[PRCo] Re: PAT's cuts

[richard allman]

how many square feet of exhibit space? East Penn always on the lookout! AND, 
do not forget the other supposed pathway to prosperity for cities-casino 
gambling-at least for the builders, the loan sharks, and the pimps!!!!
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Derrick Brashear" <shadow at gmail.com>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2010 11:07 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: PAT's cuts


> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 10:59 PM, Fred Schneider
> <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> On the third point .... the hotel ... the Commonwealth passed enabling 
>> legislation allowing all cities to build convention centers and tax the 
>> hotels out in the county to pay for them. This was a case of our 
>> legislators at play. Once the opportunity is there, most mayors are dumb 
>> enough to take the money and run.
>
> Your legislators, particularly, seem to have worked things pretty hard
> to make the Lancaster Convention Center happen, in spite of the fact
> that the original legislation would not have allowed it.
>
>> The convention center in Lancaster was held up for years by the suburban 
>> motels challenging the right of the city to tax them. They lost.
>>
>> How well the new Lancaster Convention Center will work is open to 
>> conjecture. There are over 100 motels in the county, some others are 
>> large enough to handle such events. The only advantage is that you can 
>> walk from this place to a handful of downtown restaurants and pubs ... 
>> high priced places that were once stores. But I am not convince that a 
>> skyscraper hotel (it is now the tallest building in down and eclipses the 
>> old Griest Building by about 10 feet) is worth our tax money. It will 
>> take a monumental effort to keep it filled.
>>
>> The Berks County Convention Center Authority owns a theater downtown ... 
>> same sort of scheme ... if the public isn't willing to support it, then 
>> let's force them and tax them. It was the old Rajah Shrine theater 
>> rebuilt with your money and mine because no one went to downtown Reading.
>>
>> http://www.sovereigncenter.com/udp.php?id=76
>>
>> Considering that the number of people in prison, an indicator of crime, 
>> has increase four-fold since 1980 and most of that is within six to eight 
>> blocks of the new convention center, would I really want to recommend to 
>> my friends that they go there and walk around the streets at night? (If 
>> you want those numbers, they were in the Lancaster paper this morning ... 
>> jumped from .06% to .23% of the population in 30 years.)
>
> Most of the people in prison are within 6 to 8 blocks of there? Well,
> I suppose that's one way to fill housing, right? ;)
>
> I missed the last holiday, so uh, happy new year.
>
>