Without concerned and knowledgeable citizens monitoring government activities, the fragile democracy from which we all benefit would quickly disappear.

Therefore NewsLanc passed over obvious and otherwise deserving local luminaries such as LCCCA former chair Art Morris and Intelligencer New Era columnist Jeff Hawkes to select Randolph Carney as “Lancaster Person of the Year 2009.”

Over the past five years, the 55 year old Carney has attended every City Council and LCCCA board and committee meeting that he could. He explained: “I started attending regularly after the developer of the then-proposed hotel at Penn Square demanded that their ‘private’ venture receive substantial relief from real estate taxes, which violates one of the basic promises of the project.

He continued “As I learned more and more about local government, I came to appreciate how much decisions made by our mayor and City Council directly affects our everyday lives. Now that I have seen for myself what really goes on in our local government, I cannot in good conscience avoid these meetings.”

Beyond work and family obligations, Carney says “My primary interest has been trying to understand what our local government officials are really trying to do, and working to pass that information on to others. Computers have been my personal hobby since 1980.”

Carney has become so versed in Convention Center Project and Lancaster City affairs that his knowledge rivals (and we suspect often exceeds) many board members. A prolific but usually anonymous contributor to local web sites and a source of comments frequently posted under a pen name on www.LancasterOnLine.com , Carney is an ongoing source of accurate information, keen observations and constructive criticisms.

According to Carney “I have always taken an interest in Lancaster City firefighters since I grew up just over one block from Station #3 and delivered newspapers there as a teenager. The first government meeting where I ever spoke out was at a City Council Finance Committee budget hearing in December of 2004, to defend the firefighters against a mayor who was determined to undermine them in any way possible. I was appointed to be a member of the Civil Service Board of the Lancaster City Bureau of Fire in August of 2007.”

Deferential and modest in his demeanor, the self described “Born Again Christian” Carney revealed to the interviewer: “I hate politics; however I really want to make some kind of difference in Lancaster City, even if it is a tiny one. I have already influenced the outcome of several situations and, after observing City Council for the past five years, I believe I have something to contribute. I’m working to overcome my fear.”

Carney has lived in the City of Lancaster all of his life, apart from three years in the near suburbs. He is a graduate of McCaskey high school class of 1972.

A repairman and troubleshooter since he was nineteen years old, he has been employed as a field service engineer by an international corporation for over 16 years.

Carney resides with wife Pam and has two children and six grandchildren from an earlier marriage.

While fame and fortune are the allure of many, there is a scarcity of concerned citizens prepared to devote the time, do the homework, to write learnedly on subjects, and stick their necks out at public meetings come what may. These selfless individuals are the guardians of our democracy. NewsLanc is proud and honored to name Randy Carney its “Lancaster Person of the Year.”

Drivers along Marietta Avenue saw moving vans at the home of Francis Veri and Michael Jamanis, Sr., founders of the Pennsylvania Music Academy (PAM),  as the artists moved before year’s end from their formerly PAM owned residence to their new home nearby in School Lane Hills.

As part of the settlement between the academy and the Ferree Foundation which is funded by Lancaster philanthropist and former PAM board chair Paul Ware, PAM deeded the house and the adjacent building immediately to the south of the Academy to the foundation.

The Jamanises are moving to a nearby School Lane Hill’s house.

Their new home had been rapidly acquired to accommodate the piano artists’ space requirements for dual pianos and subsequently  leased to the couple.

NewsLanc interprets the response by an Academy supporter as well as the efforts of PAM’s Management Committee as appreciation for the unstinting efforts and many accomplishments of the Jamanises over the years and determination by an affluent, competent and determined cadre to overcome set backs and  yet achieve the goal of making PAM an international school for talented high school musicians.

Jobless Claims Fall Unexpectedly As Layoffs Ease

The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits dropped unexpectedly last week, a sign the job market is healing as the economy slowly recovers.

The Labor Department says that new claims for unemployment insurance fell by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000, the lowest since July 2008. That’s much better than the rise to 460,000 that Wall Street economists expected.

WATCHDOG: That bodes well for a happier new year and decade.

Its editorial “Al-Qaida in Yemen a gathering threat” concludes:

“But Yemen could be considered the kind of ‘gathering threat’ that George Bush spoke of in reference to Iraq —  the reason behind a previous geography lesson.

WATCHDOG: If NewsLanc bestowed a ‘Height of Ignorance’ award for 2009, this editorial would have snuck in under the deadline!

