Gil Smart has posted a remarkably astute commentary recently announced CRIZ program which has been touted by its supporters as bestowing great opportunities and riches upon our community.
Smart unmasks how the CRIZ is in part a bail out of the insolvency of the Convention Center, raises concerns of the long run implications of the program, and urges the redevelopment of Lancaster Square East.
(We maintain redevelopment should not include funds to enable the Lancaster Hotel to compete head on with City owned Marriott or turning the former Bulova Building into another Atlantic City Boardwalk. We have long proposed the clearing the Lancaster Square East, apart from the parking garage, to make way for private enterprise to build up scale residential condominiums.)
What Smart only alludes to is that the CRIZ is like a ‘pay check loan’, an irresponsible misdirection of future tax revenues, a program that exploits future generations for the next thirty years . If we consume future tax money, what will they use to pay expenses and to grow the economy in their time?
Hopefully Smart’s concerns are also those of some of the other astute individuals at the Lancaster Newspapers and of the Lancaster establishment. Maybe Mayor Rick Gray and City Planner Randy Patterson will listen to them. Patterson wouldn’t even meet with us.
Once again, Lancaster leadership is looking out for the short-term financial interests of a select few, rather than the long-term big picture of Lancaster City taxpayers and the School District of Lancaster.
LNP, as one of the select few, shills for whatever Mayor Rick, PSP and the other ‘Power Elite’ want.
LNP seldom offers an unbiased opinion, and usually only reports what ‘The Chosen’ want reported.