LANCASTER SUNDAY NEWS

An editorial “Toll on tourism”, argues:  “Visitors bureau will take a big hit from Commissioner Martin’s blueprint to increase convention center revenue. It’s likely to cost the county’s second-biggest industry…

“There’s no guarantee Martin’s plan will be adopted; already, Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray and Penn Square General Corp. President Nevin Cooley, CEO of The High Cos., are saying Martin’s plan is flawed because it doesn’t include a tax increase.

“We commend Martin for his efforts, and admit that there is no silver bullet, no perfect remedy. We’re just concerned that his plan may ‘save’ the convention center, at the cost of the tourism industry it was supposed to help buoy.”

WATCHDOG: This is fascinating misdirection.  Where was the editors’ concern about the tourist industry when a 5% room sales tax was slapped on hotels to fund the Convention Center from which, with one or two exceptions, the hotels derive no room business?   Moreover, because of the heavily taxpayer subsidized Convention Center (let alone the impact of the Marriott Hotel),  many hotels  have lost significant business because the Convention Center has displaced events previously held at the Host Farm on Rt. 30 East.

Further to the point, note how they slip in at the end that Penn Square Partner objects to the Martin Plan and wants still more taxes on hotels rather than give back any of the ‘sweet heart’ concessionary arrangement they inveigled from the LCCCA when the Authority’s directors were neither briefed by counsel  not allowed time to properly review the documents.

The Lancaster Newspapers own 50% of Penn Square Partners and were co-perpetrator of the Convention Center fiasco on the community.   It is time for them to speak out for the public and against Penn Square Partners, not hide behind S. Dale High.

Let’s hope the new president will have the good sense to do so and thus separate LNP from this sordid Convention Center Project episode in its otherwise illustrious past.