There was no functional Al-Quaida in Iraq, far from it. Saddam Hussein was an ardent opponent and cruelly (but effectively) suppressed any such dissidence.

Watchdog message to New Era editors: George Bush screwed upon when he invaded Iraq. It’s history. Learn from it. If this nation is to survive as a world power and leading economy, we must not get into any other senseless wars. There are enough times, such as Afghanistan, when we have to fight without carelessly and senselessly squandering our youth and our resources.

One other thing: Happy New Year. To our viewers also, and thanks for visiting NewsLanc.

“Army History Finds Early Missteps in Afghanistan” reports:

“In the fall of 2003, the new commander of American forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, decided on a new strategy. Known as counterinsurgency, the approach required coalition forces to work closely with Afghan leaders to stabilize entire regions, rather than simply attacking insurgent cells…

“That early and undermanned effort to employ counterinsurgency is one of several examples of how American forces, hamstrung by inadequate resources, missed opportunities to stabilize Afghanistan during the early years of the war, according to the history, ‘A Different Kind of War.’”

WATCHDOG: First year blunders by presidents extract a huge price that cascades down through decades. Examples: John Kennedy’s “Bay of Pigs”; George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion (that led to neglect of Afghanistan.) Let’s pray that President Barack Obama’s health care bill does not prove to be one of them.

By Robert Field

The dream of husband and wife team Fran Veri and Michael Jamanis and those others, public and private, that helped bring about the Pennsylvania Academy of Music can yet be achieved… but much depends on the actions of PAM’s Business Committee.

PAM’s future can far transcend what would be the circumstance if it were but a school for local students whose parents would like them to learn to play a musical instrument.   As an international music school for talented high-school age musicians from throughout the world, PAM’s potential impact on the future of the City, and secondarily the County, is unparalleled.

First, without PAM, to what use can this $32 million dollar facility be put? Art Mann, Chair of PAM’s Business Committee, likens it to the proverbial ‘white elephant’. When an ancient Asian king desired to destroy a member of the nobility, a gift was given that required so much upkeep as to be financially ruinous.

Second, what is UNCB bank to do with a structure that represents around $9 million in debt, a significant chunk of its capital? Perhaps a buyer will emerge for the single purpose structure, despite its extraordinary cost of operations. Otherwise, PAM donors may be its best prospect if and when PAM’s revenue can be expanded and its expenses reduced, a mammoth undertaking, if indeed possible.

Third, the Brunswick Hotel remains closed, although it can readily qualify for an Occupancy Permit. If PAM is to become a boarding school for musicians, the Brunswick’s ample lower level meeting room space, several floors of rooms, and its pool and ample common areas are key. (The long closed movie theatre might also be put to use.) This would provide ‘base business’ and needed activity for a hotel that has been virtually dormant on the Lancaster scene for three decades, despite the fact that it is fundamentally a superior facility to the recently completed Marriott Hotel. (It was opened as a four star Hilton as compared the three star Marriott.)

Fourth, a flourishing PAM and revitalized Brunswick would revive Lancaster Square, helping to attract a user to the empty former Bulova (Hess Department Store) Building.

Fifth, downtown Lancaster would benefit greatly from having a music academy campus in its midst. Shops and restaurants would spring up to serve the students. Family members and tourists would be attracted to the year-round programs. The city would bask in the same prestige that Julliard brings to Manhattan and Curtis to Philadelphia.

There is much that can be justifiably criticized about how much money was spent, for the inept  and conflicted board leadership, and the inexperienced management by artists since PAM’s inception. The question now is whether Business Committee Chair Mann and committee members Mary Burton and Jon Tryon can take effective steps to turn the institution around.

It will take much dedication and work, bold actions, ‘tough love’, a strong vision, and the courage to forge ahead. Once it is apparent that business competence is present, donors will rise to the occasion because PAM is much loved. (Certainly the Steinman Foundation’s and Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.’s generous cooperation helped to make the current arrangement possible.) However, if we don’t see signs of radical changes at PAM over the next couple of months, it is unlikely we ever will.

In conclusion, this isn’t just the future of a music school for kids. PAM, far more than the almost $200 million Convention Center Project, can alter for the better the entire future of our community. Seldom has so much depended upon so few.

