“The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts a medium of expression commonly used for the preservation and communication of information and ideas, thus triggering First Amendment scrutiny. Illinois has criminalized the nonconsensual recording of most any oral communication, including recordings of public officials doing the public’s business in public and regardless of whether the recording is open or surreptitious. Defending the broad sweep of this statute, the State’s Attorney relies on the government’s interest in protecting conversational privacy, but that interest is not implicated when police officers are performing their duties in public places and engaging in public communications audible to persons who witness the events.

“Even under the more lenient intermediate standard of scrutiny applicable to contentneutral burdens on speech, this application of the statute very likely flunks. The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy Interests; as applied to the facts alleged here, it likely violates the First Amendment’s freespeechand free-press guarantees.” …  (more)

EDITOR: Of course this is subject to reversal by the current Supreme Court which, by its Bush vs. Gore and Citzens United decisions have shown its disregard for the Constitution.

The shale gas boom in the US has led to a big drop in its carbon emissions, as power generators switch from coal to cheap gas.

According to the International Energy Agency, US energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, fell by 450m tonnes over the past five years – the largest drop among all countries surveyed.

Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist, attributed the fall to improvements in fuel efficiency in the transport sector and a “major shift” from coal to gas in the power sector. “This is a success story based on a combination of policy and technology – policy driving greater efficiency and technology making shale gas production viable,” Mr Birol told the Financial Times…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: Pennsylvania has the good fortune to be a prime source of this new energy but our governor, Tom Corbett, refuses to tax it as do other states.   He reported received over a million dollars towards his gubernatorial campaign from Marcellus Shale interests.

I have come to the interesting conclusion that no one — the public, the state, no Harrisburg city or state official — knows how much debt Steve Reed ran up in his tenure as mayor of Harrisburg.

What we should be doing is telling our readers just what the bottom line debt is — and no one seems to know.

In other words, as far as I can tell, no one has a handle on the total indebtedness of the City of Harrisburg. I also believe it is in no public official’s interest to break this troubling news to members of the public.

This is not only about the debt.  Harrisburg’s public got into this mess precisely because they were left in the dark, and out of the loop. This bad practice of intentionally leaving the public and the taxpayers in the dark continues to this day.

It is not only about debt incurred with bond issues, I’ve learned. Mayor Steve Reed, it seems, attempted to leverage and borrow on just about anything that was and wasn’t nailed down. He sought loans on the ground UNDER buildings. He attempted to sell things like tax liens to third parties — at great disadvantage to taxpayers over time, but with the advantage to Reed of receiving temporary cash flow.

All this becomes important not only to our overall story, but also our attempt to figure out the mess Harrisburg is in — as well as the personality of Steve Reed.

In the book Catch-22, Joseph Heller writes of First Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder, and his Milo Enterprises, which sold and borrowed just about every piece of equipment and property he could get his hands on. Is that what we have with Mayor Reed?  It is the reasonable question.

“The Fayette County school district had been enforcing a rule that all students must stand for the pledge. Those who didn’t were subject to disciplinary action….

“But dissent is a form of patriotism — some say the highest form of patriotism.

“By supporting a rule that stifles dissent, the school board is unwittingly disrespecting the American flag.
“And it likely will end up costing Brownsville Area taxpayers even more of their hard-earned money.”

WATCHDOG: Three wags of the tail!    It was only several decades that the words “Under God” were inserted in The Pledge of Allegiance. We ommit those words when ever we stand to give the Pledge, not out of a lack of religion but in recognition of the principle that there should be a separation of state and church.

…State taxpayers spent $49 million housing inmates beyond the minimum release dates of sentences for misdemeanors and minor felonies committed in 2010, said the review by The Council of State Government’s Justice Center. The researchers are scheduled to present policy recommendations today to a state committee considering changes to the prison system.

“The whole package will include a substantial amount of money that can be saved, and at the same time, we can improve the system,” said Tony Fabelo, the center’s research director…

The state’s prison population climbed from 7,000 to 51,645 since 1980, in part because of mandatory-minimum sentences, longer prison terms and incarceration of less violent offenders, said Katrina Currie, a policy analyst for the Commonwealth Foundation…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: Much of the huge jump in incarcerations is due to the foolhardy War on Drugs.   Many relatively benign drugs such as marijuana should be taxed, regulated and controlled as we do alcohol.  Addiction should be treated as a health, not a criminal justice, matter.

