STILL no answers to all of your questions.

Perhaps those "specific examples" are too difficult to find...

1)Even the Convention Center studies and backers don't agree with you here. They are hoping to have center occupancy 52 days of the year, many of those will be one day events. Even if they are extended, only 299 rooms are available and the city can not handle traffic flow of an event that will bring thousands in and out at the same time. Restaurants can not afford to expand their staff for just 52 nights a year. And the restaurants that have been doing quite well downtown may actually see a reduction in business. You see, when there is an event going on, people from outside of the city will avoid driving to these places because of our already existing traffic and parking issues that will be compounded by any event held at the center. They will go somewhere outside of the city instead and there is no guarantee they will return afterwards. Let alone parking during the week is very limited even with the addition of new garages. Even PENNDOT questioned the viability of our road system's ability to handle the additional traffic, yet with a little pushing, the politicians mysteriously got the ok. And don't forget that this is not the only convention center in the Lancaster area so it is very doubtful that it will bring the hundreds of thousands of visitors needed in order to pay for itself.

2) I didn't say that I had a bad time, I told you what happened and that I didn't hold it against the area. In fact I found no problem with the way I was treated because it wasn't bad. In fact this is normal just about everywhere I travel. But you did imply in your other post that you would fix anything, now you seem to be backing off a bit. Just talking to the tourism folks won't always fix it. Maybe you don't have as much power as you think.

3) None of your answer has anything to do with knowing how government works. Do you honestly believe that we don't try and clean up downtown everyday? Guess what, we do! None of us want to live in a garbage infested city. That is why we have supported single hauler trash system and new landlord laws to help curb issues among other things. Did you know that Lancaster has been trying to get ADA compliant for years? One of the biggest projects, curb cuts, had a huge funding pot that seemed to have disappeared over night under the last administration, but no one seems to be sure if it was used properly or not. Right now just about every street corner (at least in the northwest where I am) is being replaced. No one is challenging curb cuts, although some have challenged the bulb-outs because in some areas they have been installed incorrectly. All of this could probably be completed by now except the people you seem to praise that back the convention center have diverted millions in neighborhood funds that could have been used for additional curb cuts and sidewalk smoothing and instead are now replacing the sidewalks in the downtown area that were compliant and were in good condition with strips of brick to look prettier. So they have chosen aesthetics over ADA functionality. And you wonder why we get mad? The city is not adding any officers in their already short staffed police department (at one point they were trying to decrease positions) to help with events at the convention center, and no new equipment or personnel have been added to the fire department. Nothing like building a high occupancy building with little way to fight an emergency other than the building's internal systems. All this because there is no money, yet our politicians seem to be able to find hundreds of millions of dollars in the middle of the night in order to fund their pet projects.

I guess now I understand why you avoided answering my questions.

Thank you VERY much for your truly outstanding post.

You have accurately spelled out the situation here in Lancaster, far better than I could have.

It's good to know that someone else noticed Smithgall's disappearing curb cut grant money.

I don't have time to play games with you today, but I do want to say two things, First I NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT JOBS BEING CREATED. Those statistics, even by the President, are meaningless and can't really be measured. Two, the question you asked about if you had a bad time IN FORT LAUDERDALE was hypotetical in my opinion, you didn't ask about your trip to wherever in Florida, you asked me about if you came to Fort Lauderdale.

Think what ever you want it's a free country. Typical and what I thought, you didn't want an answer you wanted to make my response personal, and it's what I expected to happen. Have a great day!