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Lititz, Lancaster County PA, 17543. Thursday, January 29,1987 25 CENTS A COPY, $8.50 PtR YEAR BY MAIL
WITHIN LANCASTER COUNTY 22 Pages-No. 43
\ Council on home stretch
re: Chestnut Street
Like the library, the Village Art Association is a
cultural and educational organization in the
community, Vance Forepaugh told borough council
Tuesday night.
Village Art Association
defends use of profits
by Bonnie Szymanski
Representatives from the
Village Art Association were
p re sen t at Tuesday’s
borough council meeting to
answer questions raised in
an earlier council meeting
about the organization’s use
of funds received from the
annual Lititz Sidewalk Art
Show.
Fran Spangle of Lititz,
who identified herself as
show chairman for the past
three years, assured council
that the group has “ always
carried liability insurance”
for the shows.
F o llow in g some
disagreement on the amount
requested last year, Vance
Forepaugh, association
treasurer, stated he was
certain council had asked for
$100,000 coverage for the
1986 show.
Forepaugh told council
that the group was having a
difficult time getting the
needed coverage from a
local insurance office.
“We worked with Jim
Gibbel (of Hershey and
Gibbel Insurance Co., Lititz)
for four months,” said
Forepaugh, noting that the
group finally had to pur­chase
the 1986 policy from
the Stirling Insurance Co. in
Manheim.
Councilman David Bucher
noted that council had not
singled out the a rt
association with regard to
liability coverage, stating
that all organizations
holding shows in the borough
must be covered.
Councilman Russ Pet­tyjohn
made a motion, ap­proved
by a unanimous vote,
that all organizations
holding shows within the
(Turn to Page 17)
by Bonnie Szymanski
Lititz Borough Council was
informed Tuesday that the
street they thought was not
on official borough maps Is
on the maps and has been
since 1967, according to
Council president Clyde
Tshudy.
The street - the proposed
Chestnut Street, between
Arrowhead Drive and
Lincoln Avenue - was
discovered this week on an
old street plan by Dave
Anderson, director of public
works for the borough.
As a result, the recently
proposed ordinance that
would have made Chestnut
Street an official borough
street was not necessary.
Council members agreed
that the new ordinance was
not needed, but they couldn’t
agree on how to rescind the
ordinance.
Should they put it up for a
vote and disapprove it?
Or, should they make a
motion to void the ordiance,
then vote to approve that
motion?
Or should they just ignore
the newly proposed or­dinance,
which, after all,
had only been advertised,
not voted on?
Council decided to table
action until borough
manager Sue Barry could
check on the correct
procedure for killing a
duplicate ordinance.
In the meantime, Cousins
In v e s tm e n ts In c .,
developers of Windsor
Gardens (the proposed 108-
unit garden apartment
development bordered on
the west by the proposed
Chestnut Street), brought to
council a new preliminary
plan and a new final plan for
Windsor Gardens. Neither
plan includes Chestnut
Street.
According to developer
William Hazlett, “It’s the
same plan we took to
planning originally.”
The plan includes no
through-street, which would
have served as a corridor
from the northern part of the
borough to its center.
A fte r m o n th s of
ruminating over the need for
a north-south corridor to act
as a relief valve for Broad
Street traffic, council
members were faced with an
opportunity to approve
Cousins’ plans and forget
about the Chestnut Street
debate.
Too late. In accordance
with planning commission
recommendations, council is
now convinced that a north-south
access road is needed
between Arrowhead Drive
and Lincoln Avenue.
So while Hazlett and his
p a rtn e r, Jim McKay,
watched their newest
proposal lose momentum,
council members con­centrated
on discovering the
best way to move traffic in a
north-south pattern, starting
at Arrowhead Drive.
Building a better bypass
Councilman Sam Hess
suggested that Walnut Street
or Buch Avenue would serve
the purpose of a corridor,
without Chestnut Street’s
land transfer problems.
