NewsLanc.Com
Providing Lancaster City & County with an Alternative Source
for Local News and Commentary
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June 9, 2007 Publisher: NewsLanc.com LLC
Combined Circulation 80,000 monthly
Volume 1, Number 36
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The June 3 Sunday News published an informative lead article headed "LGH operates on $98 million surplus" revealing the immense profitability of the General Hospital, the compensation levels of its executives including five who receive around $500,000 each per annum, and how the profits will benefit the public. (LGH is a non-profit corporation.)
One's first reaction upon seeing compensations reaching $600,000 a year is to be upset. This is human. But we live in a capitalistic system and, provided pay is comparable to what successful top executives are making in comparable industries, there is no good reason for complaint. Most of us would agree that LGH is well run and applaud them for earning almost a thousand dollars per county family which they will plow back into improvements and the community. But how do we feel about how the way the County and Lancaster City are run? Keep in mind a commissioner earns $83,439 and the Mayor $73,459. Occasionally we are able to attract very competent individuals who can afford to perform these jobs for far less than they could earn elsewhere. But that doesn't happen very often. And then we come to the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority (LCCCA) which is proceeding to build |
the incorrectly designed project in the wrong location and at a cost of double what the private sector would have achieved.
Who was the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of this important body? Unpaid Ted Darcus working part time surrounded mostly by relatively unprofessional, inexperienced city appointees who voted as a block. Without qualified professional leadership, how could we have avoided LCCCA being pre-empted by High, the monopoly Lancaster Newspapers, and the law firm of Stevens & Lee? Now it appears that former mayor Art Morris will be taking over as chairman / CEO of the LCCCA at a critical time and he also will not be compensated. Yet to do that job properly requires a 50-hour week even for someone as talented and experienced as Morris. Morris likes to talk about his humble beginnings and there is no suggestion from his long record as a public official or his lifestyle that he is a man of great means. So unlike Darcus he may have the talent, but like Darcus he certainly won't have the time. There is an old saying that "You get what you pay for." And it sure holds true in Lancaster and especially with the convention center project. The question is how long can we afford not to pay or to underpay our leaders? |
| In his new book, "The Assault on Reason," Al Gore indicates that reason, logic and truth play a sharply diminished role in the way Americans now make important decisions, and what we learn is determined increasingly by a biased, conglomerate-controlled media. Such is the case in Lancaster, where all we know is what we are told by the monopoly Lancaster newspapers. |
Most Americans are amazed how our nation could have plunged into a war in Iraq as a result of inaccurate information and a predetermined agenda by our leaders. Yet we fail to recognize similar happenings in Lancaster, the most disturbing example being the grand jury investigation of our county commissioners. (Continued below) |
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A Letter to the Editor: I understand Wal-Mart is going to build a store [in Manor Township] just under 100,000 feet, small enough to be barely legal. What Wal-Mart has done in other parts of the country is build free-standing grocery stores and garden centers on the same site, with the combined size of the buildings as big as the single building they originally had planned. The Wal-Mart store in Ephrata is a good example of how they get their own way. Ephrata didn't want the store, and blocked it under the pretense it was really a "shopping center" because it included several "independent" stores just inside the front door. Wal-Mart got around this restriction by promising to NOT open these extra shops. Unfortunately, they built the space anyway, they just put a wall in front of it. Several years later, with no notice in the local newspapers, the wall came down, and the "shops" were opened, in clear violation of the original agreement. I have no idea how they got away with it. Please don't assume the battle is over. Just like so many other big businesses that we all know and love to hate, they have ways to get around the rules. | (Continued) NewsLanc questions whether even fifty people read the grand jury report dismissing allegations of wrongdoings. Instead, the public's information came from days of repeated newspaper headlines vilifying the commissioners for pleading guilty to a single minor violation which the actual report suggests they never committed. Why did the commissioners accept a questionable $200 fine? Why would District Attorney Donald Totaro and the monopoly Lancaster Newspapers unfairly target public officials? NewsLanc will report more on this soon.
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At a recent faux "ground breaking" for the Convention Center Project, Senator Gib Armstrong and others claimed the delays and increased costs were caused by project opponents. Yet their own website says otherwise. Examples: "In the summer of 2003, the Authority and the Partners agreed that it would not be prudent to spend any more money on architectural drawings until we both received confirmation from the state regarding our joint request for additional financial support of the project… |
"Delays in the project are caused by parking issues and issues with the Historic Preservation Trust… "After three years of negotiation, the Convention Center Authority and the Parking Authority have not come to an agreement about transferring ownership of the King Street garage… "Both the Partners and the Authority have agreed to re-start architectural drawings once the parking and Historic Preservation Trust issues are resolved." |