Lititz Record Express

              THURSDAY\ APRIL 8, 1999
L ititz Record Express ^ a r d - W in n i j j
P u b l i c a t i o n
122ND YEAR Pages - No. 52 LITITZ, PENNSYLVANIA 30 Cents
□ INSIDE
Spring park clean-up
The annual Lititz Springs
Park clean-up day is sche­duled
for this Saturday, April
10. Members of the community
are urged to bring the family on
this morning to help make the
park beautiful for the upcoming
season. The Lititz Jaycees will
offer free donuts and coffee for
breakfast and free hot dogs for
.lunch to anyone who attends.
□School
Lititz El Survey
The results are in from the
survey conducted by the
Warwick School District con­cerning
the future of the Lititz
Elementary School building,
and were presented to the
School board at their Tuesday
meeting. Also at the meeting,
parents concerned about
walking distances expressed
their feelings to the board. For
the full details, see Page 6.
□ Back Page
Fasting for Freedom
Warwick High School
graduate Karen McCready
wanted to do something for
the refugees fleeing Kosovo,
and has started a project that
she hopes will raise money
and awareness for their plight.
Page 26.
Book and Bake Sale
The Lititz Woman's Club’s
annual Book and Bake Sale
returns to the Lititz Community
Center this Saturday, and fea­tures
local teacher and author
Betty Narkiewicz. Page 26.
□ Entertainment
‘R e a l l y R o s i e ’
First Stage Theatre in Lititz
will present the return of the
popular family musical “Really
Rosie,” which premieres this
weekend. Page 12.
□ Editorial
: For the Record
Daniel Groff was well-known
to many people in this
area, and since he took his
life during a standoff on his
property last week, people
have continued to debate the
events that lead to his death.
Editor Richard Reitz takes a
closer look at the situa+inn ™
Page 4.
□ Social
Downtown L il'f
Illustrator Dan Barthold is
now offering a limited s'gned
set of drawings featuring both
sides of Main Street in Lititz
The sale of the prints benefits
the Lititz Public Library oook
endowment fund. Page 14
□ Out of the Past
A frightening thought
Fifty years ago this week, a
speaker came to Lititz and
suggested that American
democracy efforts in Germany
were failing, and that Adolf
Hitler was still alive and in hid­ing.
Pages 13,17.
□ Sports
Warrior victories
The Warwick High School
asebail and soccer teams
jened their section play with
dories. Read all about local
>orts on Pages 8-11.
□ I n d e x
Births......................... ...........14
Business................. . ..... 16-17
Church...................... ......20-21
Classified.................. ..... 21-25
Editorial / Letters.... ............. 4
Entertainment.......... ...........12
Government............. ...........18
Manheim News........ ...........19
Obituaries................ ..........2-3
Out of the Past........ .... 13, 17
Police Log.......... ...........21
School News........... .......... 6-7
Social............. .......... .... 14-15
Sports....................... ........ 8-11
Groffs
cleanup
resumes
“I f it wouldn’t have been for the
litigation, I could have finished the
work long ago. ”
—Daniel Groff
1651 Furnace Hills Pike
in December concerning the town­ship
’s effort to clean up his property
“This has gone onfar too long and
it’s time to move on. ”
—Larry Wiker
former supervisor chair
in December on Groff’s persistence
STEPHEN S EEB ER ________
Record Express Staff
ELIZABETH TWP. — There
are two very different views to the
three-decade battle over landuse
along Furnace Hills Pike.
Last week’s tragic end to the saga,
when Groff committed suicide after a
three-hour armed stand-off with
police, has hazed the underlying cur­rents
of the Groff-township relation­ship,
currents that quickly turned to
rapids.
When Groff filed his $18 million
lawsuit against the government last
year, he smiled conceitedly as he per­sonally
handed out the papers to
township officials.
Zoning’s elusive junkman seemed
to find enjoyment in creating dis­comfort
for those who would dare
tell him what he could or could not do
on his property.
In a September 1998 interview at
his Furnace Hills Pike home, he told
the Record Express that he did not
expect any of his lawsuits to be suc­cessful.
He had convinced himself
that his battle with various supervisor
administrations was personal, and
that his ongoing legal maneuvers and
strategics weren’t designed to be suc­cessful.
They were intended to be
atjioyLig.
Cleanup work at Groff s property
quietly resumed this Monday, just
one week after the self-proclaimed
alchemist was martyred in the
defense of his livelihood.