Councilman David Bucher
said he thinks Chestnut
Street “is the only one with
potential for continuity,”
noting that constructing
other roadways would lead
to a “dog-leg” or other odd
curves in the road.
Councilman Jeff Siegrist
(Turn to Page 17)*-: -
Farmer, neighbors discuss
issue of hog-raising operation
by Linda A. Harris
James D. Hess, 825 E.
Newport Rd., made what he
probably thought was a
simple request at the
December meeting of the
Warwick Township Zoning
Hearing Board. A farmer,
Hess wanted to convert a
former poultry house on a
150-acre farm he owns at
Pine Hill and Clay roads to
house hogs.
The request was tabled
until the Jan. 21 meeting at
which time a public hearing
was to be held. In the
meantime, Larry Zim­merman,
township engineer,
discussed the proposed
project at the township
municipal authority meeting
Jan. 20. He asked authority
chairman Les Andes to
advise both the zoning
hearing board members and
the supervisors of the
municipal au th o rity ’s
concern in regard to Hess’
plan to spread hog manure
on the land which lies within
the recharge area of the
Due To Snowstorm...
3 1
s g S r - T h r o u g h ^ ” « , G i v e a w a y ’-
* R e g i s t e r F ° r $ 1 5 U
RULES FOR REGISTRATION
1. Register your name at a ny 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. 31. Winners will be selected at random from
those who register.
R E G I S T E R A T T H E S E
P A R T I C I P A T I N G M E R C H A N T S
Lititz Record-Express
Lititz Sewing Center
A& A Cleaners
Benner's Pharmacy
Bicycle Work)
Bingeman's Clothing Store
Bingeman’s Restaurant
Bob's Save Rite
Commonwealth National Bank
D & J Video Junction
The Deli L
Dori Mae Dress Shop
Farmer's First Bank
Glad Rags Thrift Shop
Hess's of Lititz
Home Video Center
Kreider Hardware Co.
Lippart'sof Lititz
Lititz Office Products/Lititz Book
Store
Long & Bomberger Home Center
Long’s Mower & Hardware
McElroy Pharmacy
Penn Savings Bank
The Pewter Mug
Promises Gift & Entertainment Center
Stauffer's of Kissel Hill (Lititz Only)
Strings'n Things
Sturgis Pretzel House
The Turquoise Shoppe
Weis Markets (Lititz Only)
White Shield Discount Center
Wilbur Chocolate Candy Outlet
Merv Zimmermanlnc. Plumbing &
Heating Showroom
In this issue
Editorial 4
Sports Section 6,7,8
Classified 20,21
Social 10,11
Church 16
Manheim 14,15
Business Directory 18,19
Smoke rises from the burning remains of the
J.H. Brubaker Inc. lumber yard in Manheim. The
suspicious blaze caused an estimated $400,000 in
damage and took the efforts of 100 firefighters
from throughout the area to extinguish.
Pre-dawn fire destroys Manheim lumber yard
Single-digit temperatures
and a lack of water ham­pered
firefighters efforts to
gain control of a suspicious
blaze which destroyed a
lumber yard in Manheim on
Tuesday morning.
Manheim fire chief David
Carpenter reported that
firefighters were called out
at 4:48 a.m. to the J.H.
Brubaker Inc. lumber yard
at Ferdinand and Penn
streets. Firefighters report
that one building was fully
involved when they arrived
on the scene.
The fire was brought
under control by 8 a.m., and
as of 3 p.m. Tuesday, Car­penter
stated that he con­sidered
the fire out.
Destroyed in the massive
blaze were a storage
building, a garage, four
dump trucks and a mill. An
office at the business
received heavy smoke
damage.
Firefighters from Lititz,
Penryn, East Petersburg,
Mastersonville, Mount Joy,
F lo rin , Brunnerville,
Rheems, Landisville and
Salunga arrived to assist the
Manheim fire fig h te rs.
Three ladder trucks were
in full operation at the fire
' Political arteries hard’
says Bucher on retirement
Rothsville well.
