Lititz Record Express

              T H E R E S S
SERVING THE WARWICK AREA F (Hi MORE THAN A CENTER Y
107th Year ESTABLISHED APRIL 1877 AS THE SUNBEAM
CONSOLIDATED WITH THE LITITZ RECORD 1937
Lititz, Lancaster County, PA. 17543, Thursday, January 19,1984 25 CENTS A COPY: $7.00 PER YEAR BY MAIL
WITFflN LANCASTER COUNTY 24 Pages-Ha. 43
Jaycees' Outstanding Young Firefighter
He's Been A Fireman Half His Life
For Highway Safety
By Kathleen King
Joe Texter can honestly
say he’s been fighting fires
half his life.
For those years of
dedication and especially for
his service on the lititz Fire
Company, Texter will be
honored as Outstanding
Young F ir e fig h te r at
tonight’s (Thursday’s)
Annual Awards Banquet
given by the Lititz Area
Jaycees and Jaycee Women.
Now 34, Texter joined the
East Petersburg Fire
Company at the age of 17 at
the challenge of Jay
Hollinger, then the fire chief
in East Petersburg.
The summer before his
senior year in high school,
Texter and several of his
buddies were alerted to a
fire when they heard the fire
siren and saw smoke in the
distance.
“We rode our bikes down,”
Texter said of the incident.
“It was a simple fire - a
farmer had a hay wagon on
fire.”
Arriving before the fire
company, the youths tried to
put the fire out and had it
pretty well accomplished
before the firefighters
arrived.
Texter said the fire chief
told him and his friend, “If
you guys are this eager to
help, why don’t you join the
fire company and learn? ’ ’
The very next Wednesday,
Texter and his friends took
up the chief’s challenge and
went to the fire house.
“Three of us went up,”
Texter said, “I was the only
one that stayed.”
At first, as a high school
senior, he could only respond
to fire calls when he was at
home.
And when he was at home
he literally ran to the fire
hall.
“I lived about a half mile
from the fire hall, going
cross country through the
hedges,” Texter said. “I was
in shape then.”
Texter remained with the
East Petersburg Fire
Company for the next 12
years, throughout his
summers while attending
college and on a more
permanent basis after
graduation from Lycoming
College in Williamsport.
During one year on the
E a s t P e te rsbu rg fire
company he served as first
vice president and was in­volved
with training.
Then in September of 1974
Texter and his wife, Tina,
moved to the Scranton area.
There he joined the Clarks
Summit Fire Company, a
suburban fire company in a
community about half the
size of Lititz, Texter said.
He remained in the area
and with the fire company
until September of 1977 when
he moved to Lititz.
“Both times I had joined a
fire company before I had a
bank picked out,” Texter
said, in all seriousness.
Texter has been with the
Lititz Fire Company six-and-a-
half years, he said. He was
just recently reappointed to
a second year as an assistant
fire chief. Prior to that he
had served as a lieutenant.
According to Texter, the
chief is elected by the fire
company and the other of­ficers
are appointed by the
chief. There are two
assistant chiefs, two cap­tains,
three lieutenants and
then the drivers and
firefighters, Texter said.
The lieutenants and
captains, the line officers,
are responsible for the
equipment they’re on and for
directing the firemen
assigned to them at the
scene of the fire, Texter said.
An assistant chief conveys
orders to the line officers,
Texter explained. He is also
responsible for taking over
in the chief’s absence,
Texter said.
Because Lititz’s current
fire chief, H. Richard
Neidermyer, “lives and
works locally,” Texter said,
he himself has not needed to
take up the role of chief very
often. “Dick has made about
110 out of 120 calls we had
last year,” Texter siad.
In addition to his duties as
an assistant fire chief,
Texter is ¡also the training
officer. This is his second
year in that position he said.
As training officer he
schedules something for
Monday nights, the fire
m sm .
Township Police Dept.
To Get $77,654 State Grant
Joe Texter has been named O u t s i t Y o u n g
Fire Fighter by the Lititz Area Jaycees.
company’s weekly training
drill.
“ I try to keep a
progression of areas to be
covered,” Texter said. “We
try to teach the newer
members without boring the
older members.”
Subjects covered Monday
nights might range from how
to lay hose to how to wear the
breathing apparatus, Texter
said.
With 17 years of ex­perience
in firefighting,
Texter can relate a number
Of sometimes humorous and
sometimes tragic results of
fires he has fought.
Sidewalks
Must Be Cleared
Of Snow
Lititz Police Chief
Hicks reminds residents
of the ordinance
requiring them to
remove snow from their
sidewalks within 24
hours of the
precipitation.
Chief Hicks said the
police have received
several complaints and
will prosecute as
necessary.
THIS WEEKEND - 3 Big Days To Save
DURING LITITZ
RRD TAG D A Y S
THURS., FRI., SAT. - JANUARY 19,20,21
★ SAVINGS THROUGHOUT LITITZ AREA STORES
★ TWO HOUR FREE PARKING ALL THREE DAYS
★ REGISTER FOR »150 GIVEAWAY_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
RULES FOR REGISTRATION
1. Register your name at any participating merchant listed below. No purchase necessary.
2. Contest open to all ages; persons under 18 must be accompanied by an adult to register.
3 Prizes will be awarded as follows: $100 Lititz Shopping Dollars first prize; 2nd prize: $25
Lititz Shopping Dollars; 3rd & 4th prizes: $10 Lititz Shopping Dollars; 5th prize: $5 Lititz
Shopping Dollars. . . ..
