In his State of the City address, Gray, along with city police Chief Sam Gatchell, discussed initiatives they hope will improve the quality of life in Lancaster.

But it wasn’t a rosy picture.

For one thing, Gray said, the city has to “stop living off our savings” and find more viable sources of income to meet expenses.

In the past year, Gray said, the city experienced a $1 million increase both in employees’ pension contributions and workers’ medical care costs.

“For every dollar we spend on wages for employees, we spend 60 cents for fringe benefits,” Gray said.

Eighty percent of the city’s budget is related to personnel, salaries and benefits, Gray said, and the way to meet those growing costs is not higher real-estate taxes.

Real-estate taxes make up 40 percent of the city’s income, Gray said, so for every 1 percent increase in costs, the city would have to raise real-estate taxes 2½ percent to meet it.

“The long-term health of the city is jeopardized by high taxes,” Gray said. The answer, he said, is “real tax reform at the state level.”

Gray said he is exploring a progressive tax that would give breaks to homeowners who make improvements, while making it less attractive for landowners who “sit on” valuable real estate like parking lots or vacant buildings, thereby encouraging development.

Gray also stressed the importance of “getting Lancaster ready for the convention center.”

Making the center a success, he said, will “spill out” into the neighborhoods. Gray also addressed the center’s opponents.

“The question becomes, are we going to cooperate and build it and make it a success?” Gray asked. “Or are some people who opposed it, for whatever reason — be it self-interest or public concern — are they going to work to make sure it’s a failure so they can say ‘I told you so.’ We need to consolidate our efforts for the purpose of making it a success.”

Addressing rental properties in the city, Gray said he wants to crack down on bad landlords and bad tenants alike. To do this, he plans to form a rental housing task force this year.

“Bad landlords bring in bad tenants, who are bad neighbors,” Gray said.

One idea Gray mentioned was requiring inspection and certification of rental units.

“We have the opportunity in Lancaster to create a showplace,” Gray said. “The best of Lancaster is ahead of us, and it is up to us to make it happen.”

Gatchell outlined the good and bad news concerning city crime.

As of the beginning of December, he said, there were seven homicides in the city. On a “brighter note,” he said, one of those resulted from a domestic dispute, and the other six seemed to be drug-related.

“These are not random killings,” Gatchell said. “If you are not involved in illegal drug activities, or associate with those who are, your chances of becoming a victim of violent crime are drastically reduced.”

In other crime statistics, Gatchell said armed robbery was down 13 percent in 2006 compared to 2005, while assault with a firearm was up 6.5 percent. Assault with a knife was down 7.5 percent, but car theft was up a whopping 65 percent, despite increased funding from the insurance industry for prevention.

“We’ve really taken it on the chin with this,” Gatchell said.

City police were very busy in 2006, Gatchell said, responding to 86,000 calls.

On traffic enforcement, Gatchell said officers wrote 80,000 parking tickets.

Thanks to new speed-monitoring equipment, Gatchell said officers have given out 240 speeding tickets in September, October and November.

As for 2007 goals, Gatchell wants to improve community policing and encourage more contact with residents by “getting the officers out of their cars” and have them walk around.

The city also will be cracking down harder on unsafe commercial vehicles.


Larry Alexander’s e-mail address is lalexander@lnpnews.com.