We recently discussed with a prominent mid-state business leader how the public’s business is conducted in Lancaster County.
We both have noted the unwillingness of those who sponsored the Pennsylvania Academy of Music, the Convention Center, the acquisition of the Harrisburg Incinerator, the aborted street car plan, and the Franklin and Marshall sponsored relocation of the freight train site to authorize feasibility studies by national authorities to verify their recommendations.
To make things even worse, we recently were told by an seemingly unimpeachable source that a feasibility study was commissioned at the outset of consideration of the Convention Center Project. When a highly negative draft was received, the study was decommissioned. Is it possible that the Lancaster Newspapers, co-sponsor of the project, was not aware of that draft?
(Years later when the county commissioners ordered their own feasibility study of the project from national authority PKF, the project sponsors refused to cooperate with and derided the report which proved to accurately forecast the Center’s current financial difficulties.)
Why hasn’t the Lancaster Newspapers blown the whistle through editorial comment on these omissions?
In the case of the Convention Center, the answer is simple. They were one of the main sponsors and in fact compromised – no trashed – their journalistic standards to force through the project against 78% public dissatisfaction, as established by an independent poll taken at the time.
But what about the incinerator acquisition which will cost almost $150 million before all the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority’s investment is complete? Neither NewsLanc , other local media, or even the county commissioners are able to judge the prudence of such a huge investment of public funds. So why was there no other media cry for a third party study?
Fortunately a study was not necessary to burst the balloon of Rick Gray’s mindless street car proposal. NewsLanc researched and reported on all of the assertions of success in other cities and established that the streetcars had either failed, were heavily subsidized, or were irrelevant due to circumstances.
It is one thing for individual investors to base their investments on their own experience and aspirations. If mistaken, they will have learned an expensive less. (We have in the past!)
But it is irresponsible for governmental and authority officials who are guardians of the public purse to undertake such risks without exposing proposals to critical analysis by outside experts. And local media should hold them to that standard.
