EDITORIAL: Resurecting public trust

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“The absence of trust is clearly inimical to a well-run society.   The great Jane Jacobs noted as much with respect to the very practical business of urban life and the maintenance of cleanliness and civility on city streets.  If we don’t trust each other, our towns will look horrible and be nasty places to live.  Mover, she observed, you cannot institutionalize trust.  Once corroded, it is virtually impossible to restore.  And it needs care and nurturing by the community – the collectivity- since with the best of intentions no one person can make others trust him and be trusted in return.”– Tony Judt, “Ill Fares The Land.”

There is a lesson above for Lancaster in the light of:

1)       The too hasty approval of the sale of Conestoga View by the former commissioners.

2)       The heavy handed and disingenuous ramming through of the Convention Center project despite 78% of the public with an opninion opposing a county guarantee per the the findings of a  nationally recognized pollster.

3)      The year long witch hunt conducted by then district attorney and now county judge Donald Totaro and wrongly contenanced by President Judge Louis Farina.

4)      The then biased news coverage by local media, so eggregious as to be subject to a suit for liable by a former commissioner.

5)      Franklin & Marshall College ramming through the relocation of the Norfolk Southern rail to a residential community without an expert study of alternate locations.

6)      The monopolistic profits,  lack of transparancy, disingenuous representations,  self perpetuating leadership, and paucity of finanicial suport of worthy community causes by Public Charity  Lancaster General Hospital.

Trust can only slowly be restored through rectitude.  Already the print media is doing its part.  Much will depend upon the actions of the new president at Franklin & Marshall.

Most important is whether Lancaster General Hospital stops stonewalling and obfuscation and instead becomes more forthright, transparent, and shares a larger portion of its excess profits with worthy organizations that  benefit the community at large.

 

An addendum:
 
Perhaps a quarter of a million people and ten thousand dogs frequent New York’s Central Park over the Memorial Day weekend.
 
There is some litter, although not nearly as much as one finds routinely on the downtown streets of Lancaster.  But there is absolutely no dog feces!
 
How is this to be explained?  Certainly not because of law enforcement, since dogs are walked early and late in the day and in relatively secluded areas of the park.
 
The litter likely comes from visitors from outside the Central Park neighborhood, who have not become accustomed to the local practices.
 
But the dogs are almost universally from the neighborhood.  Their owners would not consider failing to pick up after their pet.  It is what is expected by the Central Park community.   It is based upon trust in one another and pride in themselves.  No one exploits the common good for individual benefits. 
Trust and pride are the mainstays of a civil society.  Strictlyl self serving individuals and institutions tear at that essential tapestry.
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