Neighbors Concerned
Some 80 people, mostly
neighboring homeowners,
showed up at the Jan. 21
meeting to ask questions and
express their concerns, not
only for potential ground-water
pollution, but also
odors and pests such as flies
that the operation might
cause.
Although the hearing was
to focus on whether Hess
should be allowed to con­tinue
a non-conforming use
of an existing building which
lies closer to the roadway
than the township’s required
150 feet, most questions
focused on the basic con­cerns
of air and water
pollution and pests.
Hess testified that he
planned to renovate the
interior of the structure
which pre-dates the town­ship’s
1976 zoning or­dinances,
by covering the
existing dirt floor with
concrete and a special sealer
to contain the wastes from
the 1,130 hogs he wants to
raise in the building.
In addition, the floor is to
be slated to allow the wastes
to drop below floor level into
a holding area containing
water. When that holding
area reaches a certain level,
it will be released into an;
outdoor holding area which
will, in turn, be pumped
twice yearly and the con­tents
spread on the fields.
Outdoor Pit
The outdoor pit, which
seemed to be the main
source of concern to
neighbors, will be 12 feet
deep with a top dimension of
94 by 54 feet and a bottom
dimension of 70 by 30 feet. It
will be lined with concrete
and will hold 240,000 gallons
of wastes which will be
released to the bottom of the
(Turn to Page 22)
Editor’s note: David
Bucher, vice president of the
Lititz Borough Council, has
made public his intent to
retire from council after his
term expires in December of
this year. The following
message was written by
Bucher to the Lititz com­munity,
explaining his
decision to leave local
government.
It is with a mixture of
regret and anticipation that I
have informed the Warwick
Republican Committee that
I will not seek re-election in
1987 as a third ward coun­cilman
in the borough of
Lititz.
My reasons for declining
another chance to serve the
citizens of Lititz are many.
In the forefront, however, is
my feeling that I have ac­complished
the several goals
I set out to achieve when I
first became a candidate:
among them, making the
sewer plant more efficient
and less costly to taxpayers
and bringing a bit of
“ younger” thinking to
borough government. Now
after a three year period,
which I view alternately as
incredibly brief and unen-dureably
long, I find my own
political arteries becoming a
bit hard and think it best to
make my way for even
fresher thinking.
Being a borough coun­cilman
isn’t difficult.
Anyone with a modicum of
intelligence, common sense
and an ability to consider, at
all times, the possibility that
his or her own strong
scene and firefighters
carrying hoses surrounded
the blaze from all sides.
Chief Carpenter said the
firemen found themselves
out of water soon after they
began fighting the fire, “our
hoses were freezing, and we
just didn’t have enough
water,” he stated. Carpenter
put out a special call to
neighboring communities
for tanker trucks of water
and had a special line laid to
a pond in the area.
Although the lumber yard
was located in a neigh­borhood
section of the
borough, Carpenter said the
only damage to neighboring
homes was a scorched
garage door.
He praised the cooperation
and generosity of the people
in the neighborhood. “Area
residents brought coffee to
the firemen and opened their
homes to us to give us a
chance to thaw out. They
didn’t worry about whether
their living rooms were
getting messed up,” he said.
One firefighter from
Manheim was injured in the
clean-up operation.
Although no firm figure
has been placed on total
damage wrought by the
blaze, Carpenter estimated
that it “could be in the
neighborhood of $400,000.”
Carpenter noted that the
blaze is thought to have
begun in a lumber storage
area behind the mill area.
Fire officials have stated
that the blaze could be
another in a string of early-morning
arsons in the
borough since November.
An investigation into the
cause of the fire continues.
i.'
Says county is being ‘caprwiom
Resident complain«
assessment unfair
David B. Bucher
feelings about an issue may
be wrong, could surely
qualify. Also desirable is a
s tro n g and s e lf le s s
motivation to contribute to
the community, the ability to
work long hours on tedious
problems and the inner
strength to withstand the
heated, and generally
uninformed, criticism that
inevitably arises when
important decisions are
finally made.