4. Contest closes at 5 P.M. Saturday, Jan. 21. Winners will be selected at random from those
who register.
REGISTER AT THISI
PARTICIPATING MERCHANTS
American Bank & Trust Co.
Benner’s Pharmacy
Bicycle World
Bingeman’s Clothing Store
Bingeman’s Restaurant
Bob’s Save Rite
The Carpet Shop
Commonwealth National Bank
Dori Mae’s Dress Shop
Farmer’s First Bank
Glad Rags Thrift Shop
Hamilton Bank
Hess Men’s Wear
Jeanne's Turquoise
Kelly’s Deli
Kreider Hardware Co.
Lititz Office Products/Lititz Book
Store
Lititz Record Express
Lititz Sewing Center
Long & Bomberger Home Center
McElroy Pharmacy
Miller Hess Shoe Outlet
The Pewter Mug
Rule’s Model Trains
Stauffer's of Kissel Hill
Trudi K Shop (Lititz Only)
Weis Markets (Lititz Only)
Wenger’s Flowers Inc.
Westlake Furniture Outlet
White Shield Discount Store
Wilbur Chocolate Candy Outlet
Merv Zimmerman Inc. Plumbing &
Heating Showroom
Zimmerman’s Newstand & Gifts
One that comes to his mind
that he said taught him a
s e v e r e le s so n about
“routine” fires was an
“assist” to another fire
company when he was a
member at East Petersburg.
The fire was in a tree house
in Neffsville and the firemen
joked as they often did about
“routine fires,” he said.
“You don’t ever know
what you have till you get
there,” Texter said. “A
common fire can be a real
problem.”
Texter said it wasn’t until
after the fire was ex­tinguished
that the bodies of
two boys were discovered in
the tree house.
“No one knew there were
kids in it until it was over.”
The most severe shock to
him came from a fire that
did not even involve him.
During his junior year in
college, he received a call
from his mother told him
that his cousin’s husband
and their two children had
died in a fire in Harrisburg.
“It was nighttime fire,”
Texter said. “Heat and
smoke built up and they
were all overcome.”
His cousin was away from
home at work at the time, he
said. She was the only one to
survive.
“They had a smoke
detector,” Texter said. “But
the battery didn’t work.”
“When tragedy strikes
that close, it has more of an
effect,” Texter said.
Not all fire calls are tragic
ones though, Texter said.
There are the typical cat
rescue calls that everyone
(Turn to Page 16)
By Suzanne Keene
The Warwick Township
Supervisors Wednesday
night unanimously agreed to
accept a $77,654 state
highway safety project grant
that will allow the police
department to add two new
officers to its force. The
grant will fund 90 percent of
the new officers’ salaries for
three years, while the
township will pay the other
10 percent of the project’s
cost, an estimated $9,462.
The grant also provides 70
percent of the funds for the
new officers’ training and
for a VASCAR unit, a speed
timing device.
Police Chief Harry Aichele
said the additional officers
will allow the police
department to create a
traffic unit to provide traffic
enforcement, accident in­vestigation
and all other
traffic functions.
By creating a traffic unit
and increasing traffic en­forcement
by 30 percent,
Aichele said he believes the
police will realize an overall
reduction of traffic ac­cidents.
Last year, he said,
there were 162 major traffic
accidents in the township.
Aichele said he plans to
have officers patrol the
busiest streets more heavily,
especially the Fruitville
Pike and Newp« ■ Road
during peak hours.
'the tra its unit officers
w»tl be selected, from the
current police force while
the two new officers will be
placed on regular assign­ment.
By accepting the
grant, Aichele said, the
township is agreeing to
retain the two new officers at
the end of the three year
period.
Aichele said he fprsees no
problem hiring two qualified
policemen because several
experienced policemen have
told him they would like to
join Warwick Township’s
police department.
Part of the traffic officers’
duties will be investigating
accidents, computing traffic
statistics, training other
officers and investigating
and enforcing drunk drivers.
Currently, no officers are
assigned strictly to traffic-related
duties.
The township’s rated of­ficer
index, which is
calculated by applying an
accepted standard of one
full-time officer for every
1,000 population, shows that
the township could use the
additional officers.
In 1980 the township’s
population was 8,213. Ac­cording
to the index, the
township should have had 8.2
full-time officers, but it had
and still has only six full­time
officers and the police
chief. The study projected
that by 1990 the township will
have a population of 10,290
and will need 10.3 police
officers.
“The point is that, as the
population of both Warwick
Township and the
surrounding municipalities
continues to increase,
municipal officials should
continue to expect to witness
spin-offs from this increase
in the form of more
automobiles and higher
traffic volumes,” Aichele
said.
