Lititz Record Express

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THURSDAY, March 5, 1992
F m :r r ,r? ..ÆT€rii¥Hcm ” rrT'^~:?r>Ti..s r Lititz Record Express
I 115TH YEAR LITITZ, PENNSYLVANIA 28 Pages- No. 46 30 cents
Warwick Twp. weighs new ag zoning options
T o w n s h i p l e a d e r s ‘r e n e w c o m m i t m e n t ’ t o a g r i c u l t u r e w i t h p r o p o s e d r e z o n i n g p l a n
ILORIN BEIDLER
Record Express Staff
Like many municipalities in southeastern
Pennsylvania, Warwick Township is finding
'that the path to controlling growth is often a
difficult one.
In the late 1980s, with growth in Lancaster
County going full speed, Warwick Township
suddenly found itself deluged with plans for
subdivisions within its borders.
It appeared that Warwick Township had
started down the same slippery slope taken by
its southerly neighbor, Manheim Township.
As housing developments sprang up, farm­land,
once the township’s greatest resource,
disappeared underneath them. Roads became
more crowded. Water and sewer systems
became more inadequate.
Township residents began to call for con­trol
of the rampant growth, both in Warwick
Township and in the county at large. Unfortu­nately,
township officials found themselves
armed with only a comprehensive plan dating
back more than 15 years and a toothless zon­ing
ordinance.
In the spring of 1989, work was begun on a
new comprehensive plan. It was hoped that,
in conjunction with a new zoning ordinance,
it would give the township the ability to man­age
growth responsibly. The trick of such an
undertaking was, and is, finding a way to
allow agriculture to thrive while still making
room for some residential growth.
The township’s comprehensive plan prop­osal,
prepared by Gehiinger-Roth Associates
of Lancaster, was released to mixed reviews
last April. According to Township Manager
Robert Smith, many township residents
looked at the comprehensive plan as if it were
a zoning map, which it was never meant to be.
Areas that were marked as being desirable for
conservation, for instance, drew fiery
responses from landowners who had other
Crime stats
on the rise
in borough
ideas for their lands which fell within those
regions.
According to Smith, a comprehensive plan
has little legal muscle. It is meant more as an
expression of the township’s goals and philo­sophies.
The accompanying zoning ordi­nance
is what would give the proposition its
teeth. Zoning would give the township the
power to say where and how development
can take place, as outlined in the comprehen­sive
plan.
With the less than favorable response that
greeted the comprehensive plan, Warwick
Township officials decided to put the plan
“on the back burner,” Smith says, and con­centrate
on putting a new zoning ordinance
on the books.
Perhaps the most controversial change that
the proposed zoning ordinance would man­date,
is the addition of more than 4,000 acres
of land to the township’s agricultural zoning.
Most of the land in question is currently agri­cultural
in nature but is zoned rural.
The biggest difference between rural and
agricultural zoning districts is that in rural
zoning, only one acre of land must accom­pany
every residence. In agricultural zones,
20 acres of land must accompany every new
residence except in the case of homes built
(Turn to Page 17)
LORIN BEIDLER
Record Express Staff
r After experiencing a dramatic
drop in many categories of criminal
activity in Lititz Borough in 1990,
1991 proved to be one of the worst
years in recent memory as far as
crime is concerned.
In a year that saw the Lititz Police
; Department operate at least one
officer short for the entire year, Lititz
Borough suffered more assaults,
criminal mischief, burglaries, disor­derly
conducts, driving under the
influence offenses, thefts and motor
’ vehicle thefts than it had in any of the
last four years, according to annual
reports released by the department
this week.
While Police Chief Jim Fritz says
it’s impossible to tell whether there’s
a correlation between the smaller
police force and the increases in cer­tain
crimes, he hopes that several
crime statistics will drop again when
his force is back at full strength.
Criminal mischief and disorderly
conduct, for instance, reached three-year
lows in 1990 when the police
department included 11 officers. In
1991, when staffing dropped — the
borough had nine officers through
October and eight from October on
— criminal mischief rose 176 per­cent,
from 39 cases in 1990 to 108 in
1991, and disorderly conduct shot up
388 percent, from 8 cases in 1990 to
39 in 1991.
There seems to be an increase in
retaliatory crime, Fritz believes, such
as acts of vandalism against personal
property, that stem from personal
grievances. Such acts contribute
greatly to the criminal mischief sta­tistics,
he says.
Fritz believes that the depart­ment’s
new bicycle patrol will help
alleviate some of the criminal mis­chief.
If potential perpetrators know
that officers are stalking silently
around the borough, he says, they
may be more likely to think twice
before breaking the law.
