If Lancaster City survives...

May I explain your taxes: Home owners pay two taxes per year: A little tax in the spring and a big tax in the fall.

The little tax is made up of the County tax that we all in Lancaster County pay the same: 3.41 mills and it was announced at this weeks commissioners meeting there will be no increase from last year. The second part of the little tax is the municipal side. Lancaster City currently is 9.18 which according to my assessment list is the highest in the County. Lancaster Twp. Municipal that gets services from the city is only 0.60.

I will bet that the Mayor is going to try and get some money from the Township for services rendered in the future for police and fire. These two are combined and paid every Spring. The big tax which is the school tax is currently 22.47 mills; in comparison, Sadsbury Twp. is 27 and Columbia Boro is 23. Bottom Line is that the Mayor will head to the County for any shortfall if the hotel tax revenue can not hold up, crying that the city is the County Seat..

The game that was being played and was lost, thanks to the voters of Lancaster County, was that HOME RULE was going to be the key to solve all problems. With a charter and a strong manager to be appointed by five part time commissioners, Big Business would have their way and accountability would be to a deaf ear.

The Lancaster City Redevelopment Authority owns the Hotel and, if I am correct, they have no money. Wachovia is being bought out by Wells Fargo and went the s--- hits the fan (according to one of my sources from North Carolina), a lot of things are going to happen. Financially, Wells Fargo is not going to tolerate what Wachovia did and the balance sheets will have to be exposed.

The numbers will not work. The city waived all the permit fees, millions of dollars of funds that could have been used, Armstrong got as much money as he could from Harrisburg, the Hoteliers were scared off with the law suits as Stevens and Lee was absolutely NOT at arms length with the County, the Convention Center Authority and Penn Square Partners.

There was never a strong group to fight the total fraud of this whole package. The only way this house of cards is going to end is when the project goes belly up and goes for auction, just like the Sheraton and convention center in Springfield Mass. It took five years and Peter Pan Bus Line bought the whole thing for 25 cents on the dollar, just as S. Dale High will do. Springfield went into bankruptcy and still can not climb out of the hole. It is a SAHME what a group of people have done to such a historic city with character and charm.

IF Lancaster City survives, it will be by the will of the people, NOT Penn Square Partners and the Mayor. I am tired of hearing how fortunate we are to have Fulton and the Newspaper NOT leave the city, that they stayed and invested. Without the support of the County and the citizens, they could not have stayed and they did so very cheaply...

Let us give support to all the small businesses that opened and have been in the city NOT because of the CC but to provide services etc. to the public. Look at Mulberry Art Studio, they were voted #1 for wedding receptions, no stuffed ballot box, a true consensus by the readers. They do not even advertise in the publication!!

The local people are going to pay for this and have been as the state tax dollars come from all of our pocketbooks. Money is not free by any means. Drive to Pittsburgh, Philaladelphia, Erie, Johnstown, Altoons, Allentown, Scranton; Convention Centers are nothing but PORK that was sponsored to put money in the construction pockets. The taxpayers now have to maintain the empty buildings. Philadelphia is BROKE yet they will have by next year the largest convention center in the US, bigger than Vegas, Orlando. And those convention centers are in deep trouble.

WE THE PEOPLE HAVE TO CHANGE ALL OF THIS AND MORE BY STARTING ON THE LOCAL LEVEL. OUR STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMANTS HAVE DONE US ALL IN. It is no longer a Party issue, it is a Bureaucratic issue. Until the voters stop electing just anybody and we do not change to term limits and hold these people accountable for every dollars they spend, we will continue to build an economy on credit and the results will not be pretty.

Small banks are dry. Only the big 9 have the bucks. Without small banks, small businesses are not going to make it. We here in Lancaster County have been very fortunate as we are conservative in spending and healthy so to speak. ANY business that is willing to work hard and watch its money will survive.

However, we are starting to feel the crunch locally, take a look at the COMMERCIAL space for sale and rent!! Housing below $250,000 is very solvent, high end housing is stacking up.