In a study prepared for the
State, Aichele wrote: “With
the volume of traffic caused
by many large traffic
generators, we do not
foresee where our traffic
problems will lessen. Each
year our traffic accidents
have increased. We do not
have adequate personnel to
devote for traffic duties to
the areas and during peak
traffic times.”
In discussion about the
grant Supervisor Roy Irvin
mentioned th a t some
township residents think the
police force is already too
large. Supervisor William
Hazlett responded that the
township’s primary concern
should be the accidents and
resident safety.
Making a motion that the
supervisors accept the
grant, Supervisor Pat Herr
said she believes the grant
will save the township
money in the long run since
the township will most likely
need more police officers in
three years anyway.
In other business, the
board:
•Unconditionally ap­proved
the revised final plan
for Oak Ridge Acres for lots
two and six. The Warwick
Township Planning Com­mission
recommended
approval.
•Signed the escrow release
for the township’s new dump
truck. The truck arrived
Jan. 9 and was used for last
Wednesday’s snowstorm.
•Scheduled a zoning
hearing for 8 p.m. on March
14 for a 37-acre tract of land
adjacent to Rudy Dam.
•Signed an installation
(Turn to Page 4)
Tshudy Named To County
Planning Commission
Lititz Borough Coun­cilman
Clyde Tshudy has
been named to the Lancaster
County Planning Com­mission
as a regional
representative from Region
4, according to John Ahlfeld,
planning commission
director.
Tshudy will serve a four-year
term on the planning
commission. Region 4 in­corporates
the areas of
Elizabeth and Warwick
Townships and Lititz
Borough and west to the
Susquehanna River, which
makes up basically the
northwestern section of the
county, according to Ahlfeld.
There are 13 municipalities
within the region, Ahlfeld
said.
Tshudy will be one of six
regional representatives on
the nine member com­mission.
The other three
members are members at
large, Ashlfeld said.
All the r e g io n a l
representatives must be
either elected officials or
municipal managers,
Faulty Meters Blamed
Clyde Tshudy
Ahlfeld said. Tshudy is
replacing Robert Shellen-berger,
a Rapho Township
supervisor whose term
expired in December.
The County planning
commission members do not
receive compensation for
their work, Ahlfeld said, as
the position is entirely
voluntary.
Ahlfeld said the County
planning commission meets
twice a month, on the second
and fourth Mondays, at 4
p.m. in the Lancaster County
Courthouse.
One of the m a jo r
responsibilities of the
planning commission is to
administer the Lancaster
County Subdivision and
Land Development Or­dinance,
Ahlfeld said.
That ordinance controls
certain design aspects of
new development in
municipalities which do not
have a subdivision ordinance
of their own, Ahlfeld said.
The County planning
commission serves as a
reviewing body for sub­division
requests from local
municipalities which do
have their own subdivision
ordinance, Ahlfeld said. But
in those municipalities, the
local municipality makes
decisions on the subdivision
requests, he said.
The county planning
commission also reviews
(Turn to Page 4)
Borough, Township Unable To Reach
Agreement In Sewer Dispute
By Kathleen King
A dispute has arisen
between Warwick Township
and Lititz Borough that may
ultimately have to be
decided by an arbitrator if
the parties cannot come to
an agreement.
The dispute involves the
Lititz Wastewater Treat­ment
Plant and revolves
around the amount of
sewage flow Warwick
Township is sending to the
plant, and consequently, the
amount of money Warwick
Township owes the borough
for its share of costs at the
wastewater treatment plant.
According to members of
the Warwick Township
Municipal Authority, the
meters which measure the
inflow of sewage from the
township into the
wastewater treatment plant
are not functioning properly
In This Issue
Editorial 4
Sports Section 6,7,10,11
Social 12,13
Classified 14,15
Church 20
Business Directory 22
and probably have not ever
functioned properly.
Because the bill Lititz
sends to the township’s
municipal authority is based
upon those meter readings,
the whole issue of just what
the township owes to the
borough for treatment of its
sewage in 1983 and in 1984 is
open to debate.
At a meeting held on Jan. 5
at the wastewater treatment
plant, representatives of the
parties sat down to discuss
their differences and to try
to resolve them.
By the conclusion of the
meeting, one township
muncipal authority member
had stomped out in anger
and the parties had come to
just one agreement - that
they could not reach an
agreement.
Warwick Township’s
engineer, Larry Zim­merman
from Glace
A s s o c ia t e s , I n c . ,
Harrisburg, says that much
of the problem arises from
the type of meter that is
being used - an ultrasonic
flowmeter.
According to Ron Nuss,
Warwick Township Mun­cipal
Authority’s operations
manager, the ultrasonic flow
meter sends a beam down to and the face of the sonic gallons. He said the reading
the liquid. It then bounces device. must then be transmitted
back and measures the Nuss said the meter then across telephone lines from
difference between the flow converts the reading into (Turn to Page 16)
Ron Nuss, operations manager for the Warwick Township Municipal Authority,
looks into one of the two metering stations that monitor how much sewage the
township is contributing to the sewage plant. Township officials say the meters
have not been working properly all year. The township and Lititz borough cannot
seem to agree on just how much the township contributed in sewage flows and
how much it should be billed.