…The CURRENT LCCCA is most definitely NOT “the toothless lapdog of PSP”, at least not by choice.
When former LCCCA chair Ted Darcus (vocally supported by former board member Joe Morales) loudly discouraged other board members from even reading what they were voting on, and giving them no time to study or question it, they were able to slip through iron-clad one-sided “agreements” which not only tie the hands of the current LCCCA, they also for all intents and purposes starve the LCCCA for operating funds (the convention center is a separate entity).
The current LCCCA doesn’t even have the funds for paying a lawyer to perform an adequate study of the agreements, definitely not enough to question them in court.
Without dozens of unpaid hours every month by LCCCA Executive Director Kevin Molloy, office manager Mary Ellen Davis, and LCCCA board members like Kevin Fry, Larry Hinnenkamp, and R.B. Campbell, the LCCCA would simply not be able to function.
EDITOR: When special interests influence the spending of $8 million of public funds on attornies, they covered all of the bases. In this case they wanted to make sure that a future LCCCA board would not have funds to challenge unfair agreements and malpractices.
The agreements with PSP, and the power shift agreed to by the Darcus & Pickard boards, are a key, if not the key, to the current LCCCA’s woes. Why don’t I hear or see the Kevins [Molloy and Fry] call out PSP?
Other than “raise the tax”, of course supported by PSP and the Mayor, where are the LCCCA’s solutions? Why was it Martin’s job to put forth a common sense solution, where were Fry and Molloy?
The Martin Plan did not require money or lawyers, just some effort and a desire to share the burden of this disaster that does little or nothing to the group currently saddled with bulk of the funding.
This LCCCA may be better but their silence on PSP, what are they afraid of at this point, and their utter failure to find innovative potential solutions confirms them as PSP’s puppet. By the way, the mere $35K in cuts that Martin seeks from them is a pittance.
Molloy should be canned … and replaced by a $65K a year babysitter to stand and watch PSP clean us out and simply say “raise the tax”, not a solution anyway with the impending refinance next March.
When I hear ideas, when I hear indignation…that is when I will give some respect.
If the Lancaster County taxpayers are going to be on the ‘hook’ if the convention center fails, and the “LCCCA board would not have funds to challenge unfair agreements and malpractices” in a court room, why can’t Lancaster County taxpayers be represented in a Class Action suit against PSP to get to the truth of the matter(s)?