, Burglaries and thefts are two more
crimes that shot up in 1991. After
lows in both categories in 1990, total
burglaries rose from 22 in 1990 to 31
in 1991, or 41 percent, arid thefts
jumped from 95 to 147, or 55
percent.
One statistic that proved particu­larly
alarming to Fritz, was the num­ber
of assaults that occurred in the
borough in 1991. After a previous
high of 12 in any one year (1990), the
number of assaults jumped to 27 in
1991, am increase of 125 percent
over the previous high.
Fritz was at a loss to explain the
increase, adding that police staffing
would not likely be reflected in the
number of assaults. There is, he
added, a growirig tendancy in society
, -r (Turn to Page 17)
Photp by Jennifer Kopf
HAVE YOU HAD YOUR FASNACHTTODAY? — Kathryn Deiter
smiles across a sea of fasnachts prepared by Kissel View Farm Bak­ery,
West Millport Road. While there were some fasnachts in the
works last Friday, the main batches— both with holes and without—
were whipped up early this week in preparation for Fasnacht Day on
Tuesday.______________________ ___________,
W h a t t o d o f o r t h e lib r a r y ?
School hoard themostrecen£statistics’buttomake rem2,275squarefeetisweftshorto
and lib ra ry
begin ta lk s
JENNIFER KOPF
Lititz Record News Editor
Circulation is up, the population in
its service area is up, and the need for
addition space is ever on the rise.
It’s time, Lititz Public Library
Board President Patty Koenig said
Tuesday, to really start looking at the
facility’s options for growth. Koenig
went before the Warwick School
Board not only to fill members in on
the most recent statistics, but to make
a concrete request for some practical
help.
Along with Mike Hammond, who
is also involved with the library,
Koenig asked the board if there is any
land under district control that would
be suitable as a library site. She also
requested that the district consider
contributing its “fair share” to library
expenses, an amount equivalent to
$1.50 per pupil in the district.
The hard work of investigating the
library’s options for dealing with
cramped space can be postponed no
longer, Koenig said. “As I’ve said
before, we’re hanging people from
the chandeliers.” Space is of prime
cur­rent
2,275 square feet is well.short of
the 15,750 square feet suggested by
Pennsylvania for a library with
Lititz’ service area.
There are, according to Koenig’s
report of the 1990 census, 23,593
potential customers for the Lititz
Public Library within its service
area: Lititz Borough, and Warwick
and Elizabeth townships. While
short-term solutions to the library’s
space problems have been debated,
they would not provide much more
than a stop-gap measure. Within 20
years, the population served by the
local library is projected to increase
by 36 percent.
And that, library representatives
Boara omy rm manners importance; the library, with its cur- (T(uTrunr nto t oP aPgaeg e2 02)0) New school option make*
its debut a t boro meeting
W r i g l e y t r a c t s k e t c h p r e s e n t e d
■ n n m n r i m r n an ft Wridlp.v n o lnnop.r c o n s id e rs th e site d e sira b le
Contributions
set for local
organizations
LORIN BEIDLER _________________________
Record Express Staff
The Lititz Borough Planning Commission got a first­hand
look at the Warwick School District’s latest choice
of sites for a new elementary school at its monthly meet­ing
Tuesday night
Warwick Superintendent Dr. John Bonfield presented
a sketch plan for a new 23-acre school complex that
would be located on the Wrigley tract a 70-acre parcel of
land located at the intersection of Oak and New streets
just east of Balmer Road.
The plot was purchased many years ago by the Wri­gley
Corporation which at one time considered building a
plant in Lititz. Those plans obviously never materialized
and Wrigley no longer considers the site desirable for
industrial uses, Bonfield says. Wrigley is now looking for
ways to recoup its investment.
Wrigley would sell 23 acres to the school district at
$20,500 per acre. The remaining acreage would be subdi­vided,
creating 70 new single-dwelling home sites, to be
developed by Wrigley’s own real estate firm.
Ideally, Oak Street could one day be extended north to
Newport Road to provide another access to the site. Sev­eral
athletic fields would also accompany the school.
As the plot is zoned industrial, the school district
would first have to have the land rezoned as schools are
not permitted in industrially zoned regions. The school
district would request a change to residential zoning that
would allow both a school and the proposed housing.
(Turn to Page 20) Make way for Lititz’ new ‘Baby Bucs’
JENNIFER * ° PF _________ - « f t
LORIN BEIDLER
Record Express Staff
Elizabeth Township supervisors
set their annual contributions to area
organizations at their monthly meet­ing
Monday night.