NewsLanc.com has published a book length series telling the sordid story of how the downtown Lancaster Convention Center and Marriott Hotel came about.   There is a link on the home page of its web site.  So I will confine my remarks this morning to the future of the misbegotten projects.

If after meeting debt service obligations there are not sufficient funds for proper operating of the convention center, the project will end up in bankruptcy court where matters will be sorted out and justice will be undertaken.  If the court requests an investigation of the projects origins due to the loss of tens of millions of tax payers’ money through grants and guarantees, the state attorney general will conduct one.

Without funds to properly promote and operate the Convention Center and especially if it closes, the Marriott Hotel faces huge losses.  Penn Square Partners, a single purpose limited partnership in which the two major partners share no liability, would likely terminate its lease with RACL.   The City of Lancaster through RACL would own the property and be responsible for over $40 million in bond debt.  However, along the way, the insolvency will likely go before a bankruptcy court and more equitable arrangements made.

When I last appeared before this honorable board, I said I could offer no solutions.  Since then I have studied and reflected on the matter.

My advice is to do nothing.  Let matters take their natural course.  Penn Square Partners, Limited Partnership reportedly invested some $10 million in the Marriott.    Either Penn Square Partners will subsidize Convention Center losses until it is financially viable or suffer the consequences of the loss of their investments in the Marriott Hotel and further harm to the partners’ reputations.

Nevertheless, if you feel duty bound to consider any intervention, do not pay heed to so called studies which are not subject to professional standards and tend to be white washes.   First order an MAI appraisals of both the Convention Center and the Marriott Hotel.  It is the best $75,000 you could spend on this matter.  If Penn Square Partners won’t cooperate by providing financial data, then you have done all you can do and your path should be that of ‘benign neglect.’

It is not uncommon for hotels such as the Marriott in weak markets to be valued at 35 cent on the dollar.  The same applies to a convention center.  If the MAI study indicates that debt far exceeds value and thus prospects, no new tax levied by county or city will prove sufficient.  It will be but one of many future installments with ‘good money going after bad’.   I understand the county’s potential risk is currently $20 million dollars, but even if the county subsidizes the project its exposure will remain $20 million dollars.

There would be a difficult few years as things work their way through a bankruptcy procedure, as was the case with the ill-conceived Pennsylvania Academy of Music, but when all is said and debt set at a manageable level, the entire Convention Center project will finally be viable and the hotel may even be on the real estate tax rolls…where it belongs.

Not only has LGH spent the money on an electronic patient health and medical record keeping system to serve its own needs, but medical practices throughout the region are also spending tens of million to establish their own electronic medical record keeping systems. Yet much of the data will not be accessible beyond the individual entity.

LGH’s digital medical storage system is to come on line late this summer. Should it need to  be scrapped within five years in order to replace it with a nationally standardized system, the directors will not necessarily be to blame. The same applies to private practices.

The federal government had declined to establish software standards for hospitals and medical practices as it has provided for other industries. It would have been simple to have utilized the Veteran Administration’s proven health record system, developed over twenty years, as a starting point.

Why didn’t this happen? We surmise that this would have curtailed the opportunity for private industry to sell billions of dollars of their own software to health organizations throughout the nation.

How many lobbyists were working for the software industry and how many were representing the consumer?

The result…instead of having a fully integrated national medical record keeping system so that a sick Lancaster resident could receive prompt and thorough treatment elsewhere in the country and possibly abroad, the country will have a hodgepodge of a facsimile.   And the huge profits (called “surpluses”) generated by public charity Lancaster General Hospital over the past few years may go largely down the drain.

On February 26, between 7-8 p.m., in Sanford, Florida, 17 year-old Trayvon Martin was shot to death by George Zimmerman, a 28 year-old resident of Sanford.

The facts surrounding the shooting death have still not been established in court, but judging by the media coverage in the weeks and months following the shooting, George Zimmerman racially “profiled” Trayvon Martin and shot him to death because he was black and wearing a hoodie.

This was the narrative picked up by the majority of the “mainstream media,” meaning most of the largest press agencies in the country.

The coverage in the first two months following the incident decidedly pointed toward Zimmerman’s guilt.  The pictures of Martin and Zimmerman most displayed nationally showed a smiling, fresh-faced, 12 year-old Martin, and a brooding, guilty-looking Zimmerman in a photo taken from another, earlier domestic incident.

