Lititz Record Express

              THURSDAY, November 7 , 1991
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L i t i t z R e c o r d E x p r e s s
I 115TH YEAR Tw o s e c tio n s L IT IT Z , P E N N S Y LV A N IA 28 P a g e s - No. 31 30 c e n ts |
Demos gain Senate seat, but GOP holds here
LORIN BEIDLER____________________
Record Express Staff
In a race that many political pundits con­sider
to be a referendum on the effectiveness
of the Republican White House, the Demo­crats
have struck a smashing blow.
Senator Harris Wofford defeated ex-
Pennsylvania governor and ex-U.S. attorney
general Richard Thornburgh in the contest
for the late John Heinz’ U.S. Senate seat by
taking 56 percent of popular vote Tuesday. It
was the first time that a Democrat has won the
right to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S.
Senate since 1962.
Not surprisingly, Thornburgh took strong-y
Republican Lancaster County by a better
than 2-1 margin, winning 64,977 to 29,340
locally. Thornburgh took Lititz Borough by a
similar margin, 1600 to 727. Warwick and
Elizabeth townships came out even more
strongly for Thornburgh, with vote totals of
2,111-714 in Warwick and 576-165 in
Elizabeth.
Pollwatchers have been hailing this elec­tion
as a bellwether of public opinion toward
Washington, pitting the so-called Washing­ton
insider, Thornburgh, against the upstart
outsider, Wofford. Though Wofford was
recently appointed by Robert Casey to tem­porarily
fill the Heinz seat, and though he had
served in Washington under the Kennedy
administration, he had lately held state gov­ernmental
positions, most recently that of
state labor secretary.
Thornburgh, the once-popular two-term
Pennsylvania governor, on the other hand,
had left his cabinet position in the White
House only several months ago amid charges
of taking a too laissez faire stance on the
BCCI scandal.
Thornburgh, who at one time enjoyed a
lead in the polls that approached 40 percen­tage
points, watched that lead evaporate over
the last few months. In his concession speech
Tuesday night, Thornburgh credited Wof­ford’s
calls for national health care as being
the decisive issue.
□ Lancaster County will have only one
new County Commissioner come January, as
the two incumbents on the ballot, Democrat
Brad Fischer and Republican James Huber,
each gained re-election with vote totals of
32,646 and 57,872 respectively.
The Republicans will maintain their
majority on the commission, however, as
Republican Terry Kauffman garnered the
second highest vote total at 54,568. He will
fill the seat vacated when Bob Brenneman
decided not to seek re-election.
Democrat Ron Ford, who won the Demo­cratic
primary over Fischer this spring, fin­ished
fourth with 28,860 votes.
The Republicans held forth in the county
judicial elections as well, taking all three
court of common pleas seats that were avail­able.
Lawrence Stengel, a Republican who
was endorsed bu both parties, led all candi­dates
with 80,729 votes. Henry S, Kender-dine
Jr. and Paul K. Allison, both straight
Republicans, followed with 58,496 and
55,947 respectively.
Lancaster County support in the race for
two Commonwealth Court judgeships also
went to Republicans, as Robert Byer and
Thomas Morgan won comfortably in the
county.
The only other legitimate race between
two opposing parties on the county level was
for the position of prothonitary in which the
incumbent Republican Clair L. Wolf
defeated Democratic challenger Laurie J.
Thompson.
In the local races, the Republican party had
the ballot all to itself, as no Democratic chal­lengers
entered the fray. While final tallies
were not available as the Record went to
press Wednesday morning for the local elec­tions,
barring any unforeseen, unlikely write-in
upsets, the names on the ballots were voted
through. They were:
Warwick School District Board of School
Directors — Madelyn Buckwalter, William
Flickinger, Wallace Hofferth, David Kam-merer
and Art Sell. All five are incumbents.
Though they faced one challenger in the
Republican primary, there were no Democra­tic
entries this time around.
Elizabeth Township — supervisor, Larry
Wiker; auditor, Jeff Burkholder; constable,
Charles L. Miller Sr.
Lititz Borough Council—first ward, Ruth
Fry McKennon; second ward, G. Kevin Zart-man;
third ward, Dennis Stuckey. McKen-
(Turn to Page 24)
Photo by Jennifer Kopf
THE FOUR-STAR BREAKFAST—The 9-tO-11 shift cooks at the
Lititz Lions Club breakfast take a breather as there’s a break in the
line. More in this week’s Record Express.
