Pull the Plug on the Convention Center!

END IT TOMORROW!

    The LCCCA meets tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. in the Southern Market Center.  Stop the convention center project tomorrow night!  Pull the plug! 

    “Speaking of my friends, the commissioners, the letter last week from famed attorney Richard Sprague, demanding a retraction for their comments about the county’s former law firm, Stevens & Lee, sounds like more billable hours to me.”

Marv Adams, Sunday News, 4-6-06, “Litigations ‘R’ Us,” click here.

    Now he’s a “famed” attorney, Marv?  I don’t think so.  And as noted on this website previously, that letter is a ridiculous threat and nothing more. 

    “We have been informed that the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority (LCCCA) has paid more than $6 million to a single law firm for ‘professional services,’ despite receiving invoices that are devoid of any itemization whatever.  When Board members or the public ask to review itemized time sheets which might explain or justify such large expenditures of public monies, they are ignored.”

Common Cause Executive Director, Barry L. Kauffman, in his letter of May 4, 2006 to Governor Rendell asking for an investigation into the LCCCA.

    I spoke to Barry Kauffman by phone this morning.  He said they have not gotten a reply. He said he will give him several more weeks to respond and then will follow up with the Governor.

    Of course, the law firm mentioned above is Stevens & Lee.  Why haven’t you asked for an investigation into where $6,000,000 of the public’s money went, Marv?  Why, Marv?

    “My guess is that in a couple of years we will know if the independent watchdog function of the press – the journalistic mission of  ‘comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable’ – will continue to exist and, perhaps more importantly, if customers will be willing to pay for it.”

    “…This is important, because if the newspapers are viewed as mouthpieces for groups or causes rather than fair and unbiased journals examining difficult issues, why would anybody buy them?”

Russell Eshleman, Penn State Journalism Professor, Sunday News, June 4, 2006, “The news from here.”  (The editorial was not posted online).

    The only problem is the Lancaster Newspapers have not been a watchdog for years and years and years. They don’t comfort the afflicted but they do comfort and protect the comfortable.  I don’t think they will continue to exist much longer.

    “I believe if our company were not involved, we would have taken a harder look at those who oppose the project.  And why.”

Marv Adams, Sunday News, May 28, 2006, “Counting their days,” click here.

    That is the lowest, most contemptible lie and threat I have ever read.  It’s disgusting.  Marv, you are an absolute disgrace.

    “Lancaster Newspapers Inc. should have withdrawn as a venture sponsor when the project became controversial, and it was apparent you faced an ethical dilemma.  The Fourth Estate has a duty to be, like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion.”

A letter to the Sunday News responding to Marv’s comment above and signed by Luis A. Mendoza, April Koppenhaver, Bonnie Miller and Bruce L. Clark

     I disagree.  The Lancaster Newspapers Inc. should have never, ever gotten involved in this project in the first place.  Never.

    End this tomorrow night.  Stop the hotel/convention center project.  Don’t let the LCCCA spend one more cent of the public’s money.  Investigate the LCCCA and the PSP.  Pull the plug!