It is passed along, repeated. Soon, because it’s been heard, posted or read so often, it comes to be accepted as true.


One of those statements, coming in the aftermath of the grand jury investigation of the sale of Conestoga View, goes like this:


“Because the Sunday News is owned by Lancaster Newspapers, which is developing the hotel in downtown Lancaster, the newspaper hasn’t questioned the secretive actions of the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority.’’


Or, in the vernacular of people who have trouble working up a good defense or excuse for the actions of the county commissioners:


“Yeah, you guys pick on the commissioners, but what about the convention center board ...’’


Opponents of the downtown project have become very good at parroting this line over and over, despite proof that can be found in our archives.


We have continually written, in news stories, editorials and columns, about the blunders of the convention center authority in dealing with the public. Or not dealing with the public.


We have continually taken the board to task for its obstinence in not making public itemized legal bills from Stevens & Lee.


The board should drop that attorney-client privilege excuse. That’s public money, and we want to know what the firm has done to earn those millions.


Strange logic




Now, I don’t think for a moment that if the board made those records public tomorrow, that opponents of the project would go away happy.


They are grasping for anything they can find to stop the city project, no matter how strange their logic.


Try to mentally juggle this one:


Some of the project opponents, who support Commissioners Shellenberger and Henderson, call their violations of the Sunshine Act minor, while screaming “Sunshine Law violation!’’ at the authority board.


A question that opponents need to answer is why so many of their “watchdogs’’ have had little or nothing to say about the Conestoga View debacle, which was a clear betrayal of public trust by the commissioners.


All of that aside, we will continue to do with the convention center board members what we did with the commissioners: Keep after ’em.


Despite what the naysayers wail, that’s what we have done. We have reported on bond dealings; noted the high price of consultants (right down to what they spent for dinner); run letters to the editor from members of the board appointed by Shellenberger and Henderson; and pushed for open discussions at its meetings.


We even printed this lead paragraph in an editorial in November 2005:


“We agree with county Commissioner Molly Henderson that the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority is engaging in risky business by proposing an interest rate swaption to raise more cash.’’


That was after the commissioner became an opponent of the project and after she had voted to sell Conestoga View.


Poetic license




Asked by her mother if she was working on memorizing a Robert Frost poem for school, 11-year-old daughter Abigail replied:


“It’s a work in progress.’’


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