PSC returns $4,000 in funding
LORIN BEIDLER_____________
Record Express Staff
At the recent open house for the
borough’s newly operational nitrate
removal facility, PSC Environmental
Services, the company that built the
nitrate plant and manages the bor­ough’s
water, wastewater and nitrate
removal facilities, refunded more
than $4,000 of excess funds to the
borough. The refund was announced
at the Oct. 29 Lititz Borough Council
meeting.
The money was the result of over­budgeting
for recent contracts
between the borough and PSC. The
refund might have been even larger,
one councilman added, had not the
borough decided at the last minute to
have a new well pump head installed
at a cost of nearly $13,000.
Also at the Oct. 29 meeting,
Robert Miller, general manager of
Blue Ridge Cable Company, came
before borough council to beseech
them to renew the TV cable franchise
rights that would allow Blue Ridge to
Local manufacturers
not o p timistic, but
not despondent e ith e r
LORIN BEIDLER
Brunnerville p la n is
dropped; W. Orange St.
project aims for A p ril
JENNIFER KOPF
L ititz Record News Editor
As reported in last week’s Lititz
Record Express, opposition to public
water line extensions in the Brunner­ville
area has been successful.
According to minutes of an Octob­er
Warwick Township Municipal
Authority meeting, “the proposed
water extension as presented August
13, 1991 at the Brunnerville Fire
Hall, for the Brunnerville, Pine Hill
and Deer Run Estates area” was
rejected by a unanimous vote of the
WTMA.
The minutes also state unequivo-cably
that, “The Authority will not
(italics added) pursue this extension
as originally submitted.”
The WTMA’s Bruce Bucher was
quoted last week as saying that “it’s
safe to say that we’re moving ahead
under the premise that (the proposed
Brunnerville project) won’t be
done.”
At Tuesday night’s meeting of the
WTMA Bucher told the authority
members that official notice has been
received that the West Orange Street
water extension project has been
named the top priority for communi­ty
development block grant funding
through the county Housing and
Redevelopment Authority. That
authority’s advisory council has
passed its recommendation on to the
county commissioners for a final
vote at the end of this month.
The WTMA, however, cannot
award bids to start on the project until
the allotted funds are actually avail­able,
in April 1992. “I’m under the
impression that nothing can be
expended until then,” Bucher said
Tuesday.
That delay would put the West
Orange Street sector three to six
months behind the other sections in
the proposed extensions in the south­ern
end of the system.
Bucher noted that credit for the
grant proposal’s success goes not
only to the current board and WTMA
staff, but also to former WTMA
Chairman Lester Andes, who res­igned
from the authority a few
months ago. “It’s a credit to Andes’
effort on behalf of this,” Bucher said,
“for putting much of the documenta­tion
together.”
Record Express Staff
No one needs to be told that the
American economy is in a state of
recession. It’s painfully obvious.
And nowhere is that fact more
clear than in the manufacturing sec­tor.
While Lancaster County’s job­less
rate dropped slightly in recent
months, the county lost 400 manu­facturing
jobs in the same period, it
was announced last week.
Throughout Lititz’ long history,
the town has had its fair share of
manufacturing enterprises. How are
this old town’s manufacturing
businesses weathering this round of
economic hardships?
According to officials at several of
the areas larger manufacturing fimts,
though they haven’t been ravaged,
no one’s lighting up Wall Street’s big
board either.
According to Wilbur Chocolate
President William Shaughnessy, his
company has not had to lay off any of
its 326 employees. That is not to say
his company has not been effected.
The biggest problem Wilbur has
had, Shaughnessy relates, is passing
rising costs on to its customers. As a
result, the chocolate producer has
“had to be more prudent than ever” in
its spending.
Because the company maintains a
wide customer base, with clients rep­resenting
a wide array of food-related
industries, the company has
traditionally been “recession proof.”
If the company continues to have
trouble passing on costs, Shaughnes­sy
hints, that may change.
Federal Mogul finds itself in a
similar situation. Though the com­pany
has for the most part maintained
its work force, the plant will be
forced to close for three days
between now and the end of the year
due to a “softness” in year-end
orders.
When asked whether such a soft-
(Turn to Page 24)
continue to provide cable services in
the borough for another 15 years. The
current franchise permit, which was
issued in 1977, will expire in
February.
According to Miller, under the
current agreement, one percent of the
fees generated by cable service in the
borough is returned to the borough
government in the form of a franch­ise
fee. Under current regulation,
municipalities are entitled to ask a
franchise fee of not more than five
percent.
A two percent fee is the most com­mon
amount, Miller told the council,
and his advise was that the borough
raise its fee to that amount
Under Blue Ridge policy, if the
municipality keeps its franchise fee
at two percent or less, cable subscrip­tion
rates are not increased. If the fee
is higher than two percent, Blue
Ridge raises subscription rates by the
entire fee amount, not just by the
excess above and beyond the accept­able
two percent.