In a column entitled “Sometimes love can outlive addiction” Jeff Hawkes describes:

“Twenty-one times Rey entered treatment. Twenty-one times he relapsed.,,

“In April 2008, Rey, 36, and Linda Cruz, 41, residents of the 300 block of Beaver Street, experienced a turning point. Rey started taking a daily dose of methadone, a synthetic narcotic that deadens his brain’s hard-wired craving for heroin and squelches the sickness and pain that drove him to do whatever it took to get a fix.

“Now a middle-aged man, Rey is finding it’s possible to wake up feeling normal and not be consumed by the scramble for cash and drugs.”

WATCHDOG: Hawkes was one of two runners-up for NewsLanc’s ‘Person of the Year.’ (Art Morris for his masterful service as chair of the LCCCA was the other.) It was a close call. Certainly Hawkes would be the ‘Journalist of the Year’ for articles such as the above. Two wags of the tail!

In a letter to its members, MoveOn.org recommends “Hold insurance companies to the same anti-trust laws as other companies. Right now, insurance companies are exempt from laws designed to prevent monopolies and price-gouging. The House bill would fix this, and so should the final bill.”

According to a New York Times article of Dec. 19, 2009, the Senate proposal “…would strip health insurance companies of their antitrust exemption. It would outlaw price fixing, bid rigging and ‘market allocation’ by companies that sell health insurance or medical malpractice insurance.”

This is an approach supported by most Republicans and many Democrats to curtail excessive health costs for consumers. Prices will tumble when insurance companies have to face dozens of competitors, not just compete against one or two with what amounts to a ‘nod and a wink.’

The School District of Lancaster’s English-Spanish immersion kindergarten class is running at a healthy pace, according to Kim Marucci, district coordinator for social studies and world languages. The district’s 25-student pilot program, now in its first year, may even be supplemented with more advanced reading materials to keep up with the students’ progress.

Similar programs have already been implemented throughout the United States and have proven that young children can rapidly gain fluency and confidence in a foreign language in less than 3 years. An article from the Center for Applied Linguistics states that “over three decades of studies consistently show that immersion students achieve as well as or better than non-immersion peers on standardized measures of verbal and mathematics skills administered in English.”

The class is hosted at Wharton Elementary, although the group of students was selected via lottery from throughout the district. Roughly half of the children come from English-speaking homes while the other half come from Spanish-speaking homes. 70% of instruction is presented in Spanish and the remaining 30% (math and specials) is presented in English.

As the program progresses to the fifth grade, the ratio of instruction will gradually flip. Through the process it is expected that interaction between students will help reinforce a strong grasp of both languages—verbally and in writing—by completion.

Only halfway through this school year, Marucci said, the entire class is conversant in the language, efficiently responding to all of the teacher’s daily instructions. The teacher recently told Marucci that, for the first time in class, a student wrote a complete sentence in Spanish. In her visits to the classroom, Marucci observed students chatting with one on another and even reading in Spanish. At the playground, she said, one can hear students panning between both languages at their leisure.

English-speaking parents have mentioned that at home their children will often sing in Spanish and occasionally drop phrases in that primary language of the classroom.

Currently, Marucci said, she is “investigating” additional reading and social studies material to supplement the existing curriculum. Thus far, however, the students have been exposed to the same essential curriculum as in any other kindergarten classroom. “We’re happy with the way things are going,” Marucci said, noting that when the program was first planned, “I don’t know if we knew what to expect. But we’re pleased with the outcome.”

Next year the students enrolled in the dual language kindergarten class will proceed to first grade in the same format. A new kindergarten class will then be added, as well. Marucci said that a long-term goal is to expand this program into more elementary schools within the district, although it may never reach all thirteen.

In response to “Saving Mexico”

EXCELLENT

This is another opportunity for our dear friend in China to buy some more prison bonds from our prison for profit.

Let face it, prison bonds are one of the USA’s most profitable exports, and we just committed 30,000 more troops to protect the world’s largest opium field and some of the best cannabis and hash in the world. This is a great stimulus to help the gun runners sell gun in Mexico. After all, this has always been a way to keep Black and Mexicans in their place and it been going on now for 70 plus years.

If [drugs] were legal, look at all the paychecks that get cut: The cops make their collars. The bail bondsmen get their rake off. The prosecutors make their cases. The social workers write up their interviews. The clerks push their papers. The lawyers collect their fees. The judges render their verdicts. The prison guards make their rounds. The vendors sell their baloney sandwiches. The construction firms build their additions. And the shrinks nod their heads.