Contributions to the various area
fire companies will remain at the
same levels as last year. The Bricker-ville
Fire Company will receive
$8,000, while the Brunnerville and
Penryn companies will each get
$800. The Ephrata Rescue will
receive $100.
The township’s contribution to the
Lititz Community Center will also
remain the same as last year, at
$1,300. The township will double its
contribution to the Lititz Public
Library, however, chipping in
$2,000 this year. The supervisors
also intend to contribute to the local
Boy Scout troop each time troop
members help the township with its
monthly recycling drive.
Also on Monday night, the super­visors
announced that the township
(Turn to Page 28)
Lititz Record News Editor
To the roll of Lititz-area service
clubs, a new member can now be
added: AM AMBUCS, from the
same organization that includes the
Lititz Chapter of the American Busi­ness
Club. This second AMBUCS
chapter meets two Thursday morn­ings
a month (hence, the “AM”), and
has spent the past couple of months
gearing up for its official chartering.
Lest people think that the break­fast
meetings are simply a chance to
get that extra tiup of coffee and slow­ly
awake for the day, think again. The
initial group coalesced into a slate of
officers and enthusiastic members by
the time they! Jield their chartering
ceremony in late February, and they
represent a host of “firsts” for
AMBUCS. Local dignitaries and
Lititz AMBUCS members turned out
to witness the chartering of Lititz’
second American Business Club: the
evening AMBUCS has been going
for some time and was chartered in
1954.
Bill Flickinger, who along with
Lititz AMBUCS President Jack
Hartz received special recognition
Photo by Jennifer Kopf
William Flickinger (far right) administers the oath of office to AM
AMBUCS President Sandra Dougherty.
for work as Lititz AMBUCS in help­ing
the new chapter to form, spoke at
the Feb. 19 ceremony. The new chap­ter,
Flickinger said, breaks ground
for AMBUCS not only in Lititz but at
a larger level.
AM AMBUCS President Sandra
Dougherty, he noted, is the first
female AMBUCS president in Dis­trict
7-B. The new chapter is the first
new club in the region since May
1989; it’s the first AM AMBUCS in
the district; it’s the first morning ser­vice
club in Lititz; and, in the Tshudy
family, it has the first AMBUCS hus­band,
wife, son and daughter-in-law
team of members.
There are high hopes, he said in
welcoming the new members, for
this new chapter to continue the
American Business Club tradition of
a “collective effort of community-men
and women working together to
better their community.”
AM AMBUCS President Dough­erty
agreed, saying that “there’s just
no reason why this (chapter’s) suc­cess
is not guaranteed, considering
the members and their enthusiasm.”
Indeed, in the few months between
the first meeting of interested com­munity
members and the chartering
of AM AMBUCS, membership took
a great swing upward. And district
and national-level officers turned out
in Lititz to congratulate and encour­age
the charter members.
So, while the swearing in of offic­ers
and members was a solemn occa­sion
for the new chapter, the tone of
the dinner meeting soon turned to a
celebration. Amidst laughter and
(Turn to Page 20)
THIS WEEK IN THE RECORD EXPRESS
New... In This
W e e k ’s Issue
“Serving You Is Our Busi­ness”
is a new weekly feature
found on page 23. You’ll find
an as so rtme nt of area
businesses who are eager to
let y ou know about the servi ce
they can give. Check it out...
and watch for it each week.
Klessinger, Lefever
earn Sectional titles
John “Wig” Klessinger and
Shawn Lefever both won their
first Sectional titles and the War­wick
wrestlers finished fourth as
a team at last weekend’s Sec­tional
Tourney. A total of six
Warwick grapplers qualified for
the District Tournament this
weekend. Read more on page
10.
WHS students p la c e
at FFA competition
Jason Enterline and Will
Messersmith, both students
at Warwick High School,
placed fourth as a team at the
recent Lancaster County FFA
Small Gas Engines Contest.
Enterline also won an indivi­dual
award and will advance
to state competition this sum­mer.
See photo on page 6.
Season ends for girls BB
The tournament trail came to
an end for the Warwick girls
basketball team last Saturday as
they lost to Boyertown 65-48,
the number two seeded club in
District Three. Earlier in the
week, the girls advanced by
defeating Dallastown 54-42.
Read more on page 8.
THE INDEX
Business 18
Church 16
Classified 24-27
Editorial 4
Lunch Menu 6
Obituaries 2
Out of the Past 4
School News 6
Social 14-15
Sports 8-11
WEATHER: Mild Thursday
through Saturday. Partly cloudy
Thursday. Chance of rain Friday -
and Saturday.
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