Lititz Record Express

              ■íY, February 1, 1996
Lititz Record Express
119TH YEAR 24 Pages- No. 42 LITITZ, PENNSYLVANIA 30 cents
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Luther Acres site likely
for new Lititz Library
J o i n t v e n t u r e t a r g e t s l o c a t i o n a t M a i n -O a k s t r e e t s
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to feature Warwick
Warwick High School stud­ents
wiil be producing a week­ly
television show on Blue
Ridge Cable Television begin­ning
next Monday. For this
and more School News, see
page 6.
Amelia Bedelia a hit
Kids of all ages are enjoying
First Stage Theatre’s latest
offering, “The Continuing
Adventures of Amelia Bedel­ia,”
and for good reasons. For
a review of the show, see
Entertainment on page 12.
Flooding discussed
at borough meeting
Rising concerns about
flooding in Manheim were
presented at Tuesday’s coun­cil
meeting. For this and more
Manheim news, see page 20.
Scouts fops at derby
Several local Cub Scou
and Boy Scouts earned
awards at the first annual
Polar Bear Derby at Camp
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by the Warwick wrestling
team last Friday at the
Lancaster-Lebanon League
Championships could be set­ting
the stage for what looks
to be an exciting showdown
with Ephrata for the section
title this weekend,
details see page 8.
For more
Business........... . ......18-19
Church...................... ............16
Classified.................. ......21-23
Editorial / Letters.... ..............4
Entertainment.......... ........... 12
Manheim News........ ............20
Obituaries................. .......... 2-3
Out of the Past........ ........... 17
Police Log..............................19
School News....... .... .....6-7
Social................ .... 14-15
Sports........................ ........8-11
Monday, Feb. 5, 8 p.m. —
Manheim Borough Zoning
Hearing Board, 15 E. High St.
Monday, Feb. 5, 7:30 p.m,
— Penn Township Planning
Comm., 97 N. Penryn Road.
Tuesday, Feb. 6, 7:30 p.m.
— Lititz Borough Planning
Commission, 7 S. Broad St.
Tuesday, Feb. 6, 7 p.m. —
Warwick School Board, com-mittee-
of-the-whole, adminis­tration
building.
Wednesday, Feb. 7, 7:30
p.m. — Warwick Township
Supervisors, 315 Clay Road.
Wednesday, Feb. 7, 7 p.m.
Elizabeth Twp. Planning
Comm., 423 S. View Drive.
RICHARD REITZ
AND STEPHEN SEEBER
Record Express Staff
The Lititz Public Library may
have finally found a new location to
one day call home.
An agreement was reached Mon­day
between the library board and
Lutheran Sodal Services, which
operates Luther Acres Retirement
Community, to pursue construction
of a new library on a site located at
the comer of Main and Oak streets on
the southeastern end of the borough.
Dennis Bruce, president ofLuthe-ran
Social Services, East Region,
which is headquartered at the Luther
. Acres, said their board of directors is
extremely interested in this venture.
“Our board voted to move forward
with the library’s request to set up a
joint task force between our and their
members, to seek common ground
and reach a mutually satisfying pro­ject
— a new community library,”
Bruce said.
Although the agreement is only a
promise to explore the possibility,
with issues such as purchase of the
land, water and zoning still to be eva­luated,
Brace said they are suppor­tive
and excited about the project.
“If those (technical aspects) are
worked out—if we can resolve all of
those issues — a sale would be real­ized,”
Bruce said. “We are going into
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Photo by Richard Reitz
Donna Hammond and Dennis Bruce survey the site targeted for a new Lititz Public Library, located at the
intersection of Main and Oak streets in the southeast section of the borough.
this in good faith, that it will work
out.”
This comes as good news to the
Lititz Library Board, which for the
past three years has been searching
for a site to replace their current 302
S. Broad St. facility, which has long
been too small for their needs.
Full realization of a new facility is
still a long way off, but after repeated
returns to the drawing board, it
appears they finally have an estab­lished
site to place their focus for
planning.
The board had considered a varie­ty
of options, from constructing a
new facility on an empty lot, to mov­ing
into an established building. A
study was also done to determine the
feasibility of a joint library venture
with the Warwick School District,
although last spring it was deemed
impractical.
Last fall, a plan to construct a new
library on the high school campus
was also rejected.
“We’re hoping, if everything goes
well, to go to the zoning hearing
board on March 18” with a plan, said
Lititz Librarian Donna Hammond.
If approval is reached, the new
library would cover 10,000-15,000
square feet on .7 acres near Luther
Acres. The land is zoned for multi­family
use.
Bruce said that land would meet
the building needs for the library, but
for their parking, additional land
owned by Luther Acres would be
leased for that use.
Mrs. Hammond said state code
requires availability of at least 50
parking spaces.
In a borough where parking is an
endangered species, the Lititz Zon­ing
Hearing Board usually follows
the ordinance to the letter. And since
the current ordinance states no spe­cific
applications for libraries, a use
varience will be needed before con­struction
can begin.
Bruce was impressed with a sketch
drawing the library board presented
as a general idea of what a new facili­ty
would look like on the site, located
across the street from the former
Fry’s Pontiac building.
(See Library, Page 24)
Lancaster GOP says Gibble
is the man for 16th D istrict
Stephen Gibble
STEPHEN SEEBER
AND RICHARD REITZ
Record Express Staff
For Stephen R. Gibble the picture
is crystal-clear, the public wants a
private sector representative, not a
career politician.
Any talk about lacking support for
Gibble as he sets his sights on the
16th Congressional seat was silenced
Monday night, at least temporarily,
as he secured a Lancaster County
GOP endorsement in a relatively
short period of time — just under
four hours and three ballots to be
exact,
“I was surprised at the extent of
strength on the first ballot,” Gibble
said. “You could actually hear peo­ple
inhale on the floor from shock.”
