Editor's note: This is the first of a series of articles examining issues in the Lancaster County commissioners' race.

•••

Preserving farmland ranks among the most important issues in this year's Lancaster County commissioners' race.

Three four-year terms are up for grabs. The election is Nov. 6.

Lancaster farmers generate nearly $1 billion in livestock and crop sales annually, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and farming adds even more money to the local economy every time tourists and new residents are drawn to the county's pastoral landscape and lifestyle. The five candidates agree on the ethical obligation and economic necessity of preserving farmland. They differ, however, on how to raise the tens of millions of dollars needed to do that.

The county borrowed $25 million in 2006 for farmland preservation, a program that incumbent Commissioner Molly Henderson, a Democrat, has made a centerpiece of her campaign. According to Henderson, the borrowed money helped the county continue a worthwhile program, which in the past 30 years has put more than 70,000 acres into permanent preservation.

However, Republican Scott Martin, the former Youth Intervention Center director, said the county cannot afford to borrow its way to preserving farmland.

The county already is more than $230 million in debt, a burden likely to increase during the next four years because of building projects on the horizon, such as a new county morgue, he said.

Martin said somehow the county's general fund has to absorb the cost of farmland preservation. He's against borrowing more money, especially if it means cutting human services or staffing to pay back a loan.

"We have to find alternative methods to achieve this goal … without bankrupting county government," he said. "We have to think outside the box."

The county's 2007 operating expenditures are $265 million, of which $139 million come from the general fund.

Henderson, who backs further preservation through borrowing, said the general fund can't absorb the preservation program.

"That just doesn't magically happen," she said. "You're going to have to raise a tax for that."

One potential tax hike Henderson would like to explore is upping the county's 3.9 percent hotel room rental tax, a majority of which is paid for by tourists, to as high as its 5 percent ceiling.

The tax now generates millions for the construction of a downtown hotel/convention center, as well as operating funds for the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau. Any revenue generated above the 3.9 percent could go to farmland preservation, according to Henderson.

"Why do people come to Lancaster?" Henderson said. "To see farmland."

Independent candidate Jere Swarr, a Rapho Township supervisor and longtime farmer, said the hotel tax should originally have been earmarked for farmland preservation instead of the controversial hotel/convention center.

"To me, that would have been perfect," he said. "Imagine having little brochures at the hotel desk: 'Your tax goes to protect our precious farmland.' That's a tax they would have loved to pay."

Swarr said that although he wants to continue preserving farmland at current funding levels, he's leery of the county taking on more debt.

GOP candidate Dennis Stuckey, the county controller, said he supports borrowing money in the short term for farmland preservation, but like Martin, he believes the county is too deep in debt.

"I do have an uncomfortable feeling" about the indebtedness, Stuckey said.

He has noted that the current commissioners have boosted the county's debt by 56 percent since 2003. The county will be repaying existing debt until 2033.

"I do believe in the long run, we must find alternative ways to fund farmland preservation, whether that's leveraging local dollars through state and federal programs," he said. "Obviously, that would be the best way to go."

Craig Lehman, a Democrat and state House budget analyst on leave from his job, said the county pays about $4,000 per acre to preserve farms. In comparison, Chester County farmland to the east costs $10,000 per acre, according to Lehman.

"We are looking at a 10-to-20-year window after which the cost of farmland preservation may be so expensive we won't be able to afford to do it," he said.

"Farmland preservation is still a pretty good deal in Lancaster County."

All five candidates agree that farmland preservation is facilitated by funding economic development in the county's small towns and boroughs. That encourages residential development to occur nearby, rather than gobbling up more farms.

Henderson often points to the $4 million in municipal economic grants for during the last four years as a hallmark of the farmland preservation program, and Lehman said such efforts should continue.

"I am absolutely certain there is an interconnectedness with what happens in our older communities and preserving our farms and rural way of life," Lehman said.

E-mail: dpidgeon@lnpnews.com