EDITORIAL: Is the Lancaster Alliance our real government?

In October of 2005, at the request of Fox 43, nationally respected Opinion Dynamics Corporation conducted a thorough poll of 500 residents of Lancaster County to determine the extent of support for the county government guaranteeing the mortgage debt of the proposed Convention Center. The margin of error was plus or minus 3%.

The key question was:

"Under the proposed plan, the County of Lancaster will be responsible for paying up to one and a half million dollars each year for forty years, if the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority is unable to pay its debts."

78% of those with an opinion opposed the County guaranteeing the debt! 68% of all surveyed, whether or not they had an opinion, opposed the County guaranteeing the debt!

The poll, plus the strenuous objections of two of the three commissioners, and a PKF Consultants "Market Feasibility Study" in 2008 which discouraged the venture were insufficient to even slow down the project. And candidate Rick Gray, who had expressed ambivalence concerning the project and promised to explore the matter with both sides, became a fervent Convention Center supporter within a day or two of his election as mayor.

Today the Lancaster Alliance is behind the proposal to install street cars in the busiest north / south one way streets. No feasibility study has been made. The dismal failure of trolley buses to generate many riders along a similar route is ignored. The disasters that have befallen street cars when introduced in other cities is never mentioned. No poll asking correct questions has yet been made of Lancaster residents to determine their wishes. And no discussion or vote has taken place by Lancaster City Council. And yet street cars are considered to be almost a certainty.

So here is the question: Does the Lancaster Alliance govern the county and the city? And more specifically, are certain business and institutional interests subverting democracy?

We say yes.