Gibble received 130 of the 214 tot­al
votes in the first ballot— well over
50 percent but 15 votes less than the
two-thirds needed to earn the
endorsement
He scored better on the second bal­lot
but fell one shy with 144 votes, or
66.4 percent.
Dean Hoffer, chairman of the
Warwick Area Republican Commit­tee
and Gibble supporter, said he had
never seen an endorsement vote
come that close.
But the third time was the charm,
as 159 ballots were cast, or 73.3 per­cent
and Gibble was officially
endorsed.
Hoffer said if a clear winner had
not been named after the third ballot
all candidates with less than 20 per­cent
of the vote would have been
dropped from consideration and
another ballot would have been
taken.
Gibble said calls of support
flooded his Lititz law office
Tuesday.
“The papers for the last two weeks
were basically writing my obituary,”
he said, “but I kept pounding and
(See Gibble, Page 24)
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Team effort pulls b
STEPHEN SEEBER
Record Express Staff
Lititz officials agree that the
approach to “Blizzard ‘96” could
have run more smoothly.
They also agree that there is no
need to change the current method of
dealing with winter storms — a sys­tem
that, up until this 40-inch bom­bardment,
has been very effective.
Equipment breakdowns, in part
caused by buried Christmas trees
along borough streets, and unavail-
Cutting co sts a top goal
for local m u n icip a lities
RICHARD REITZ
Record Express Editor
Municipalities within the War­wick
School District region want to
find ways to save taxpayers money.
True, this sentiment is standard
among most elected officials. But
Lititz Borough, Warwick Township,
Elizabeth Township, and the school
district want to explore this goal to its
fullest, and are willing to establish an
ad hoc committee to do it
At the annual intermunicipal
meeting at the Warwick Township
municipal building on Monday, the
group of elected officials and other
representatives listened to presenta­tions
on programs that affect them
all, and tossed around issues that
could be better resolved through a
regional approach.
Discussion included the ad hoc
committee, which was established
last year, but members felt a lack of
direction and full participation
among the municipalities, it was not
as successful as it could have been.
Warren Newberry, a member of
the school board and a participant on
last year’s ad hoc committee, sug­gested
that they come up with a spe­cific
topic to consider.
While traffic was presented as a
problem felt throughout the region,
some felt those problems could not
be solved through the ad hoc
committee.
“I think it would be more produc­tive
to sit down and talk about ways
to save constituents’ money,” said
Warwick Township supervisor
Bruce Bucher.
He said if they can explore ways
the municipalities could pool their
resourses, such as with insurance, or
when purchasing equipment, the
(See Committee, Page 24)
able rentals from area contractors
made a difficult situation more diffi­cult,
according to Public Works
Superintendent Nevin Koch.
“Could we have done better?
Yes,” said Lititz Mayor Russell Pet­tyjohn
during a Tuesday night bliz­zard
assessment for Borough
Council.
“We learned a lot from this storm,”
he said, adding that the first lesson
was that 40 inches is a lot of snow.
Council took some time during
their regular monthly meeting to dis­cuss
snow emergency options and
exchange ideas, some of which
included bagging meters prior to
storms, establishing emergency off-street
parking areas, comparing
equipment rental prices on an annual
basis, raising taxes, and closing
down streets to daytime traffic.
Borough Council President Den­nis
Stuckey said he talked with
Ephrata officials to compare notes on
closing streets to remove snow.
“Things got testy there,” he said in
regards public reaction to Ephrata’s
decision to shut down traffic during
daytime hours.
Lititz closed East Main Street on
three evenings to haul out snow, find­ing
that situation to work better with
local residents.
Lititz Police Chief Douglas
Shertzer said restricting parking on
(See Blizzard, Page 26)
Photo by Stephen Seeber
Mike Weaver tightens a new seal on the six-inch water main that
broke last Thursday beneath Lititz Square. The borough experienced
two water breaks last week.
Two m a in s b r e a k
STEPHEN SEEBER
Record Express Staff
It’s been a busy 1996 thus far for
the Lititz Public Works Crew, and
there’s only 11 more months to go.
Last week, just as the borough
began to break the chains of the
“Blizzard of the Century,” two of the
borough’s understreet water mains
ruptured.
The shear break on Second
Avenue, at Moravian Manor, kept
the crew busy on Wednesday and
Thursday. And a second, less seri­ous,
six-inch break atLititz’s Square
last set their agenda for Friday.
Public Works Superintentent
Nevin Koch said he could not pin­point
the cause or amount of water
lost, but did say water leak frequency
is traditionally higher during the
winter.
“It’s a problem all municipalities
face,” he said, adding that it could be
caused by ground movement from
subterranian frost.
The Second Avenue break was
discovered after Lititz Police Chief
Douglas Shertzer reported a sink
hole at the location.
Koch’s crew arrived at the scene
Wednesday to learn that the fire
hydrant connection between the
street and Moravian Manor was the
source. The main’s valve was shut
off Thursday during repairs and new
concrete brought the sink hole back
to street level on Friday.
“We could have been losing
150,000 gallons per day,” said Koch.
And although the exact cause of the
sink hole could not be determined, he
said it is possible that the sink hole
caused the break, which in turn
aggravated the sink hole.
Regardless, the two mains in ques­tion
are back in normal operation fol­lowing
a full week’s work on the part
of the borough crew.
“1 just hope people remember that
while they’re nice and cozy inside,
we’re out in the cold messin’ with
water,” said crew member Mike
Weaver.