Chairman's Commentary

THEY'VE SOLD IT

The County Commissioners did it.

They sold Conestoga View.

Almost 2 months ago. The day they announced their plans, they sold it.

It's amazing. They've led us to believe that nothing was going to be final until late September, early October. But I've gotten hold of the agreement of sale between the County and the buyer, Complete HealthCare Resources. It's clear that the buyers are taking control of the assets.

Closing is set for a week after the new owners get the license to operate the facility.

It's saddening how things are stacked in favor of the new owners.

For instance, if for some reason between now and closing, Complete HealthCare Resources defaults on the deal, the County can collect $25,000 for its trouble, regardless of how much more money it has spent on lawyers, accountants, appraisers and whoever else.

But, if the County defaults, Complete HealthCare Resources can come after the County for whatever sum it has spent for "out-of-pocket costs...including all third-party costs incurred before, during and after the Study Period, as well as its reasonable attorneys' fees (including fees of both outside and in-house counsel." In short, it's an open-ended claim on Lancaster taxpayers' money.

Furthermore, this sales agreement contradicts the Commissioners' claims that, after the sale, nothing will change at Conestoga View.

For example, vis-a-vis the nursing home staff, "Buyer agrees to cooperate with Seller to provide information concerning which Facility Employees are retained by Buyer...[and] Seller...shall have the right to employ...any employee who Buyer does not offer employment to..."

Elsewhere, Complete HealthCare resources agrees to maintain the present staffing levels at Conestoga View for just the next 2 years. After that, all bets are off.

And, very importantly, the new owners promise to provide charity care, but with no mention of how many beds will be made available, or what priority will be given to those most in need. In short, if Complete HealthCare Resources makes one solitary bed available to an indigent person, it will technically have fulfilled its side of the bargain.

This is how our County Commissioners have voted to end a 200-year tradition of helping those of our County neighbors most in need of nursing care.

It's pretty chilling.

I've been fairly besieged by people who are worried by this back room deal to offload our elderly and sick poor. They know this is not the way we do things in Lancaster County. They know there are moral issues involved in such a deal.

These Commissioners, sadly, are on another wavelength.

THE EMPLOYEES OF CONESTOGA VIEW

For over 200 years, Conestoga View has provided nursing care for Lancastrians, especially the poorest, and it has done this well.

The reason, of course, is the staff.

To work at Conestoga View, you have to be dedicated, and you have to treasure the folks you are caring for. I know this because, when I was a Commissioner, I got letter after letter from the sons and daughters, nieces and nephews of the residents, and they all praised the quality of the attention paid to their loved ones, and many said that Conestoga View was the best facility their parent, or aunt or uncle had been in.

These letters were very gratifying to receive, of course, because they spoke to the dedication of the nurses, LPNs, nurses' aides and everyone else at Conestoga View. So, while Conestoga View was historically known as the poorhouse, it was, thanks to its staff, a very rich place.

Now, with the proposed sale of the facility to a for-profit firm, all bets are off. And this applies to the employees, too.

The new owners will have to watch the bottom line - and that bottom line will include amounts for taxes and profits, in addition to all the burdens and expenses the institution now bears. The bottom line is not a bad thing, but it will inevitably lead to important changes at Conestoga View.

One major point of concern is the fact that the pension benefits for the employees have not been attended to yet.

There are some 602 employees at Conestoga View, and 358 are vested, i.e., they have worked long enough at the County to have earned a permanent claim on agreed-to retirement benefits.

Those benefits, however, have not yet been spelled out for each employee after the sale to the new owners takes place. Vested employees will have to leave the County's retirement plan. The actuarial calculations have not been done, and the clock is ticking down to the finalization of the sale. Employees have the right to use their service time in the armed forces to purchase more retirement benefits, but nothing has been done.

For those employees who have not yet reached vested status in the County's retirement plan, the future is if anything even riskier. They've been working with the expectation that, as they contribute to the retirement plan, in time they too would qualify for the full package.

All that has changed with the announcement of the proposed sale of Conestoga View.

No one gets rich by working at Conestoga View. The work is hard, the changing shifts are stressful, but the care of those in need is very rewarding.

I wish the Commissioners had first thought of the effect the sale of the institution is going to have on the futures of the staff, and then had worked to safeguard their future retirements before they decided to offload the 600-plus people in the glib name of “core services review” - whatever that is.

THE ODD SALE OF CONESTOGA VIEW

Everyone had an odd taste in their mouth a few weeks ago when the County Commissioners announced that they were hastening to sell Conestoga View along with a number of historic buildings and the acreage around them.

