Last week I suggested that the link between Kevin Fry, LCCCA Chairman and Vice President of Prudential HSG Realty Commercial Division, and Dale High creates AT LEAST the appearance of a conflict of interest for Kevin. The connection would be the fact that Dale’s son-in-law, Kurt Schenck, is a realtor under Fry at Prudential.
This week, I am convinced a conflict exists and call for Fry to resign IMMEDIATELY. What changed? LNP, the other Penn Square Partner, is now pimping the Brunswick. In what could at best be described as a sales advertisement, LNP ran an “article” today (2/22) pushing the sale of that building, a building being listed by Prudential HSG Realty Commercial Division and Fry specifically.
PSP must have a hotel tax increase. If that does not occur by the first quarter of 2013, the LCCCA will default on its debt. PSP needs Kevin Fry to follow his lieutenant, Kevin Molloy, in publicly calling on the commissioners to raise the tax to solve all problems.
PSP does NOT want Fry to suggest that the unholy agreements that exist between the LCCCA and PSP could be the problem and deserve to be revisted and renegotiated on terms that would balance the scale.
EDITOR: We have two reservations about the above and two observations.
First, Penn Square Partners do not own the Convention Center so it faces no crisis. In fact, an increase in hotel room sales tax would be borne by it as well as all other hotels.
Second, we do not understand where there is a significant conflict between Kevin Fry’s efforts to broker the sale of the Brunswick Hotel and his position as chairman of the LCCCA which, incidentally, he does as a public service. Raising the hotel room sales tax will have an adverse impact on the value of hotels including the Brunswick so, if there were a conflict, Fry would logically not want a tax increase but rather would recommend funding from general tax revenues.
Third, we agree that the one sided, unconscienable agreements between PSP and the LCCCA should be revised to conform with industry standards.
Last, the Watchdog recommends funding from general tax revenues rather than an increase in the hotel room revenue tax. We have done enough to wound the local tourist industry without stabbing it again.
If the CC defaults, both LNP and High are faced with a huge PR disaster. If the CC were to close, they also take a financial hit at the hotel but that is small potatoes to their larger corporate umbrellas. As much as High Hotels does not want to deal with a hotel tax increase, the bigger High concern is a CC default and for that reason they are 100% behind a tax increase NOW, before the LCCCA has to show up before the commissioners and beg, literally.
Commissions on $8.5 million listings are a huge deal to Kevin Fry, not that the Brunswick could ever sell at that amount, he is not a High or a Steinman. The cost for him to purchase the type of publicity he got this morning for his listing would be measured in the 10’s of thousands of dollars. He now owes LNP whether he asked for the PR or not.
While he should have been creating a public scene for the last 4 months to revisit the agreements he has not and I cannot see him doing it now that LNP has become the propaganda arm for Prudential Commercial here in Lancaster.
The Watchdog needs to clean his glasses, realize that hotel taxes are going up and call for this tangled web to be untangled.