Maybe what we need is a court injunction to ‘re-open’ those agreements and have them be FAIRLY written to better protect the taxpayers and the hotel/tourist industry.
I wonder if the County Commissioners would have the intestinal fortitude required to see that this gets done.
When it comes to ‘Business As Usual’ with PSP and the ‘power elite’; we need to rewrite the parameters. Hoteliers, tourist industry associates, city and county taxpayers should NOT be held hostage!!!!
I think we need some perspective here. Understand that I too believe the agreements are an aberration.
Why solicitor Esbenshade would have ever advised Chairmen Pickard and Darcus to railroad them through LCCCA approval is beyond comprehension. Far be it from me to suggest a conspiracy here but whose interests were being represented by that solicitor?
That said, what are we talking about? The LCCCA faces 2 financial hurdles:
1) the fact that their reserves are about to drop below the threshold which will require M&T to seize the PDCVB portion of the room tax and
2) a Q1 2013 debt payment, that can only be put off and refinanced so many times. While balanced agreements consistent with real partnerships, those that offer give and take on BOTH sides, might certainly right the ship enough to avoid hurdle #1, hurdle #2 looms much larger on the horizon.
The issue here is not an unfair agreement but a ridiculous project. CC’s fail almost everywhere. Ours will fail too. It should never have been built. There was no justification. There was no reason to believe in success. There were only sheep, being led to the slaughter with the promise of a free project and state dollars that could be used for this and for this alone.
The agreements are just a symptom, the disease is the project itself and it is a cancer that will not stop causing financial harm until it is cut away, just like any other cancer.
I have been against this project myself for several reasons and the most significant, in the long run, was the use of raw political and media power to drive two good public servants from office who dared to even question this project. This was, and still is, the most dangerous corruption of our democratic process that I have ever witnessed on a local level.
This is a wound to the community that needs to be healed before we can move forward and make the best of a bad deal. The principals of PSP seem to want to tough it out and bury it with time and neglect. It will not go away on its own.
Ditto the demonizing of other hoteliers who are simply looking for fair competition and not to be forced to collect the cash to sink their own ships.
These dual wounds could be healed tomorrow given the political will. If this were to happen, we could restore the integrity of this community and work together to make this convention center work for the good of the entire hospitality industry of Lancaster County.