cooperative-type entity which provides services to all county residents such as interlibrary loans, reference and the Duke Street Business Center. As administrator of the District Center, the Lancaster Public Library has—essentially by default—ended up footing the bill for District operations without contributions from the other thirteen libraries in Lancaster County.

The Board will be contacting these libraries in the near future to notify them of the situation and discuss a more equitable arrangement.

Group to Hold 4th Protest This Summer Against Unaccountable, Warrantless Surveillance

August 29th, 2009 in Downtown Lancaster, PA

Lancaster Pa, August 24, 2009—The Citizens Against Public Surveillance (CAPS) is holding a large protest against the implementation of surveillance cameras deployed in Lancaster, PA, and is inviting all who want a voice in this matter to attend. CAPS is a recent offshoot of the Lancaster Coalition for Sensible Security (LCSS), and is organized to end the hasty deployment of the privately run, Orwellian surveillance system in a city of 55,000 people with a 25% poverty rate.

The CAPS protest will be held this Saturday at Farnum Park (Water & Conestoga Streets) at 1:00 pm on Saturday, August 29, 2009. The protesters will then march to Lancaster Square at 2:00 pm for the rest of their rally. The theme of the rally is – “Take the cameras down”. More information can be found at www.stopthecameras.com, or email to info@stopthecameras.com.

At the close of an unusually brief City Council Meeting (August 25), Mayor Rick Gray formally presented the Council with an official memorandum, “Re: VIDEO SURVEILLANCE CAMERA PROGRAM.” The text of the memo was identical to the Mayor’s public statement regarding the cameras, released August 16 (click here to read).

In his comments at the City Council Meeting, the Mayor specifically committed to reporting to Council before the end of the year with “findings and any recommended action that may be appropriate in furtherance of our mutual goal of balancing public safety with personal privacy.” Mayor Gray also noted that he has directed the City Solicitor to research the extent to which the City may be able to regulate the use of the camera system, which is currently operated by the private Community Safety Coalition.

The Mayor’s comments, in their entirety, were as follows:

“As you are aware, the installation and use of cameras in public places by the Lancaster Community Safety Coalition (LCSC) has recently been the focus of much public discussion. These video cameras continue to be an important law enforcement tool in the apprehension of suspects and the investigation of crime. Just in these past few days, the cameras were used to help identify and apprehend an armed robber. That said, legitimate concerns must be addressed to assure that the privacy of the law-abiding public is not compromised.

“At various times, I have spoken to each Council member concern this issue. Your input, together with my own experience, research, and discussion with residents, serves as the basis for the attached memorandum. The memo outlines six recommendations for consideration by the Safety Coalition Board. In addition, I have recently named four high-ranking City staff to represent the Administration on that Board. Further, I have directed our Solicitor to research what authority the City may have to regulate the use of cameras. By the end of this year, I will report back to City Council with findings and any recommended action that may be appropriate in furtherance of our mutual goal of balancing public safety with personal privacy.”