An August 27 news article headed “Lawsuit against county dismissed” seizes the opportunity to perpetuate one of the greatest scandals in Lancaster County history: The witch hunt conducted by the newspapers, then District Attorney (and now Judge) Donald Totaro, and aided by President Judge Louis Farina, all benefiting Penn Square Partners and other supporters of the Convention Center Project.
The article states “[Gary Heinke’s] lawsuit claimed that newspaper reporting regarding his resume and role in selling the county’s Conestoga View nursing home were false.”
It continues “Questions about Heinke’s hiring ultimately sparked a grand jury investigation. That investigation led to questions about the role Heinke and other government officials had played in the sale of Conestoga View. The investigation resulted in all three commissioners pleading guilty to violating the state’s Sunshine Act by meeting secretly before the nursing home sale.” The article says nothing about the grand jury exonerating Heinke on the charge of misrepresentation. Nor does it place the plea in proper context!
To say the commissioners met “secretly” implies clandestine actions on their part. Rather, they met under the guidance of the county’s solicitor and there is nothing in the law or precedents set under the law to condemn their actual actions. In fact, the Grand Jury report spends pages explaining why the Sunshine Law is unenforceable and calling for revisions!
So what did occur? The commissioners agreed to what was tantamount to a ‘plea bargain’ to end an investigation which continuously turned up no violations but which Farina allowed Totaro to continue for almost a year, jumping desperately from one fallacious accusation to another. Even though Totaro controlled the writing of the grand jury report, it is clear from its body and especially footnotes that the investigation was nothing if not a witch hunt.
The commissioners, two of whom wanted to run for re-election and felt they could not effectively do so until clear of charges, agreed to a minor violation for having improperly discussed matters outside the public forum. In actuality, the commissioners believed (as did the county solicitor) that they were properly conducting discussions by avoiding all three meeting, and also because the subject was exempt from the Sunshine Law since it pertained to personnel.
Although they all acknowledged in retrospect that they had used poor judgment by later not allowing enough time for public discussion, their intention was to avoid unnecessarily upsetting the 400 employees at Conestoga View until they had decided among themselves on a likely course of action. What business owners would want employees to know the possibility of a sale was under consideration? How would such information have distracted the attention of nursing home personnel from the care of their patients?
By headlining the commissioners’ ‘plea bargain’ for days straight as though it was tantamount to the end of World War II or the murder of the century, the newspapers purposefully created an impression that a dubious minor violation was tantamount to corruption or criminality on the part of opponents to taxpayer guarantees of Convention Center debt.
As for the accusations against Heinke that was used by Totaro and Farina to take the rare step of convening a special grand jury, the jury quickly determined that Heinke’s official job application was in order. But had Totaro and Farina ended the investigation then, as they should have, it would have made Toaro look bad and harmed his chances to be elected a judge, and would have freed up Dick Shellenberger and Molly Henderson to run for new terms without the grand jury investigation over their heads.
It is very disturbing to NewsLanc and much of the Lancaster population that the Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. has yet to acknowledge and apologize for what minimally were its ongoing and purposeful violations of journalistic ethics in furtherance of its financial interests.
Well………don’t ever expect LNP, PSPor anyone else of a similiar ilk to apologize for anything. They are all incapable of making mistakes, and would certainly never ackowledge when they did!!!
Regarding the Sunshine Law: perhaps no one but me remembers one of the first articles written in the newspapers about the newly elected three commissioners talking about their riding in a car together and talking about all sorts of things that probably would be a violation of that law. But the newspaper decided to present it as some sort of on-the-road story rather than asking them exactly what they were talking about. A real boys will be boys kind of story. Made me want to puke after what they did to all the former parties involved.
I’m hoping to hear that Molly Henderson’s lawsuit will be going forward soon. At least it will be held out of Lancaster county so she might get an impartial, unconnected hearing.