I would advise the citizens
of the third ward to look
closely after the political
process so that it produces
for them a candidate, or
unthinkably, a choice of
candidates, who embody
most of the above-mentioned
characteristics. And, I thank
them, and the rest of the
people of Lititz, for the op­portunity
they’ve bestowed
on me. I pledge to continue to
put forth my best effort on
their behalf until the ex­piration
of my term.
by Bonnie Szymanski
Robert H. Hertzler, 232
Front St., recently sent a
letter to Lititz Borough
Council complaining about e
“capricious, arbitrary and
discriminatory” assessment
of his home’s value by a
Lancaster County appraiser.
Hertzler explained that
although his home has had
no additions or major
renovations since he moved
there in 1978, the property
recently was reassesed by
the county, with the result
that its assessed value was
increased by 74 percent in
November of 1986.
Determining that his home
was “pne of five homes in a
row on the south side of the
200 block of Front Street” to
be reassessed, he and his
re a sse ssed neighbors
decided to file an appeal.
After what Hertzler states
was an unsatisfactory ap­peal
session, the appeals
were denied.
According to Hertzler, the
assessor, Irv Stiefel, told
him he came to the neigh­borhood
because of recent
sales of properties.
Hertzler told council that
he talked with county
commissioner James Huber
in December about the
situation and was told by
Huber that no formal county
reassessment program was
taking place.
Hertzler said Huber also
told him that property
assessment would not be
done unless the owner
requested it and that
reassessment initiated by
sale of a property would be
discriminatory.
In his letter, Hertzler told
council, “In a phone con­versation
a month later, he
(Huber) denied ever having
made the above statement.”
Hertzler told council he
was bringing the matter
before them because he
wants area residents to be
“aware that this type of
county action is going on
here.”
“We calculate it (ad­ditional
tax) to be several
hundred dollars,” said
Hertzler.
“We can handle that,” he
added, noting that he thinks
the procedure is unfair
because only a few homes
have been assessed, ap­parently
at random.
(Turn to Page 4)
Champions salute to benefit Stephanie Myers
by Becky Collins
Stephanie Myers, 203
Oxford Drive, may have
never won a 100-yard dash,
but she’s got a big following
in the world of athletics.
Many of the players of
Penn State’s national
championship football team
will be in Lancaster on
March 20 at the Host Inn to
provide a special salute to
Stephanie. The event is
being billed as the “National
Champions Salute to
Stephanie.”
What makes this salute
special is the fact that
Stephanie, an 18-year old
senior at Warwick High
School, “ can’t walk a
quarter of a block,” ac­cording
to her mother, Faith
Stephanie Myers
Myers.
Stephanie Myers is
eagerly awaiting the chance
to take a walk around the
block. To swim. To run. To
take a deep breath. To live a
full, active life.
Her chance will come with
somebody’s choice to be an
organ donor.
The Transplant
Stephanie was bom with a
congenital condition which
affects her heart and lungs.
T e s ts p e rfo rm e d on
Stephanie at 18 months of
age revealed that she had a
narrowed artery leading
from her heart into her
lu n g s . Her p ro b lem
manifests itself in shortness
of breath and extreme
fatigue.
Stephanie experienced a
n o rm a l, if lim ite d ,
childhood, enjoying school
and family vacations. She
nnt.ed for home tutoring last
school year because she felt
that she was not strong
enough physically to attend
school on a regular schedule.
This year, Stephanie will
be in the line of graduates
headed for the podium at
Warwick commencement.
She’s looking forward to
graduation, and to attending
a business school, “probably
Central Penn,” she confides
with a smile, a fte r
graduation.
Stephanie realizes that her
plans for the future hinge on
someone’s choice to be an
organ donor. She knows that
her perfect match will be a
small person with A-positive
blood. She also realizes that
heart-lung transplants are
(Turn to Page 17)