NewsLanc.Com
Providing Lancaster City & County with an Alternative Source
for Local News and Commentary
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September 21, 2007 Publisher: NewsLanc.com LLC
Combined Circulation 80,000 monthly
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After allowing more than three-quarters of a year to go by after another man confessed to two sexual assaults for which Charles "Ted" Dubbs had been sent to prison, District Attorney Donald Totaro finally appeared before Judge David Ashworth on September 11th and requested that all charges against Dubbs be dropped. On Ashworth�s order, Dubbs was promptly released from prison.
It took Totaro from November, 2006, until Sept. 5th to get around to having a county detective interview the confessed rapist, Wilbur C. Brown II, at which time Brown |
revealed information that was not public knowledge.
Also, upon finally getting to see a video of Brown, the two victims expressed uncertainty about their identification of Dubbs. What sort of a man allows ten months to go by before following up on information that suggests an innocent person has been in prison for five years? Is this someone worthy of being elected as a county judge? |
| Some credit is due the Intelligencer Journal for publishing a news article on September 7th concerning the forthcoming hearing regarding �Ted� Dubbs� ongoing incarceration and then, on September 11th, leading with the story of his release from prison in a front page, 4", four column headline. | It remains to be seen if one or more of the monopoly Lancaster Newspapers will have the spunk to protest District Attorney Donald Totaro�s dereliction of duty in their editorial columns. Justice delayed is justice denied. |
| New Era (9 /10): "While the popularity of the symphony is music to everyone's ears, it's a tough fit for the 684-seat Fulton Opera House. The solution? Maybe a new performing arts center, seating up to 1,800, in downtown." | NewsLanc (9/11): "Perhaps we can avoid another boondoggle and just have the orchestra give extra performances." |
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On September 11th Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray went before the county commissioners and asked them not to perform their duty by either reappointing Deb Hall to a second term on the Convention Center Board or by naming someone else to the vacancy as of September 15th. He pleaded with them to allow their successors in 2008 to make the appointment!
Then later in the day Gray appointed former authority chairman Ted Darcus as a replacement for City appointed board member Willie Borden who |
Gray had allowed to remain on the board although his term had expired almost a year ago.
What is it that Gray and Penn Square Partners fear? That four county appointees will investigate the fairness and propriety of current contracts between the Authority and Penn Square Partners, The High Group and others? That they will investigate the past to determine if essential information was withheld from the public and how |
millions of dollars were squandered over the past five years on consultants that no competent board chair or executive director would have required?
Hopefully Commissioners Dick Shellenberger and Molly Henderson have not been so intimidated by Gray and the monopoly Lancaster Newspapers that they no longer have the energy left to perform their responsibility to fill the vacancy. |
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NewsLanc�s representative discussed with a board member of the Philadelphia Free Library System the plans for enlarging and refurbishing the Lancaster Public Library on Duke Street. Because this was on a social occasion, the source will go unidentified.
An educator by profession, she was dismayed at the Lancaster |
proposal to relocate the children's section from the second floor to the basement area, which is without windows and has a low ceiling height of only 8 feet, 7 inches.
She advised that at their Logan Square library they were moving | the children's section from ground level to an upper floor so that it would benefit from an especially high ceiling and additional rooftop lighting. Their planners and architect recognize that the children�s area must also accommodate the adults who accompany the children. |