It seemed odd that the announcement came just as we entered the 4th of July weekend and the vote took place a few days later.

And it seemed odder that there was only one bidder on this property.

And it got odder still when the Commissioners assured everyone that, even though the new owners would not only have to create a profit out of an enterprise that had only been nonprofit before, and would have to pay stiff real estate taxes where none had been required before, there would be no changes in the readiness to accept the poor and the most vulnerable at Conestoga View, as had been the policy for over 200 years.

And I, as a former Commissioner, was shocked to hear the Commissioners say that Conestoga View was now costing local taxpayers some $2 million a year - a deficit that the sale would now shift onto the shoulders of the new, for-profit owners, who were going to just as readily accept the poorest patients, as before.

You see, Conestoga View had not been a drain on the County coffers for some 15 years. Certainly in my eight years in office, it had been easily self-supporting.

So, I was fascinated to see just what had happened in the last year-and-a-half that Conestoga View was now operating deeply in the red.

I turned to the year-end audit of County finances for guidance and, lo, to my amazement found that there was no deficit!

At the end of 2004, the operating cash balance for Conestoga View showed that, while that line item was in the red by $544,000 (a far cry from $2 million) Conestoga View was waiting for $3,620,186 due from other governments (the State and Federal). In other words, Conestoga View came out some $2.7 million in the black!

Well, now the picture was entirely changed. Conestoga View was not a drain on County finances as we had been told; it was not a white elephant to be disposed of to the first bidder to come along. It was the strong institution that I had known when I was County Commissioner. Back in 2002, for instance, Conestoga View had ended the year $1.6 million in the black, and the year before that, $2.7 million in the black.

No wonder Complete Care Services, Inc. wanted the operation. No wonder they felt they could run Conestoga View for a profit, even after taxes.

But we as taxpayers now have to ask the County Commissioners what's going on here?

If it is their decision to end a 200-year guarantee by the County of Lancaster to provide for those poor who are in need of nursing home care, why wouldn't they seek the highest price for Conestoga View, for the sake of the taxpayers?

In short, why didn't they seek out other buyers, in order to get the best price for the operation?

Why did they tell us there was a deficit, when there was none?

What's going on here?

BLINDING SUMMER HEAT

And now, in the heat of this July, they attack the State.

The Board of County Commissioners, always fighting with someone or each other, have now lashed out at the State of Pennsylvania. They are telling the Department of Community and Economic Development that the Department cannot apply the recently passed Act 23 for the benefit of the convention center project on Penn Square.

The first problem that arises from this claim is that Act 23 was crafted, at least in part, for the benefit of the convention center project.

But, leaving aside any of the lawyerly postures that must now take form in pursuit of this suit, there is a head-scratching element to this attack.

County Commissioners exist to direct and oversee the wishes and policies of the State government at the County level. It was the State government that created Commissioners and it is State government that keeps Commissioners in existence. The State also created Supervisors, Mayors, Borough Councils, and municipal Commissioners to carry out State policies at the municipal level.

In short, both the county and municipal levels of government are extensions - agencies, if you will - of the State.

And overseeing all this activity are the voters.

So, in the normal order of things, the State instructs, monitors and audits the activities of local government. Local government does not instruct the State. And the voters decide if all these governments are performing adequately. It's a system that has worked pretty well since the founding of the Republic.

For County Commissioners to slap the State upside the head (with a lawsuit) and tell it what it should or should not do is sort of presumptuous. Especially when the State is acting to revitalize Lancaster City, which has a government not under the control of the Commissioners.

Lancaster City is desperate for revitalization; it feels the tide turning in its favor and it needs the convention center project to complete the turnaround. The City also knows full well that if the project dies before it can see the light of day, potential developers will thereafter avoid the town like the plague. Who needs all this grief when you're trying to start new businesses, and you can choose from among lots of other places?

The State has long agreed that the convention center project is a good idea for Lancaster - both Republican and Democratic governors have pushed for it. And it is acting to move it forward.

State money that would have gone to other parts of Pennsylvania is instead being directed to benefit the people of Lancaster.

For the County Commissioners to say that their judgement trumps all others reveals a certain degree of shall we say self-confidence that is not in line with reality.

Furthermore, the Commissioners hang their position on the claim that the County government, having guaranteed the Convention Center Authority's bonds, is now at risk for, they say, $60 million.

It's not clear how that figure was arrived at, but let us for the sake of argument say the number is $100 million.