President Obama weighed in on the shooting in the weeks that followed, saying “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

Congressman Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) wore a hoodie on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, and referred to “the murder of Trayvon Martin.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton immediately descended on Sanford, and, along with Ben Jealous, head of the NAACP, and led hundreds of people in rallies calling for Zimmerman’s arrest.

A group called “The New Black Panther Party” placed a $10,000 bounty on anyone who made a citizen’s arrest against Zimmerman.

Veteran civil rights leader, Rev. Jesse Jackson, proclaimed that “blacks are under attack,” as he joined the protests in central Florida.

All of these news “stories,” and others with the same thrust, also involving other high-profile celebrities like Spike Lee and Oprah Winfrey, were covered extensively by virtually every major media outlet – print, television, digital –  in the United States.

The political right, through its principal media source, Fox News, countered with another narrative.  Fox and other right-leaning organizations promoted Zimmerman’s justifiable shooting of Martin, whom they said was the antagonist against Zimmerman on that rainy February evening.

Fox News talk show host, Bill O’Reilly, used his program repeatedly to cast Zimmerman as justified in shooting Martin, and blasted Martin’s high-profile public supporters for “exploiting” Martin’s death.

William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education, wrote as a guest on CNN.com about a “rush to judgment” against Zimmerman:  “Many people are not on an impartial hunt for justice but are exploiting this crisis for personal or political gain and claiming that it is representative of larger societal problems,” wrote Bennett.

In recent weeks, new information about the shooting seems to show a very different picture than was reported in the first weeks and months after Martin’s death.  Pictures of a battered and bruised Zimmerman immediately after the shooting have emerged, and seem to support Zimmerman’s claim that he was attacked and beaten by the six-foot, three-inch Martin.

The Florida funeral director who handled Martin’s body before his burial said that there were no bruises or other indications of  a fight on the 17 year-old.

It has also been reported recently that Martin had drugs in his system, and had been in Sanford because he was serving his third suspension from his Miami high school.  Martin was suspended for graffiti, truancy, and drugs.  (Marijuana residue was reportedly found in a baggie in his backpack.)

This new information, especially the pictures of Zimmerman, even prompted Harvard Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz, in an op-ed piece appearing in the New York Daily News, to call for a withdrawal of the second-degree murder charge against Zimmerman. Dershowitz is also harshly critical of  the special prosecutor in the case, Angela Corey, whom he accuses of intentionally withholding key evidence.

Wherever the truth may lie regarding the specific details of the incident, the problem is clearly with the media coverage of the case. Unfortunately, there are no codified “rules” for good, ethical, and responsible journalism.  The market and advertisers seem to set the rules.

At the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where this writer received his degree, what was emphasized was not to give the public what it wanted, but what it needed to know.

By trying (and convicting, or acquitting) George Zimmerman in the press well before his trial, the media is giving the public what it thinks it wants – a high tech lynching.  The press covers criminal cases like boxing matches, with day-by-day tallies and scoring.  Trayvon “won” the first rounds; Zimmerman “came back” in the later rounds.

This is wrong.

In pandering to the tastes and whims of the public, the media, in this case, has made victims not just of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, but of the justice system it ought to protect.   The possibility that George Zimmerman will receive a fair, non-politicized and impartial hearing is remote based on the coverage to date.

That is the worst crime of all.

Lancaster County, [J. Mark Tobin] noted, has guaranteed $20 million on the authority’s debt. “It is possible that if the current guarantee could be substantially increased, by the county or some investment grade entity yet to be determined, that the opportunity to refinance the debt may be improved, thereby likely reducing interest expense,” Tobin wrote.

Tobin suggested several possibilities:

• A business improvement district tax, levied on businesses in the vicinity of the convention center. Lancaster already has two such levies, the Downtown Investment District and James Street Improvement District.

• Increasing the excise tax.

• A prepared food and beverage tax.

• An increased sales tax.

• An increased property tax.

• And improved hotel room rental tax collections.

WATCHDOG: Tobin and the reporter fail to mention the most obvious and popular solution to the problem:  The sponsors who so disingenuously misled the public and bludgeoned the then county commissioners should make up any deficit.    Both S. Dale High and The Lancaster Newspapers need to take responsibility for their disservice to the community.

