Because I am a young’n, I do not remember much about the public outcry when the plans for this convention center were unleashed by our local government.
If I am understanding correctly, this building was built with taxpayer dollars under the premise that the center would bring business for the city in exchange? After reading the comment before mine, it seems that for some reason Penn Square Partners were given a contract funded by taxpayer dollars in order to open up their business and proceed to collect the revenue while the public pays the upkeep. How outrageous!
I’d like to see how much the CEO of Penn Square Partners is raking in as the public sees their money funneled into (presumably) his pockets. I can’t believe that no there was no organized public outcry to stop this obvious corporate cronyism.
Where’s the outrage?
EDITOR: There was and still is.
Bravo! And another for the editor’s wonderfully pithy, and understated, postscript!
For myself, the outrage is spreading to the courts since the Molly Henderson lawsuit in Chester County Court still sits unheard after years. The phrase, “Justice delayed is justice denied” comes to mind. Her public reputation, her good name, which she so deserved and which was taken away because she dared to carry out her duty to the public is an outrage that continues. It reminds me of Charles Dickens’s book “Bleak House” where the story’s central event, a lawsuit, drags on in the court for so many years that the case finally becomes moot because the principals were either dead or broke. Today, as then, the courts seem to favor those who have the deepest pockets and who often win by attrition what they could never win in an honest court of law. Still I have hope that Molly Henderson will be vindicated in the courts, and the story will be told by the very newspapers that tried to silence her.
Until that case is settled in a just manner there is a huge and demonic warning to every person who is now, or who will ever become, an elected representative in Lancaster County. That warning is no less than this: No matter your position or oath of office, when powerful cabal of private individuals tell you to shut up and sit down, you had better obey, because it’s not just your public office that will be taken away but your public reputation as well.