As the current permit does not
expire for another four months,
council decided to take some time to
consider the matter before acting.
In other news:
□ Council opted for inaction on a
request that parking be eliminated on
Walnut Street The request was
lodged after residents of Windsor
Gardens complained about cars turn­ing
around in their parking lots.
Vehicles that turn into Walnut
Street thinking it a through street
are forced to tum around when they
realize it is not. According to the
complaints, the vehicles tum around
in the parking lots because there is
not enough room to tum around on
Walnut Street when cars are parked
along it.
Other area residents who depend
on on-street parking had petitioned
against the request Council mem­bers
who had visited the site agreed
that on-street parking was needed for
an apartment complex in the area as
the complex’s lot is too small.
□ Council agreed to appoint R.
Kurt Bieber, 112 W. Third Ave., to
the borough’s civil service commis­sion.
The seat on the commission,
which does the initial screening of
police officer applicants, was for­merly
held by the late Bill York.
Council also approved a request
from zoning hearing board member
Dr. David Richards that his status on
the board be changed to that of an
(Turn to Pag* 24)
Meridian economist is
optimistic about recovery
JENNIFER KOPF
L ititz Record News Editor
The signs of economic recovery
may be here, a Meridian Bank eco­nomist
told local business leaders
last Friday, “but that doesn’t mean
happy times are here again.”
Dr. Bernard M. Markstein III, vice
president and senior economist at
Meridian, addressed the annual
“state-of-the-business” crowd and
told them that, “we only think the
recession is continuing.” While the
general economic activity has been
falling, it seems in the past couple of
months that “indicators are now
moving upward... the third-quarter
GNP (gross national product, the val­ue
of goods and services produced)
shows an advance.”
That should be enough, he said, to
eventually pull the economy out of
its current transitional stage and
upward.
The local economy is often more
sheltered than the average during
decline, Markstein added, “and not
every sector (of the economy) is out”
of the downward slide. The housing
and auto industries, for example,
started the most recent economic
slide early, “and housing is having a
very slow comeback.”
That is typical of many industry
recoveries, “with very slow expan­sions,
as opposed to most (in the)
post-World War II (era).”
That slow expansion is no help to
(Turn to Page 24)
COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS TREE DONATION FORMS AVAIL­ABLE
— Vickie Hossler, owner of Absolutely Balloony, and Cynthia
Gillard, who did the Christmas tree artwork, display the posters and
donation forms available at Lititz businesses to make possible a
Community Christmas Tree. Donations are now being accepted to
light the tree during hte coming holiday season; proceeds benefit the
American Cancer Society or the Lititz-Warwick Community Chest.
Stop in with your contribution and look for posters and donation
forms at these stores: Absolutely Balloony, Benner’s Pharmacy,
Calkin Country Crafts, Christmas Gallery Inc., Good Ol’ Days Anti­ques,
Hardican Antiques, Jene Studio, Kowerski Gallery, Lititz
Record Express, Little Britches, Long & Bomberger Home Center,
McCormick Travel, McElroy Pharmacy, Teddy Bear Emporium, The
Pewter Mug and Treasures Past ’n Present.
THIS WEEK IN THE RECORD EXPRESS
WHS Band takes third
In season-ending show
The Warwick High School
Marching Band completed its
1991 competition schedule in
grand style, earning a season-high
92.15 points to finish
third in Group III competition
at the third annual Cadets
Marching Band Cooperative
Regional Championships.
Read more on page 19.
Grimm finishes 22nd at
PIAA Championships
Laura Grimm made her sec­ond
trip to Milton Hershey in as
many weeks this past Saturday,
competing in the PIAA Cross-
Country Championships and fin­ishing
in 22nd place with a per­sonal
best time of 19:10. Read
more on page 10.
Warriors and Mounts to play for Male Award
Grosh Field is the place to
be Saturday afternoon when
the Warriors host the Mounts.
You will be a part of history as
the neighboring towns meet
in football for the 62nd time. It
is one of the state’s oldest
continuous rivalries on the
gridiron. Read more on page
8.
THE INDEX
Business 20
Church 16
Classified 24-27
Editorial 4
Lunch Menu 6
Manhelm 22
Obituaries 2
Out of the Past 4
School News 6
Social 14-15
Sports 8-11
WEATHER: Thursday, mostly
cloudy. Partly cloudy and cold
from Friday through Sunday.
Highs in low 40s.
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