Also, the sponsors promised that the Convention Center would attract offices and stores to downtown, which has not occurred.

So is the Convention Center really “Doing well” as the headline states?  Rather it has robbed public funding that could have gone to far more valuable public investments, just one of many would have been the renovation and expansion of the Lancaster Public Library which serves around 1400 people a day.

Nevertheless, the clear implications of the report were:  The convention center should not have been built in downtown Lancaster, it was poorly designed, and that the Convention Center Authority is being exploited through its one sided arrangements with Penn Square Partners and the High companies.  And lastly, there isn’t much that can be done about it.

The below excerpts and comments are in the order that the material is presented:

“The greater Lancaster area and surrounding ‘Pennsylvania Dutch Country’ has established itself is a well-branded, successful visitor destination. According to PDCVB estimates, as a whole, the destination attracts as many as 11 million annual visitors. The Bureau estimates that this visitor activity accounts for approximately $818 million in direct economic impact and nearly $460 million in indirect economic impact. Travel and tourism is reported to be the County’s second largest industry employing nearly 40,000 people, both directly and indirectly. Recent growth in this industry has been noted as well. Based on statistics from Smith Travel Research Inc., visitors to Lancaster County booked a record 1.42 million room-nights in 2011. The previous record was 1.40 million, set in 2007.”

They imply that downtown Lancaster is in the same tourist market as the balance of the region, which it is not.  Nor is much industry and commerce situated in downtown Lancaster.  Hence the failure of the Hilton later Ramada now Brunswick hotel, a four star facility when new that was far superior to the current Marriott three star rated facility.

Unlike marketing reports written during the planning of the hotel, they fail to mention the lack of highway access  to downtown.

They skirt the fact that the nearest significant commercial airport is thirty-five miles away in MIddletown.

They fail to explicitly point out that the various business and recreational attractions in the region are suburban and exurban, not downtown.    Of the 24 regional features they list, not a single one is within walking distance of the Convention Center and only one is within the city limits.

The 24:  Aaron & Jessica’s Buggy Rides,  HERSHEYPARK, Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania,  Adventure Sports in Hershey, Hershey’s Chocolate World, Rockvale Outlet Center, Amish Village,  Indian Echo Caverns, September Farm Cheese,  AvalancheXpress Snow Tubing,  Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery,  Sight & Sound Theatre,  Carlisle Sports Emporium,  Kitchen Kettle Village,  Strasburg Rail Road,  Cherry Crest Adventure Farm,  Lancaster Barnstormers Baseball,  Susquehanna Glass Factory Outlet and ,  Dutch Wonderland Family Amusement Park,  Lancaster Quilt & Textile Museum,  Tanger Outlet Center, Hershey Garden, President James Buchanan’s Wheatland, Turkey Hill Experience

Of the listed primary reasons for Visiting Lancaster County, only one, “Heritage, History and architecture” even partially relates to downtown.

“The most important non-convention center amenity is the hotel package. Without sufficient nearby, quality hotel product, convention centers are extremely challenged in attracting non-local conventions, conferences, tradeshows and meetings, regardless of the attractiveness of their facility and the community’s other supporting infrastructure. From a meeting planner’s perspective, assembling a room block in as few properties as possible is critical. Oftentimes planners will utilize no more than two to three properties as close as possible to the host facility. As such, the location of a market’s existing and planned inventory of hotel space can be critical in successfully accommodating events with a non-local attendee base.

“The market for conventions, tradeshows, meetings, banquets, and other such events in any community cannot grow beyond the hotel base available to accommodate out-of-town visitors. There is currently only one hotel property (the attached Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square) that could be considered to be located within walking distance of the Convention Center that provides what are generally considered to be ‘convention quality’ hotel rooms.

“ ‘Convention-quality’ is a term that varies based on the particular community and type of group considered; therefore, in order to accommodate as many different groups as possible it is important to offer a variety of hotel properties with varying price ranges and available amenities. The Marriott provides 299 total guestrooms. Based on conversations with property management, between 150 and 200 rooms are typically available to serve the needs of Convention Center events.”

Precisely what was anticipated by all the original marketing studies which were suppressed or selectively reported upon.   The CSL report fails to discuss why there are no other suitable hotels:  The historic paucity of  downtown hotel business due to the scant downtown commercial and tourist attractions.

