Forget the Home Rule Charter, the marketing campaign, and the ballot question...I have THE ANSWER for Lancaster. Fire all current elected officials and row officers immedaitely. Appoint Dale High, grand pubah for life, and John Fry, vice pubah. These (2) thankless gentlemen make every decision about what is on our best interst first. We need to give them all of our money and total descretion to do whatever they want because they know whats good for us and only do what is in the best interestes of Lancaster.

Once again it shows how some of the MT supervisors are close with big business. First the Crossings and High and now F&M and LGH. When will it stop.

I have no doubt that this project would be highly beneficial for downtown Lancaster.

Unless the railroad is tax free property, when it converts to uses proposed by F&M and LGH, will it result in more tax monies, or less? I imagine those uses are more dependent on such things as water, sewer, gas service. Those will be installed, AND SERVICED, by whom?

This whole "just add another plate to the table" mentality displays an ignorance of physical infrastructure demands.
Somewhere the notion of paying your own way has been lost on certain parties. And I've never seen the public appetite for holding their feet to the fire, this low. Signalling acceptance of eventual defeat? Or garden variety apathy?
There is an opposite of "not in my backyard". "As long as it's not in my backyard". Please recall the "...when they came for me, there was no one to stand up for me" maxim. This deal makes selected parties the beneficiary of the public largess, while they sell it as good for every man. Taint so.

The diagram in the newspaper wasn't all that clear. Any part of the land that would be athletic fields, or parking lots servicing those athletic fields, would be tax-exempt since that would be considered an educational use. But any part of the land that would be commercial structures, or parking lots for commercial structure, would be taxable no matter who owns them, since it would be for a for-profit use.

I didn't see any buildings on the current rail yard in that diagram. Water and sewer installations are typically paid for by the user, their service and upkeep is paid as a part of the water and sewer bill. Gas service would be from UGI, which is a private corporation.