How dare they

Luis A. Mendoza Alvarado

[This letter to the editor originally appeared in the Sunday News, March 19, 2006]

While I served on the city council, I was frustrated in my requests to review what was then repeatedly represented as a positive “feasibility study” of the proposed convention center/hotel project. So it is with a combination of relief and anticipation that I now await the completion and publication of the genuine study recently ordered by the county commissioners from a prominent firm specializing in hotel and convention centers.

Yet many of the same parties who misrepresented market studies as feasibility studies now engage in what appears to be a campaign of obstructionism and obfuscation to thwart the study, in addition to blatant failure to act appropriately in other ways.

 How dare:

• Penn Square Partners, which seeks public funds and guarantees, defy the commissioners (and the public) by refusing to meet with and cooperate with the consultants;
• Lancaster County Convention Center Authority, the public’s representative, follow the lead of the partners, which it is supposed to be regulating;
• The authority turn its back on the opportunity to obtain accurate information to substitute for the misrepresentations it has made in grant applications and upon which the entire project is predicated;
• The authority cancel or reschedule five out of its last six board meetings, thus silencing members and public criticism of its bizarre activities;
• The authority schedule meetings at times that impede attendance by members who raise legitimate questions and speak out against heavy-handed actions of the board chair;
• The authority pay out millions of dollars to the Stevens & Lee law firm on the basis of 227 invoices with the single explanation: “For professional services rendered on behalf of the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority.”

One can only assume that the motivation of such obstructionism and obfuscation is to render stillborn the honest and legitimate efforts of universally respected professionals to inform government officials of what is in the public’s best interest, the chips falling where they may. And we should hope other professionals will soon be assigned to investigate the business practices of the authority.