I appreciate Newslanc’s genuine hope that Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. (LNP) will change its ways under new leadership, but clearly nothing is changing in the short term. Five days ago, Commissioner Scott Martin announced a plan, the Martin Plan (MP), to provide our failing Convention Center Project (CC) a 5-year lifeline to hopefully get its long term fiscal house in order. Did it get even a mention in this Sunday’s paper… Other than a self-serving editorial , I don’t see it?
LNP continues to use its power to decide what stories and which parts and perspectives it will choose to publish and keep in front of the public eye. This is a clear and utter failure of its journalistic responsibility, Gil Smart’s beliefs notwithstanding…
Over the past few weeks, we have seen huge, front page stories on the County’s civil actions against local hotels. The purpose of these stories is to detract away from the failure of their public-private partnership. These stories, and the bogus attempt to have the hotels reveal the tax returns, insinuate that the CC would have no problems if all taxes were collected. The problem is that the sum total of the civil actions will yield less than $100K, which won’t even pay LCCCA director Kevin Molloy’s salary for a year.
So why won’t the Sunday News mention the MP? That’s simple; [Marriott equitable owner]Penn Square Partners (PSP) does not like it so LNP won’t report on it. Under the MP, PSP would be forced to more than double the royalty payments they make on the food and beverage revenue they generate at the CC. Mind you, even after more than DOUBLING the royalty, PSP will still pay at levels WELL BELOW industry norms.
What does PSP want to do…they simply want to raise the hotel tax. Mind you this tax was passed on local hotels to build the CC, against their will, because backers said they would see a huge influx of new business. Has this happened? NO! Not only is this project doing little to help generate incremental occupancy, it has stressed the limited resources available to market the County to any visitor.
While I can’t deny that a few more people may be downtown these days, that is a result of the CC’s only success…stealing business. This is not hard to accomplish when you have a brand-new, taxpayer-subsidized facility competing against the private sector.
Now PSP is claiming that its opposition is not about their royalties (i.e. bottom line) but rather their desire to protect the PDCVB [Tourist Bureau]. However, the PSP position seems somewhat counter to the PDCVB’s own. They firmly stated in June that they were opposed to any increase in the hotel tax, and they have also planned accordingly for the loss of the 20% and have almost three years in reserve. That fact alone should tell you what the tourism community really thought about the potential for the CC.
Nevertheless, Nevin Cooley is solely interested in the ONLY solution that our LCCCA could come up with, raise the tax. The MP exposes the LCCCA as the toothless lapdog of PSP, as it has been since day #1. It ceded most of its power to PSP years ago and serves as their personal errand boy. They refuse to call out PSP for the lopsided deals made in the early years and hold them accountable to anything. Faced with looking even stupider, Kevin Molly has acknowledged the MP would, in the short term, provide the needed funding, some $1.7 million (by the way that is a heck of a lot more than the $100K in delinquent taxes).
This does not deter PSP, and their Mayor, who says “raise the tax” while their 50% owner fails to cover the story even though Gil Smart was in the front row and directed more questions to Martin than anyone else, most of which were about raising the tax. Maybe Gil should ask Mayor Rick Gray exactly why he does not have any desire to throw some “skin in the game” of his great little downtown project? What scares Rick about the CC?
Finally, I want everyone in Lancaster County to understand something: THE CC IS IN DEEP TROUBLE.
On March 1, 2013, unless alternative arrangements are made in the meantime, their interest rate will jump so high that a full increase in the hotel tax (to 5%) would not begin to cover the expense; that’s right, raising the tax is not really a solution. The MP, while not perfect, provides a common sense, shared sacrifice plan and a short-term bridge that includes the lender in hopes of crafting a long-term solution.
Everyone should get on board and it should be covered in the local print monopoly.
I basically agree with this letter, with one exception: the CURRENT LCCCA is most definitely NOT “the toothless lapdog of PSP”, at least not by choice.
When former LCCCA chair Ted Darcus (vocally supported by former board member Joe Morales) loudly discouraged other board members from even reading what they were voting on, and giving them no time to study or question it, they were able to slip through iron-clad one-sided “agreements” which not only tie the hands of the current LCCCA, they also for all intents and purposes starve the LCCCA for operating funds (the convention center is a separate entity).
The current LCCCA doesn’t even have the funds for paying a lawyer to perform an adequate study of the agreements, definitely not enough to question them in court.
Without dozens of unpaid hours every month by LCCCA Executive Director Kevin Molloy, office manager Mary Ellen Davis, and LCCCA board members like Kevin Fry, Larry Hinnenkamp, and R.B. Campbell, the LCCCA would simply not be able to function.