In the wake of the tragedy, the con­tractor
hired by Elizabeth Township
to clear junk off Groffs property has
(See Groff, Page 26)
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Photo by Richard Reitz
Victor Capecce puts some finishing touches on a gorilla backdrop, one of many set designs he created for
the upcoming show “Hollywood Live!” at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster. The sets for the show
were created in his Lititz studio.
‘Hollywood’ is set, thanks
to Lititz production crew
RICHARD REITZ
Record Express Editor
LITITZ — Classic Hollywood will come to life this
weekend at the American Music Theatre in a musical
revue that features a dazzling set created here in Lititz.
Victor Capecce, producing director for the American
Music Theatre in Lancaster, constructs the massive back­drops
and stage props in a portion of the warehouse
behind Bomberger’s store at 555 Furnace Hills Pike.
Capecce has been creating their sets since it first
opened in April 1997. Since the first “Holiday Treasures”
show later that year, he has been working on the sets in
Lititz.
He and his crew have just completed the set for one of
the young theater’s most ambitious productions yet
“Hollywood Live’” opens this Friday and will run
through June 30, and features a cast of 2.1 singers and
Map museum may close
STEPHEN SEEBER
dancers, 11 musicians and numerous recreations of
memorable scenes, past and present, from some of Holly­wood’s
greatest movies.
Capecce is hestitant to reveal all of the spectacular
pieces that will be featured in this show. “There will be a
couple of major surprises,” he promised.
But he said some of the more impressive features were
a mechanical trolley that will hold nine passengers, a
“stage within a stage,” and a special floor for the “Singin’
in the Rain” scene that will allow for it to actually rain on
the stage, and pump the water away.
Even the logo that the theater is using to promote the
show is a rendition of one of the large backdrops for the
show.
By last Friday, most of the sets had been taken to the
stage, though a few pieces, such as a 24-fool by 72-foot
painting of a gorilla, were receiving a few more details.
(See “HollywooNil Live!”, Page 12)
Boro hall
project to
start soon
STEPHEN SEEBER__________
Record Express Staff
LITITZ — Demolition work at 9
S. Broad St., making way for a new
state-of-the-art borough hall and
police station, could begin by the end
of this month.
Borough council awarded $1.47
million in contracts last week, bring­ing
the adjusted cost estimate of
expanding the local government
under budget.
In January, the Record Express
reported that Hammel Architects of
Lancaster, hired by the borough to
design the project, miscalculated its
cost figures by about $300,000.
Apparently the additional expense of
police-standard building materials
like bulletproof glass were not fac­tored
into the initial judgement. A
compromised valuation was made at
$1,504,716 and now the project
appears back on track.
Council received a total of 18 bids
to do the work, which will be the first
major upgrade to borough hall since
1978-79. The contracts were
awarded to the following four firms:
Caldwell, Heckles and Egan Inc.
of Lancaster will provide general
contracting duties for $992,800.
•R.S. Reidenbaugh Corp., located
at 130 Rodney Lane in Lititz, will do
the electrical work for $144,800.
Greg’s Mechanical of Reading
will receive $95,704 for installing
the plumbing at the new facility.
•Houser Construction of Lebanon
will be paid $245,500 for overseeing
the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning
work that will need to
be done.
Borough manager Sue Barry said
this week that work will begin with
the razing of the building next to the
(See Boro Hall, Page 18)
Record Express Staff
LITITZ — Between now and this
fall, the future of the Heritage Map
Museum will remain unclear.
Last week, the Record Express
reported that Paul Brown of Man-heim
was in the process of purchas­ing
the large industrial building at 55
N. Water St., current home of Jim
Hess’ collection of centuries old
maps, from Clair Brothers Audio
Entertainment.
Brown received evidential
approval from the borough’s zoning
board, its engineer, planning com­mission
chairman and the borough
council for the creation of a Lititz
version of the Artworks at Doneck-ers.
He plans to renovate the interior
of the building for a series of retail
boutiques, a small cafe and a walking
garden.
Brown has gotten all the local gov­ernment
approval that he needs to
proceed and once he finances the cost
of this major project it could be in
place by this autumn, becoming the
biggest tourist attraction addition to
the borough in some time.
