In introducing the proposed County Budget for 2010 at Wednesday Commissioners Meeting, Charles Douts, Jr., County Administrator, observed:

1. Budget is “balanced and does not include any tax increase.”
2. Benefited from 1% growth in real estate assessments over the year and a resulting $5 million in increased revenue.
3. Payroll is flat as compared to 2009.  Occurred through not filling vacancies and  by implementing efficiencies per recommendations of studies.
4. County match for human services is reduced by $1.2 million because the state     grants have been reduced.

Douts said county will continue to look for savings over the coming year to see how county core services are delivered and are they being done in the most efficient manner.

He opined that the pick up of housing in the county is encourages him to believe that the recession will come to an end in 2010.

Commissioner Scott Mountain observed:   Saving on match money is deceptive because there is less money coming from the state.  Once funds given by state and federal government are exhausted, county could be put in a position where every cent above that will be at the cost of the county tax payers since many services are mandated.

Martin further explained that even when not mandated, responsibility may fall on the county and gave as an example how every April the Drug and Alcohol Commission exhausts its funds and seeks county funds to maintain its core services.

Commissioner Craig Lehman noted that later in the budget process there will be a need to add a list of capital projects for 2010 along with programs.

Chairman Dennis Stuckey said they were close to an agreement on capital projects.  He added there would be significant cuts from last year and the necessity to spend borrowed money wisely.

Martin thanked department heads and all employees for their input and cooperation in preparing the budget.  He observed that the unemployment rate is at 10.2% and we read stories of state governments and industries taking 5% pay cuts.  He added that the commissioners are happy they are not passing on a tax increase in this environment.

Craig Lehman also praised the “Budget Team” for their hard work.

A member of the audience complimented the commissioners for not raising taxes for two years.

It is long past time for State Sen. Lloyd Smucker and State Rep. Mike Sturla to step up to the plate and go to bat for Lancaster City.

Sen. Smucker’s predecessor Gib Armstrong, working with Rep. Sturla, put out an incredible amount of effort to provide more and more State funding for the downtown hotel and convention center. This project was billed as a way to help save Lancaster City; however, the lost real estate tax revenue from the site, combined with the project’s additional burdens on city services, has helped to create this fiscal crisis.

It is imperative that Sen. Smucker and Rep. Sturla put out at least as much effort toward providing operational funding for Lancaster City as the effort that was put out to fund the taxpayer-financed hotel and convention center project.

Sen. Smucker and Rep. Sturla, it’s been done before. NOW is the time to do it again!

The Gil Smart column excerpt was on the beautiful idea of “Freedom from Want”, one of the four freedoms enunciated by FDR and celebrated in the famous Thanksgiving Day family dinner painting of Norman Rockwell. Is there anyone, conservative or Liberal who openly disagrees with the vision of a world that is free from, at least, terrible want? Two years ago there was a story and a picture from Haiti of mud cakes “baking” in the sun. Cakes made from dirt and a little oil. Actual food that destitute people eat to sustain life.Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to consider how the world might respond to this kind of terrible “want” that exists in thousands of other places across the globe.

I do agree with the writer who says this is not a government problem nor does it have a government solution. Amen. But it is a human problem and begs a human solution, a compassionate solution, a decent solution. Does anyone disagree that if the system we call Capitalism  really wanted to feed the world it would not be able to?

The great wealth of all the Capitalistic countries together with the enormous resources of science and technology could certainly feed the entire world. Why has it not been done already? Why not even on the agenda today?

Ask those questions this Thanksgiving, then listen to the replies, but listen, I would suggest, with your heart, your human heart that is much, much deeper than Conservative or Liberal.. I think you may hear some really heartbreaking answers.

An editorial “Oyster-bed politics” points out “For 1,000 women screened [for mammogram], 4 will be found to have a breast cancer and one will have it but it won’t be detected.  Another 90 women will get false positive results that can send them rushing to expensive treatments and surgeries.  Women in their 40s have an even higher rate of false positives, while their overall risk of breast cancer is lower than for older women.”…

“…the American people, so far as it could be heard, said, “Give us the information, and let us make the choices.”

WATCHDOG: A wag of the tail.   But choices must be made between the government and insurers (funded by taxpayers and policy holders respectively) absorbing the cost for marginal health needs and what should be paid for by the individuals.

An article headed “Wash. Post closes Bureaus Across U. S.”quotes the newspaper’s top editor, Marcus Brauchli in a memo to employees, as stating:

“At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it’s necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the country’s politics, policies and government.”

WATCHDOG: This is a journalistic tragedy and a great set back for our nation’s freedoms and prosperity.   The Washington Post was only second to the New York Times as the most prestigious newspaper in our country, famous for its investigatory reporting.

The Watchdog is in mourning and so should the rest of us.   God save America!

At the November 24 meeting of Lancaster City Council, Mayor Rick Gray presented details from the proposed 2010 budget, which itself will be publicly posted on the City’s website the following morning. Gray assumed a somber demeanor as he explained and defended a proposed property tax hike from 9.64 to 12.04 mils. “The millage rate for City properties will increase by 25 percent,” Gray explained, “This represents an overall tax increase of 6.6 percent when combined with School District and County property taxes.”

The proposed budget, Gray reported, would cut 43 paid positions in City Government, which amounts to a 10% workforce reduction. Salaries for all non-union employees will not be increased, which, with the rising cost of health coverage, will mean a NET pay reduction for many employees, Gray said. The Mayor also noted that his own salary will not increase for the duration of his four year term.