Moreover, a few days ‘spill over’ days from the Marriott is not sufficient business to justify the Brunswick Hotel owners investing several million dollars to bring the hotel up to a standard that would achieve a prestigious franchise affiliation.

“Located within close proximity to Interstates 83 and 76, Lancaster is within a day’s drive to a number of major northeastern U.S. markets. Exhibit II-5 provides the driving distance (in road miles), as well as the approximate driving time, from Lancaster to select regional markets.”

Did they invest $10 in a road map?   Since when is Lancaster near I-83 and I-76, both about 20 miles away? Moreover, as noted on earlier market studies, there is no limited access road delivering cars to downtown.

“At 54.2 percent, occupancy levels within Lancaster County are very close to the overall average among the 14 competitive and comparable markets (54.6 percent).”

Misery loves company.  The report fails to mention how many of the “14 competitive and comparable markets” are also losing money.

“It is also important to assess the revenue per available room (RevPAR) ratio to determine the strength of the local/regional hotel market. In 2011 the RevPAR for Lancaster County was approximately $49.69 and has grown by more than 16 percent over the past three years. When the RevPAR is rising, it is an indication that either occupancy rates are improving or that room rates are rising (or some combination of both), typically indicating a strong/growing hotel market.”

If “RevPAR is rising”, how comes the proceeds from the Room Revenue Sales Tax have remained virtually stable, actually declining one year?   If indeed RevPAR has risen, it has risen very little and likely less than the rate of inflation.

“Based on PDCVB estimates, total trackable room nights associated with Convention Center event activity approximated 28,500 in 2011. This compares to an estimated 14,300 in 2010 and represents a nearly 100 percent increase in room night activity.”

Assuming that the Marriott booked every last one of them, which it can’t because some events provide more rooms than it can accommodate, that only comes to 78 rooms a night for a 299 room facility.   Is the market sufficient to provide at least 131 additional rooms per night to bring the hotel occoupancy to 70%, the usual percentage necessary to pay operating costs, debt service and taxes.  Oops…we forgot that the Marriott doesn’t have to pay real estate taxes!   So maybe its breakeven point is at 65%, which would require 116 additional room sales a night.

Since all of the room demand takes place during event dates, there is some displacement ….hence the need for more downtown rooms to attract major events.  But the spill over for say a dozen dates would hardly generate enough business to justify a second hotel or modernization of the Brunswick.

“Each year, the Convention Center hosts a variety of large events that generate significant levels of non-local spending (and associated economic and fiscal impacts). Exhibit III-2 lists several of the larger events that have recently taken place at the Center. Corresponding attendance levels are representative of total attendance over the entire event. For example a three-day event with 7,000 people per day has a total attendance of 21,000).”

What the report does not mention is that some of the events, such as the 16,000 day Quilt Society Show, used to take place on Rt. 30 East.   Not only are those hotels taxed to support the convention center and receive no business in exchange, but the very business that fed the hotels in the past has been lured away from them.  Some justice!

“As noted by approximately 15 percent of event planners, the inventory of hotel rooms within a walkable vicinity of the Convention Center prevents Lancaster from successfully penetrating many event markets with significant non-local attendees. This represents the number one specifically referred-to deficiency among responses.”

See above.  Although the region has ample industry, commerce and tourist attractions, there is little enticement for people to walk around downtown Lancaster, especially in the evenings.

“Other issues, such as a lack of direct air access, transportation concerns, canceled events, and related concerns were noted by nearly one-fourth of those questioned.”

If one can’t fly to Lancaster, why would any non-regional group book here?

“The existing inventory of hotel rooms within walking distance of the Convention Center is able to support approximately 25 percent of this national event market (for events requiring 10,000 to 50,000 gross square feet of exhibit space. Shuttling is required to support an event requiring 500 committable rooms. This highlights a competitive disadvantage of the Center when competing for rotating, room night generating events. To support the needs of an event requiring 800 rooms (75 percent of the market) would require five to six hotels. This review again underscores existing limitations with regard to the supply of hotel room surrounding and able to facilitate the demands several high impact events.”

This is information stressed in the initial marketing study and convincing reasons not to build so large of a center.  No marketing study recommended so large a convention center.  PriceWaterHouse Cooper actually withdrew its earlier market studies when it discovered that the facility was to be greatly increased in size.