“We’re going to bring in more
buses than Lititz has ever seen,”
Brown told council last week as he
explained a walking tour of the bor­ough
that would incorporate Sturgis
Pretzel House, 55 N. Water St. and
the Wilbur Chocolate Factoty.
Amid all the excitement, everyone
seemed to forget about the map
museum, a five-year tenant of the
building and a strong member of the
business and historical community,
as well as an educational asset.
In a statement released Tuesday,
Hess had this to say about the
museum’s future in Lititz:
“Very simply, Mr. Brown has not
presented me with any rational busi­ness
occupancy plan; so, the museum
would be forced to close.
May, 1999 will represent the
museum’s five-year anniversary. I
am very grateful for the overwhelm­ing
response we’ve received from
individuals from all over the world.
Additionally, thousands of school
children showed us their natural
enjoyment of histoiy and art as dis-
(See Map Museum, Page 26) Experts, go-cart neighbors
sound off in track debate
RICHARD REITZ
Record Express Editor
WARWICK TWP. — Last
month, a sound engineer used mathe­matical
extrapolation and one go-cart
to explain how 20 on a proposed
track would not significantly impact
a nearby neighborhood.
But at a March 31 hearing, another
sound expert hired by opponents of
Samuel High’s proposed track at
High Sports Inc. north of Lititz, used
an actual sound simulation to demon­strate
how the impact may be more
audible by those neighbors.
That evening supervisors also
heard stories from two men who live
near go-cart tracks, and whose daily
lives are impacted by the constant
hum of the carts — including one
who said he received a lower tax
assessment on his property as a
result.
Attendance at this meeting
dropped compared to the previous
two, with about 150 in attendance —
but once again, populated mostly
with opponents to the track.
To assess the validity of the fig-
John High demonstrates one of
the go-carts before a large crowd
at the March hearing.
ures proposed at last month’s hearing
by High’s sound engineer Rick Hed-den,
Warwick Township requested
sound engineer P. Diane Mountain of
Annapolis, Md. review his results.
“I have no issues or discrepancies
with the methodology or guidelines
used,” Mountain said of Hedden’s
report, which used the sound of one
go-cart at the site and mathmatieally
expanded the figures to mimic 20
cars. “I think the measurement with
the actual cart is an appropriate
assessment and the extrapolation of
up to 20 carts is valid.”
She did suggest that using Penn-
DOT’s noise regulations is not an
accurate way to gauge the noise that
will be produced by the go-carts.
“Highway noise doesn’t have much
to do with the impact that this will
have on local residents.”
She suggested that High submit to
frequent decibel testing, which he
has already agreed to.
Mountain also said a fence with no
cracks or gaps, and at least five cen­timeters
thick, could create a 15
decibel reduction. The closer the
fence is to the track, the more effec­tive
it is, she said.
During cross-examination, Moun­tain
acknowledged that there can be a
difference in sounds at the same
decibel level. Eighty decibels of
fingernails scratching is not the same
as 80 decibels of Mozart.
“It’s more than just the decibel
level, it’s also the frequency of the
sound,” she said. A sound that is con­centrated
in one frequency tends to
(See Go-Cart, Page 18)
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Photo by Richard Reitz
On Tuesday, Marion Bowman celebrated her 106th birthday at
United Zion Home, with Dorothy Burcaw and other friends and well-wishers
from Lititz Moravian Church.
Lifelong Lititz resident
marks a century plus 6
WARWICK TWP. — Marion
C. Bowman, quite possibly the
oldest resident living in the Lititz
area, celebrated another birthday
on Tuesday.
Marion celebrated her 106th
birthday at a special party organ­ized
by Dorothy Burcaw, pastor at
Lititz Moravian Church.
The early afternoon party was
attended by Marion’s friends and
well-wishers from the church, and
instead of birthday cake, they
each enjoyed a slice of Moravian
sugar cake, naturally.
Marion, who still insists that
she is actually two years younger
than her actual age, was bom on
April 6, 1893 on South Broad
Street in Lititz.
She has lived at United Zion
Retirement Home for the past 23
years, and is its oldest resident
Marion attended Linden Hall
School for Girls from kindergar­ten
through age 12. She then
attended the public school until
her sophomore year, finishing her
schooling about a decade before
the construction of the Lititz High
School building (now Lititz
Elementary).
Marion went on to work for
several years at the Lititz Shirt
Factoty, and she also cleaned
homes and did laundry, always
remaining in the Lititz area.
(See Bowman, Page 14)