At the March 30 Lancaster City council meeting, NewsLanc asked Mayor Rick Gray exactly how much the City had to spend last week to keep up with the American Quilter’s Society show held at the Lancaster County Convention Center. Gray said that the City’s expenses, which will be reimbursed by the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, have not yet been brought to a final calculation.
The costs temporarily incurred by the City were predominantly “public safety stuff,” as Gray put it, such as a heightened police presence in the area and traffic and pedestrian direction services. The visitors bureau, expected to repay those expenses, is funded by a state grant and almost a million dollars in county hotel room tax revenues.
Gray told NewsLanc that the City has recently been looking into other means of covering the costs of future event-related services necessitated by the convention center. In particular, he mentioned the possibility of setting aside a portion of funds already given to the City each year by the Penn Square Partners.
“We’ve been talking about possibly putting part of those aside and using them solely for security and other special things,” Gray noted.
Earlier, in his report to council, Gray recognized last week’s show as “something we can all be proud of.” He said that, in preparation for the event, numerous meetings were held with the police, the James Street Improvement District, the visitors bureau, and Randy Patterson of the department of economic development and neighborhood revitalization. Last week, as the event progressed, daily conference calls were held, where key players could troubleshoot problems as they arose.
One “minor glitch” that Gray acknowledged in his report was the lack of available shuttle transportation. Gray said that this particular problem had stemmed from some attendees not properly registering, which resulted in an incorrect total passenger count in arranging the buses.
“Meetings with the Mayor” coming to city neighborhoods
Also in his report, Mayor Gray announced the upcoming “Meetings with the Mayor” to be held throughout the city in April. According to Gray, the neighborhood gatherings will serve as a forum to discuss municipal finance and the City budget. The Mayor characterized the upcoming dates as an opportunity to “activate our taxpayers” in spurring state-level change in the way that municipalities are funded.
The meetings, which all begin at 6:30 p.m., are scheduled for the following dates and locations:
- Tuesday, April 6 at Price Elementary School, 615 Fairview Avenue
- Thursday, April 8 at John Reynolds Middle School, 605 West Walnut Street
- Wednesday, April 14 at Community United Methodist Church, 130 Tennyson Drive
- Monday, April 19 at Hand Middle School, 431 South Ann Street
- Wednesday, April 21 at McCaskey East High School, 1051 Lehigh Avenue
City applies for Google tech investment
According to Gray, the City recently responded to a request for information from Google, which is currently looking for a US city in which to install a super-high speed fiber optic internet network worth as much as $1 billion. The purpose of Google’s “experiment” is to demonstrate positive impact of readily available top-speed internet access.
About 1,100 communities have also sought the prize—some more fervently than others. In the case of Topeka, Kansas, the Mayor called for residents to refer to the city as “Google, Kansas” for the entire month of March.
“Gray said that this particular problem had stemmed from some attendees not properly registering, which resulted in an incorrect total passenger count in arranging the buses.”
The old blame the customer? Proof that after all these years the city is not ready for prime time.