(Is this motivation behind this report to seduce public funding for Penn Square Partners to  purchase the Brunswick?)

“Locations with considerably higher room tax rates relative to other markets can, for some events, negatively impact the likelihood of the location being selected.”

Yet LCCCA is requesting a still higher hotel room sales tax to cover convention center losses!

“… the PDCVB allocated an estimated $402,700 toward selling and marketing the Convention Center and other local and regional event space in 2011.

“This compares to an average of nearly $1.4 million among the communities reviewed and is significantly less than current expenditures in Virginia Beach, West Palm Beach, Madison and Lexington.”

Those convention centers  are several times larger!

There are all sorts of comparisons with other convention center but no mention of whether those cited centers are making or losing money.   Why not?

“As shown in the exhibit, with a net operating deficit of approximately $844,000 in 2011, the Convention Center ranks well compared to the average of the facilities reviewed in terms of net operations. Two facilities that were frequently cited as being competitive with the Convention Center within certain event segments (the Wildwood Convention Center and the Ocean City Convention Center) operate at annual deficits that exceed $3.5 million. Only one facility operates with a positive cash flow—a relatively rare occurrence among convention centers in the United States.”

Out of a ‘competitive set’ of 16 convention centers, only one earns a profit.  LCCCA loses a bit less than the average.  This could change when the newness wears off.  Moreover, the convention center is already  heavily subsidized from the proceeds of the Room Rental Sales Tax.  So we are talking about losses in addition to anticipated losses.

“As is typical in the industry, the majority of comparable facilities reviewed contract food service operations to outside vendors. Vendor commissions and the structure of the contracts vary among each facility, with most involving various percentages of gross food and beverage collections remitted to the center. At five percent of gross catering sales, the revenue split to the Authority is generally lower than that of similar contracts with other comparable convention centers across the country…

“The share of gross revenue allocated to the Convention Center owner (Authority) are somewhat below what is standard in agreements between convention center food and beverage vendors and facility owners. These agreements provide for owner revenue sharing at the 10 to 25 percent range. We also note that there is a provision in the agreement that calls for the Authority to fund 100 percent of Kitchen Facility equipment, and that the Authority will maintain and replace these items as needed. The fact that the hotel is a significant beneficiary of the Kitchen Facility equipment is not reflected in this component of the agreement. Finally, we note that agreements such as this are often negotiated in the context of larger facility development and financing agreements, and any areas that diverge from industry standard may result from the accumulation of terms and provisions in the global set of agreements.”

The report provides statistics showing Food and Beverage revenues from the comparable set are Average = $9.03 Median = $6.60.  LCCCA receives only $3.39.  Why?  There was a ‘sweet heart’ deal with a subsidiary of the High Companies who pay a far lower commission than is the industry norm.   The voluminous documents were only provided LCCCA board members less than two days before the meeting and Chairman Ted Darcus refused a request by three members to postpone a vote until a later special meeting or regularly scheduled one.

“In 2009, 2010 and 2011, LCCC utilities expenses were more than $200,000 higher than originally projected.

“Total Utilities Expenses per Square Foot – Competitive and Comparable Facilities…

Average = $6.40 Median = $5.50  Lancaster:  $8.27.”

Why so high?  There are two obvious reasons.   The atrium design which continues into the hotel lobby is nutty, making it necessary to heat and cool a huge area whether or not there is a convention center event.

High as manager of the project did not provide for more than a single electric meter for both the convention center and the hotel.   Who is paying for what?

Information on whether the Convention Center has added sufficient business to downtown to at least  make  the Marriott profitable is not available to the public.   Of course, if it is in economic distress and the owners choose not to subsidize the losses, then the problem will eventually become public since the City of Lancaster has guaranteed the debt.

We do not see where the CSL reports adds much useful information not already available from the initial largely negative marketing studies, either suppressed or misreported upon by the Lancaster Newspapers, and by NewsLanc’s “Convention Center Series”.

Although current management and board bear no responsibility for the shortcoming of the convention center design and legal arrangements, we are disappointed that they accepted a report that does not clearly and courageously set forth the plight, marketing expectations, and funds likely needed over the future decade to prevent bankruptcy.

The CSL reports is but another market study.  What was needed is a feasibility study.  History repeats itself.

LETTER: Visit “CSL report clearly avoids addressing the root causes of the convention center’s debt issues” for an important supplement to the above.