With revenues down to 2007 levels, Gray attributed the City’s bleak financial picture to a number of factors, most of which derive from the slumping economy:

• “Successful property tax assessment appeals left us with a zero gain in property tax revenues for this year—in spite of a 5 percent tax increase in 2009″
• “Interest income has fallen from $950,000 in 2006 to just over $100,000 this year”
• “The annual medical insurance premium for family coverage has increased from $15 thousand in 2006 to over $20 thousand in 2010—a 25 percent increase in 4 years.”

Gray dedicated a considerable portion of his report to addressing the various parties that could potentially be blamed for these rising costs—the City for its capital expenditures and allegedly “bloated bureaucracies,” the allegedly “greedy unions” for their persistent pay raise requirements, etc. Gray concluded, however, that the only party to blame would be the Pennsylvania General Assembly for not granting any of the new funding requests brought this year by the State’s municipalities:

“I ask that public employee unions, business owners, civic leaders, and all taxpayers join us in demanding that serious reforms be made in the structure and funding of local government in Pennsylvania. Unlike our own General Assembly, we do not have the luxury of ignoring these realities, or of deferring action on the problems that we face.”

Morales clarifies on City funds for Coalition

Late Tuesday afternoon, prior to the meeting of City Council, NewsLanc spoke with Councilman Joe Morales, also the Executive Director of the Community Safety Coalition, which owns and operates the city’s extensive network of 165 surveillance cameras. Morales, who receives a salary of $80,000 through the Coalition, said that he has never knowingly voted for any measure on City Council to grant funding to this organization since donning his current role as Executive Director last December.

“I don’t remember that there was a vote at Council,” Morales later asserted, “Certainly, if there would have been, I would have had to abstain.”

Mayor Gray told NewsLanc that the funds allocated to the Community Safety Coalition—$100,000 in 2008 and $200,000 in 2009—were included as part of the City’s Capital Budget. Gray stressed that these funds were specifically granted for the purchasing of cameras; none of these funds, according to Gray, could have been directed toward operational or personnel costs.

According to the agenda for their November 25 public meeting, the Lancaster County Commissioners will announce that they will discuss reductions to the previously fixed 2010 salaries for county managers.

The compensations to be reviewed are those of the County Controller, Recorder of Deeds, Jury Commissioners, County Commissioners, Sheriff, Register of Wills, Prothonotary, Clerk of Courts, Treasurer, and Coroner.

The review will take place at the Special County Commissioners’ Meeting scheduled on Tuesday, December 1, 2009, at 7:30 PM at 150 North Queen Street Annex, first floor conference room.

Picture an open space a block long and half a block wide, an average of three stories high.

Then double the area if the doors are left open to the adjoining exhibit space.

That is the common area that the architects designed for the Lancaster Convention Center and Marriott Hotel.

Even though actual functions will only take place on less than a third of the days in the Convention Center, the heating and air conditioning requirements will remain the approximately same—365 days, 24 hours—since the area is integrated with the Marriott lobby.

Furthermore, this is not an interior atrium space surrounded by hotel rooms but rather an area enclosed by exterior walls with massive windows.

There is no way to isolate the lobby of the hotel from the break-out area of the convention center. Furthermore, there is not even any reasonably conceivable way of correcting the situation.

This approach may have made sense for Grand Central Station in New York and 30^th Street Station in Philadelphia, at a time when energy costs were cheap and a monumental ambiance was sought, but we don’t recall encountering it elsewhere.

Just wait ‘til they get their A/C bill!

There are no volunteers monitoring cameras at the Lancaster Community Safety Coalition. They are all paid employees.

Those monitoring cameras are paid $10 an hour. Joe Morales, executive director of the LCSC, is paid an annual salary of $85,000.

The surveillance camera system in Lancaster is expensive. There are maintenance and replacement costs. Cameras attached to outside poles, as are the 164 cameras owned by the LCSC and the 16 cameras on city streets owned and operated by F&M, have a life expectancy of only 3 to 5 years.

Is this system worth what it costs? Only time will tell.

Editor’s note: Morales later specified to NewsLanc that his salary is actually $80,000.

Lancaster Township is planning to build a fire station on part of the Community Park located in my neighborhood, between Atkins Ave. and Millersville Pike.  I went to a township meeting last week and saw a map display, produced by the township, showing two proposed subdivision scenarios that would give them a parcel on which to develop this fire station.  You should be able to see these in the map file that I’ve attached to this e-mail.

One scenario involved taking a rectangular area of about 7 acres, the other scenario involved a triangle of about 4 acres.

Needless to say a lot of the people who showed up at the meeting were pretty upset about this and frankly I’m not very optimistic about the effect that such a development would have on real-estate prices as well as on the community at large in this area.

An interesting note regarding this issue is that the Lancaster newspaper reported about this meeting saying that there was only lukewarm opposition to this proposal.  I was there and that is not what I saw. Furthermore the newspaper also misstated the location of the proposed development asserting that it is on the northwest corner of the park, it’s actually the southwest area.

All of the presenters at the meeting talked about how it was only 4 acres that they wanted and downplayed the fact that their own map display showed a scenario with 7 acres!  They also made mention of a possible future expansion of the site to include a police and ambulance station but were very vague about it when pressed.