The editorial in the Lancaster New Era headed “Martin’s plan doesn’t add up” is so self-serving, so divisive, so insulting to the reader’s intelligence, and so self-destructive as to defy excerpting and require almost line by line refutation.
“Lancaster County Commissioner Scott Martin’s plan to stabilize the finances of the downtown convention center is admirable, but it starts with the wrong premise.
“Martin would ask stakeholders — the city, Wells Fargo Bank, Penn Square Partners (of which this newspaper is a part), visitors bureau and the convention center authority — to shore up the center’s finances over five years.
“Martin purposely avoided the possibility of increasing the 3.9 percent hotel room tax to 5 percent — as allowed by law — believing now is not the time to raises taxes on anybody.”
In other words, stakeholders in this project foisted upon the public by a mendacious, manipulative and at times ruthless Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. (LNP) are not to be asked to sacrifice their ill-gotten benefits but rather those who actually lost out by the construction of the Convention Center and the adjoining LNP half owned Marriott Hotel are to be further burdened with the cost of the folly.
“The authority and the visitors bureau had been divvying up room-tax revenue 80-20 until this past spring, when the economic downturn sent the authority’s bond reserves below the threshold required by Wells Fargo.”
Economic downturned is described as the single cause of this white elephant. This is despite LNP.Inc and partner the High Group disregarding warnings from knowledgeable parties and refusal to obtain a legitimate feasibility study, while representing that they had. Then finally ignoring the $130,000 PKF Feasibility Report which the county commissioners supplied, accurately predicted today’s losses and concluded that the project be scaled back or abandoned.
“Since then, the visitor bureau’s portion has been going to the authority, a loss of $900,000 for tourist promotion here.
“Add to this the fact that state funding for visitors bureaus in Pennsylvania has been drastically cut in recent years, and the impact on national promotion of the county’s second largest business sector is immense.”
“For many years, some hotel owners and some Republicans have questioned the public-private partnerships that have sustained Lancaster City and County during the recession and its aftermath.
“It takes no brilliant mind to spot the differences between Lancaster and surrounding cities. Harrisburg is in bankruptcy. Reading has climbed from poorest to the second-poorest city in the nation. York has no vibrant downtown to compare with that here.”
“We take no pleasure in recounting the difficulties of sister cities and counties. But the fact remains that intelligent public/private partnerships have kept our community a economically healthier and safer place.”
It certainly doesn’t take “brilliant minds” which apparently the editors are lacking. Reading is a ‘rust belt’ city. Thriving Lancaster is supported by agriculture, light industry, offices, housing for the elderly, and tourism based upon the Amish community. Any parallel is nonsense.
Moreover, Harrisburg is in bankruptcy precisely because they did multiple versions of the Lancaster Convention Center Project, grandiose projects for the purpose of profiting the sponsors at the ultimate expense of the tax payers! What bilge water! (Polite for b—s—.)
“Part of that success comes from the convention center and businesses that it has spawned. Part of that success comes from the county’s vibrant tourist industry.
“By cutting the legs out from under the visitors bureau, Martin risks undermining marketing efforts that would benefit the convention center, Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau — and, ultimately, taxpayers.”
It was the State cut back and the High / LNP sponsorship of the Convention Center Project that “cut the legs out from under the visitors bureau”, not any proposal to salvage the convention center by Commissioner Martin.
“Had Martin started with the premise of doing what’s best for tourism instead of adhering to the idea of no-tax-hikes-under-any-circumstances, he surely would have come up with a different plan.
“Martin should revisit his proposal with the idea of fully funding the visitors bureau, so it can do its important work of marketing Lancaster County.
“If that means a modest increase in the hotel room tax on visitors from other cities and states — $1 a night, according to Mayor Rick Gray — so be it.
“The county’s hotel tax is among the lowest in the nation. Its attractions are among the best. That’s a formula for success, if it’s allowed to work.”
Including magnet cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco with exceptionally high room taxes, the average combination sales and rooms sales tax nationally amounts to 12.2%, Lancaster already is at 11%. Even without adjusting for magnet cities, it is hardly “among the lowest in the nation.”
Here’s a better idea. Let’s place a nickel tax on Lancaster newspapers. Assuming an average daily circulation of 90,000, that would raise a $1,642,500 a year, just enough to cover the anticipate Convention Center annual losses. Since LNP believes that the purchaser pays the taxes, not the seller, it should have no objection.
This will safe guard all of the current “stake holders”, including the tourist bureau.
One more point, and a very serious one: If the LNP through its monkey’s paw the New Era continues to obstruct Commissioner Martin’s efforts to salvage the Convention Center (as well as its dependent Marriott Hotel), then it is so abusing the remaining public trust as to encourage a boycott which would accelerate the trend to the Internet. And that Internet news might be provided by others.