Whichever number one mouths, that '$100 million' is backed by the taxes that tourists coming to Lancaster pay. No one who lives here pays the tax; it's our visitors who do. And so long as tourists gravitate to Lancaster County, there will be funds to pay off the Convention Center bonds. In short, the County's “guarantee” means nothing, because it will never be called on. There is no risk.

And that leaves us back where we started. This Board of Commissioners is attacking the State to stop it from funneling money to rev up the economy of Lancaster County. It doesn't get much zanier. It must be the heat.

On the Stump, Galicia Style

I'm just back from 2 weeks in Spain. Four of us went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Averaging ten miles a day, we hiked through the villages and magnificent countryside of the region of Galicia, the beautiful, verdant northwestern corner of Spain.

There was an election going on for the regional Parliament. And it was hard even for pilgrims to avoid getting an eyeful. Three major parties contested the election - one conservative, one socialist, and one pro-autonomy.

Galicia is very distinctive. It has its own language, a blend somewhere between Spanish, Portuguese, and French; it has its own soup, caldo gallego, which is delicious and is served everywhere; and it's struggling economically. There's been a steady emigration from Galicia for the last century - you see 'For Sale' signs on lots of old, empty stone houses in the villages as you walk through.

I don't pretend to be conversant with the issues that worry the average Galician, and I don't know what were the hot buttons for the voters. Election campaigns, of course, are always done in code - the shorthand slogan is worth a thousand words, and if you're not from around here, don't bother.

So I wasn't rooting for or against anyone, but there were aspects to this political campaign that jumped out at me, as an American.

First off, each of the three parties had many and enormous billboards. Galicia is not a land with lots of billboards and those that you did see seemed to have been all taken by the parties. For us in political campaigns in Lancaster, a rule of thumb is that you don't spend precious money on billboards - they don't persuade people, though they do make the candidate feel quite famous, for a month.

And these billboards consisted of three elements - a huge photo of the party leader, the initials of his party, and their election slogan ('Mas por Galicia'). That was it.

Pity the poor schmoes who were running in the individual constituencies that make up the Galician Parliament - no photos of them, just the leader. That told us that each party is very top-down in its structure.

Second, each party hung hundreds of slightly smaller versions of the billboard from lampposts. Again, by way of contrast, here at home candidates are not allowed to stick their campaign materials on public utilities. It's always funny to see who breaks that law - the candidate's name is loudly proclaimed. But in Galicia, no problem. Hang away.

And the photo I mentioned about the party leader? The dominant party is headed by an elderly man, and he posed looking thoughtful (ah, the wisdom of experience). The number two party, the Socialists, posed their man as a happy, energetic middle-aged man, without his glasses. And the third party had a younger, hip leader with a five-day beard - now try that in a local election here.

It was clear to me that these parties have way too much money to burn. They all sent vehicles around, with permanent logos on the sides, and equipped with loudspeakers which blared out the party name to all but the deaf.

At the end of election day, the results were mixed: the conservative party with the wise old man came out on top, but without a parliamentary majority.

The final result, it turned out, was going to depend on Galician emigrants. Emigrants! The people who no longer lived in Galicia! But they retain a vote in how their former home region is to be governed. Some 100,000 of them.

For the life of me, I can't see how this leads to better government. I can see that being Galician means something more personal than residency, and it tells me that you can define democracy is a variety of ways, but I also see too readily the obstacles this will create.

Specifically, there arose immediately a problem with the ballots mailed in from Venezuela. Suspicions were voiced about the possible interference by the dictator Hugo Chavez. This man who is known for his hunger for influence, usually of the baleful sort, might well have been trying to play kingmaker in Galicia's government.

I didn't stay long enough to see how things were going to be sorted out. Galicia is a beautiful place, with lovely people, and clearly their own way of choosing their leaders.

Are two terms the limit? 

       That’s the question Lancaster Republicans face as they decide whom to nominate for election to County offices.

       I firmly believe in the two-term rule. As a Commissioner, when I  first ran, I recognized that, since I was running to get specific,  overdue things done - killing the personal property tax, solving  the  overcrowded Barnes Hall problem, providing  training for volunteer emergency folks - I would need two  terms to do them.

       I also recognized that, if a person seeks to stay longer than eight years in office - for whatever the reason – the pressures of re-election will sorely tempt that officeholder to trim their sails so as to minimize upsetting political contributors. And if that comes to pass, what good is there in a person holding that office?

      Public service is ennobling work, but it carries all of the temptations that come with power and large funds.

      A two-term limit frees the officeholder of many temptations and allows them to focus on their mission, knowing as they do from the first day on the job when their last day in office will be.