In light of recent statements and press coverage regarding fiscal difficulties at the Lancaster County Convention Center, I would like to take this opportunity to respond publicly and offer some insight and perspective as a member of the Lancaster County hotel community.

Often times, I read about “the stakeholders” meeting to discuss these matters and every time I ask myself, aren’t we, the hotels, stakeholders? Where is our voice? Why don’t we have a seat at the table? I hope that you will indulge me here and allow me to voice some concerns because I do not feel anyone else is advocating on our behalf and looking at all sides of this project.

Click here to read the full letter.

As for marijuana sales by the state – I would welcome that, however, I wonder if those sales would be accompanied by the excessive onslaught of advertising that we now see with the state lottery – billboards, radio, television, etc.

Sadly it looks like we’ve taken the profits from an undesirable activity from one band of crooks to another.

It is VERY hard to justify ‘penalizing’ or having additonal taxes imposed upon the hoteliers or city/county taxpayers who essentially had NO SAY in the project. Hopefully, we will be given a SAY now!!!!!

Any additional taxes should be put to a voting referendum, and let the chips fall where they may accordingly. Taxation without representation didn’t work for England, and it shouldn’t work for the ‘power elite’ here in Lancaster County.

Further, the politicians and the media keep saying that Ahmadinejad said that “Israel will be wiped off the map”. Deep in his heart he may wish for that, however he never ever uttered those words. I speak the language and what he said was not that. It has been twisted and deliberately mistranslated to further their agenda which is the justification for an attack on Iran.

(Remember yellow cake uranium from Niger and its link to Saddam Hussein, and other none sense such as Iraq and 9/11)
What he said was that the Zionist regime has to disappear. This in the worldview of the regime is in the same vein as saying apartheid must disappear. The word Israel was not even mentioned in the sentence. This made him very popular in the Arab world. Our politicians do the same here with Israel in order to get the Jewish vote.

Would he like to see Israel disappear? Maybe, but then so would more than a dozen Arab country… particularly those surrounding Israel. In fact anti-Israel sentiment is many times stronger in the Arab world than in Iran. No one talks of going to war with those Arab countries.

The regime (not the people) in Iran is very anti US. They view Israel as a proxy for the US. Hence the rhetoric against Israel.

Israel is strong enough to take care of itself. Iran is no threat to Israel. The US should not engage in a war with Iran because Israel is paranoid.

Iran, however, is of grave danger to the west. Not in military terms but in ideological terms. Iran has in the past and continues presently to spread very strong anti-West sentiments in the Muslim world. This in the long run is far more dangerous for the West than if Iran got the bomb but had a regime that was not ideological in its current form and was preferably democratic.

Donald Trump does not represent middle-America any more than I represent ‘the elite’.

EDITOR: As far as we are concerned, Trump is a self engrandizing, dead beat, ignoramus, blow hard.  He was blessed with a very rich father who would come to his rescue.

…After all, it took the attorney general’s investigator an entire year to find the police report filed in 1998. It also took him an entire year to find out that Sandusky wrote a book. Where was the sense of urgency to get a child predator off the streets? What happened to the sense of urgency to report in a timely manner? Who is at fault if Sandusky abused more children from 2008-2011?

So why was Paterno excoriated for not doing enough when Corbett’s office dragged its feet several years later?

There is more to this scandal than the people are being told, but thanks to people such as Phil Knight, Anthony Lubrano and Bill Keisling, who found the courage to say publicly what needed to be said, the public is learning more…

Click here to read the full article.

The city elementary school which her young son attends has cut the librarian from five days to one day a week; all classes must visit that one day since it is closed the rest of the week.  No longer can students come during breaks and free periods to find books, read or do research.

The waitress tries to take her son to the Lancaster Public Library on Duke St., the one nearest her home, but can’t get there often because of her work schedule.  (Most libraries were forced to cut hours 2 years ago after Rendell slashed library funding). So her child, and plenty of others, are now hindered in their ability to improve their reading skills and enjoy reading as a wholesome past-time.  Nor can she benefit from the educational programs.  Don’t our politicians realize that this is why our children and our country is slipping ever farther behind much of the developed world?

Then there’s the librarian: her health care coverage has been eliminated now that she too  is part time.  The government will likely soon be paying her unemployment insurance for doing nothing instead of for teaching our children…and in the process, leave the economy with one less consumer and taxpayer.

Earlier in the afternoon, I asked the young lady cutting my hair at a local salon what she did for health insurance, since she could only get 20 hours a week of work.  She said that she has a couple of more years on her parents’ policy.  Thanks to Obama Care, children can be covered under their parents’ policies until the age of 25.

EDITOR: Fair question.

1) Comments from leading local hoteliers.

2)  Hotels need to apply an average of 5% of revenue each year towards renovations in order to retain their market position.   It is clear from the county report of hotel sales tax revenue that, despite the addition of the Mariott and other hotels, total revenue has remained the same if not declined.  Operating expenses, taxes and debt service  have to be met.  Renovations  are funded from what is left over.   Result:  Less funds if any left over after meeting expenses, less if any funds for renovation and possible earnings.

3) Contrary to the deceptive assertions that the room sales tax is passed on to customers, in fact most is absorbed by the hotelier through reduction in room rates in order to remain competitive.   The Watchdog’s hotel had experienced this  in Luzerne County when a room sales tax was adopted to fund an arena.   The reduction in earnings the following year  approximated the total amount of  the room sales tax!   The hotel never returned to its prior level of profitability.

4)  If business could raise their prices by 5% (which is the impact of the hotel room sales tax), they would do so!  They don’t because the can’t without reducing revenues and earnings.   This is Economics 1 A.

5)  Worn properties lose customers.  This creates a vicious cycle  of less tourist trade and  less renovation.

6)  The hotel room sales tax is a classic example of killing the goose that laid the golden egg!

The whole mess STINKS, the Hershey Trust, Sandusky, Corbett, the Attorney General’s office — ALL OF IT!!!

Given the inappropriate secrecy, there is no telling what the Penn Square Partners might end up doing.

EDITOR: Ironically, half owner is the Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. who should be seeking to pry out that information.