by Christiaan Hart-Nibbrig
“I started looking at the agreements and contracts, and became really concerned about the risk to taxpayers. And it was obvious that the people involved in the [convention center-hotel] project were doing everything they could to avoid answering any serious questions.”
— Randolph D. Carney, aka Artie See, on what prompted him to get involved in opposing the convention center-hotel project.
Questions about the TIF proposal and other tax breaks for the hotel and convention center project awakened not only the concerns of Commissioners Shellenberger and Henderson, but also those of an increasing number of regular Lancaster citizens.
Until this point, early spring, 2005, opposition to the project was thought to be limited to a handful of dogged hoteliers, who continued to challenge the legality of the room tax; activist Ron Harper, Jr., and a handful of mostly silent ‘nay sayers.’
The TIF debate changed that. The property tax abatement plan for the “private” hotel was an unlikely front-page story for weeks leading up to the March 15th school vote. All three Lancaster Newspapers editorial pages supported the Penn Square Partners proposal presented to the school board.
The public meetings right before and the night of the TIF vote attracted hundreds of audience members from both sides of the issue. From that group emerged two citizens who would take on the issue on as concerned citizens and, despite appearances, both had a lot of fight in them.
April Koppenhaver in 2005 was a single mother in her late 40s, who owned a burgeoning art gallery and studios collective in Lancaster city.
Koppenhaver, a hyperkinetic dervish of energy, had not been involved in local politics to this point. But the TIF issue raised her awareness of the project.
It was at one of the public meetings leading up to the school board TIF vote that Koppenhaver’s fire was lit.
“I was indifferent about the project until I learned that the financing had changed, that the public was now on the hook for most of the investment,” Koppenhaver says, recalling the changes in the project’s financing.
“And when I heard Nevin Cooley stand up at the school board meeting and tell us this was our one and only hope, that really boiled my skin. He didn’t see the problems with putting a huge hotel and convention center in the middle of this particular city. He didn’t see how this project would hurt other good things starting to happen downtown. If he wanted to put up a hotel and convention center that won’t work, fine, but don’t expect the public to pay for his bad idea. That’s really what it came down to for me.*”
After the TIF vote, April Koppenhaver took a keen interest in the project, and immediately began to attending as many of the convention center authority, city council, and county commissioners meetings she could fit into her schedule, and some she couldn’t. She began speaking out at them.
Then Koppenhaver, with a few others opponents of the project, started a loose-knit band of citizens to get information out about the project named Lancaster First. This group stayed in touch about the issue via email distribution. They began showing up at meetings in greater numbers, letting the community know their side of the issue.
Koppenhaver was joined in these efforts by a seemingly mild-mannered Lancaster City resident named Randolph Carney. Carney, too, became interested in the issue because of the TIF vote.
“The TIF issue really bothered me because it was giving a major property tax break to a private business, violating one of the most important promises made to taxpayers about this project” Carney told NewsLanc. “Then I started looking at the agreements and contracts, and became really concerned about the risk to taxpayers. And it was obvious that the people involved in the project were doing everything they could to avoid answering any serious questions.”
“As a Christian, I feel this project and the way it was being developed is morally wrong.”
Carney is also a computer savvy Field Service Engineer, and it was he along with Koppenhaver and Ron Harper, Jr. who started Lancaster First.
Carney also spoke up at the public meetings. Where Koppenhaver would often speak emotionally at the microphone, Carney would make his comments and questions in a rational, clear tone of voice. But the remarks were often incisive, cogent, and often more familiar with the subject matter than the people who voted on the measures.
Perhaps Randolph Carney’s biggest impact on the project has been his online persona: Artie See.
Carney, under the Artie See pseudonym (a play on words using his initials, RDC), posted literally hundreds of posts on Lancaster Newspapers own website, LancasterOnline.com (LOL). The posts revealed a serious thinker, who took the time to obtain many of the original documents and read them very closely. There is no one in the opposition to the project who is a familiar with the esoteric details as Carney.
Carney would not only explain on LOL what the documents said, but how and where the newspapers got it wrong, which was often.
Soon, some politically experienced and reputable citizens were joining the ranks of the opposition. Names like Tom Despard, a successful real estate developer; Victor Capecce, Yale-educated with experience in trade shows; Randolph Harris, then the well-regarded director of the Historic Preservation Trust. All publicly voiced concerns about the project.
Other officials joined Shellenberger and Henderson in speaking out against the project. Republican city councilman, Luis Mendoza, a sweet-tempered Colombian, was one, and Robert B. “RB” Campbell, the city controller, was another.
In fact, Campbell pressed the matter to the point where he himself became a target of project sponsors.
It was now a civic civil war in Lancaster.
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Chapter Thirty-Seven: 2005 Part V: NOT JUST AN ACT: THE ‘SWEETHEART DEAL’ OF ACT 23
