It’s a common move in the corporate and sports worlds to pay an officer or player to just go away. Why shouldn’t it work in government?


I don’t think the Republican commissioner has a snowball’s chance in July of winning a second term, so why put us through these next 400-plus days?


I’m thinking $150,000 is a good offer (about double what he will make) to help him “transition” to another job. While we’re at it, I would offer the same deal to Democrat Molly Henderson, who has said she’s running again, and to Republican Pete Shaub, who is not running. The three can draw straws to see who walks first.


It would have made a nice referendum in the election past: “If the commissioners agree to leave office, do you support paying each of them $150,000?’’


Who pays for this? The county. Us. Don’t look at it as an expense; consider it an investment. It might even be a savings.


Commissioner Shellenberger’s letter reminds me of Commissioner Henderson’s e-mails to supporters. Like his colleague, Commissioner Shellenberger says the newspapers have not “objectively’’ explained his questioning of “the taxpayer’s liability’’ in the convention center-hotel project, because Lancaster Newspapers is involved.


Or maybe it’s because neither he nor Commissioner Henderson seem able to grasp the math themselves, even when we’ve given them the space to say it in their own words. Maybe that’s because the project risk is minimal, not in the tens of millions they conjure up.


Commissioner Shellenberger, in his letter, also tells us that selling Conestoga View was a good move because “the property has been, and would have continued to be, a substantial drain on the county.’’


Except it wasn’t a drain, and no amount of rationalization will make this giveaway of county property go away.


“It is an honor to serve you. Happy Thanksgiving,’’ he writes in his own hand at end of the letter.


Give it up, please.



Quote of week




Frustrated by the danger (two horses dead) on a slippery steel-grated bridge owned by the county on Refton Road, Providence Township supervisor Bill Shaffer asked at a recent meeting:


“Can we sue the county?’’


Why not? Everyone else does.




Alive and sick




TalkBack, a readers’ forum on our Web site, lancasteronline.com, allows people to post anonymously. Too often, it brings out the worst in people and the worst people.

The comments on last Sunday’s Coral Street story show racism is alive and sick here.




Dinosaur rock




Ten-year-old daughter Abigail asked if I had an iPod when I was her age. I said, “No, I had a record player.’’


“What’s a record player?’’ she asked.


Try explaining to a child who has always known computers, CDs and DVDs that we had vinyl discs with grooves in them, and that music was produced when a needle was placed on the spinning disc.


It does sound prehistoric, doesn’t it?




Marv Adams invites your questions. You can send them by e-mail to madams@lnpnews.com or mail to: Sunday News, P.O. Box 1328, Lancaster, Pa. 17608-1328.