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CONSOLIDATED WITH THE LITITZ RECORD 1937 Lititz, Lancaster County, PA. 17543, Thursday, March 12,1981 20CENTS A COPT: S6 00 PER YEAR BY MAIL
WITHIN LANCASTER COUNTY 26 Pages-No. SO
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Winter Wonderland In The Park
A panoramic view of the snow-covered Lititz Springs Park.
Garrett Begins Duties As Justice
James L. Garrett, 49, of 6
Ridge Drive, began his
duties as district justice of
the peace for District 3-9
(Lititz, Elizabeth and
Warwick tow n sh ip s)
Monday at his offices at 690
Furnace Hills Pike.
G a r r e tt, L a n c a s te r
County’s newest district
justice of the peace, was
sworn in by President Judge
Anthony R. Appel of Lan­caster
County Court of
Common Pleas last Friday
afternoon.
He fills the vacancy cause
by the death of Sharron A.
Simpkins, whose term ex­pires
in January. He Was'
ap p o in te d and com­missioned
by the Governor.
During the brief swearing-in
ceremony, Judge Appel
congratulated Garrett and
told him he hoped Garrett
realized the "office of
district justice is that part of
the judicial system that
more people come into
contact with than any other
part.”
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... James L. Garrett
Judge Appel urged the new
district justice to perform
his duties with not only
understanding but also in­tegrity
and dignity.
Justice Garrett said he
agreed with Judge Appel
that the district justice level
is “where most people see
the law, if they are going to
see it al all.” And he felt that
good common sense enters
into” the administration of
justice at that level.
He said, “I think it’s a very
important position. Many
people are upset with the
justice system and I think I
can help. I think I can be fair
and firm.”
A self-employed life in­surance
agent, he has spent
quite a bit of time the past
two weeks sitting with
district justices.
Garrett attended the
district justice school at
Wilson College for four
weeks - from Nov. 10 to Dec.
6 passed his examination
and was certified to hold the
office of district justice.
A native of Kokomo, In­diana,
he attended Indiana
University in Indiana, he has
lived in Indianapolis, Ind.;
Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore
County, Md.; and Lancaster
County where his job took
him. He has been in Lititz for
seven and a half years.
Rotary Club To Present
'New England Sampler’
Robert Brouwer’s "New
England Sampler” will be
presented Saturday, March
14 at 3 and 8 p.m. in the
Warwick High School
auditorium. This is the fifth
program in the Lititz Rotary
Club’s “Travel and Ad­venture
Series.” Tickets will
be available at the door.
Sample New England’s
charm and diversity on three
screens.
Enjoy rock-lined coasts,
su rf-b a tte red Acadia
National Park, the harbors
of Camden, Me., and Mystic
Seaport, Conn., sheltering
trim windjammers to retired
whaling ships.
Treat yourself to a taste of
Americana, visiting the
covered bridge at Gulford,
Vt., the picture-book village
at Grafton, Vt., and Stur-bridge
Village, Mass., of­fering
a feast of memories
and collectibles.
Experience p asto ra l
scenes, gentle spring-misted
slopes in Vermont, an awe­inspiring
panorama in the
White Mountain of New
Hampshire, and the rugged
Crawford and Franconia /
Notches.
Participate in history.
Experience the lives of the
Pilgrims on the Mayflower,
in Provincetown and at
Plymouth Plantation dating
to 1627.
Also, highlighting the
program, will be New
E n g la n d ’s famo u s
lighthouses: beacon-crown­ed
monarchs at Quoddy
Head, P o r tla n d and
Pemaquid, Maine, sur­veying
their watery realms,
and p ic tu re s q u e ,
precariously perched Owl’s
Head Light in Maine.
You will sample New
England enterprise, looking
at stone and marble
quarries, lobstering and
fishing, and tourism, wooing
skiers and pampering ad­mirers
of New England’s
glorious autumn colors.
Reflections of New
England can be found in
mirrored scenes of skeletal
ships at Wiscasset, Maine,
reflective Mill ponds at
Londonderry and East
P u tn e y , Vt., and
reminiscence on the variety
and attractiveness of the
New England States.
Enjoy New England on
three screens with Robert
Brouwer this Saturday.
Lititz Police News
Police Investigate
Accidents, Burglaries
A hit and run accident
occurred February 22 in the
700 block of S. Cedar Street
between 11:30 p.m. the night
of Feb. 21 and the following
morning.
Steve Perich, 766 S. Cedar
St., had his car parked at his
residence and someone ran
into the vehicle. A small
trace of brown paint was left
on the vehicle by the driver
of the hit and run vehicle,
according to Lititz police
chief George Hicks.
An accident on Feb. 27
occurred at about 4:20 p.m.,
police said, at East Main and
Cedar Streets. The vehicle
driven by James Milton
Peters, 37 Hoover St.,
Mountville, was stopped for
the red traffic signal on Main
Street and proceeded when
the signal turned green.
At that point, Chief Hicks
said, Mary A. Groff, 20
Church St., Rothsville, who
was parked near the post
office on Main Street, opened
her car door and the trailer
of the Peters vehicle struck
the driver’s door of the Groff
vehicle.
There were no injuries and
Groff was charged with
opening a door onto the
roadway.
West Orange Street and
South Broad was the scene of
an accident March 5 when
the vehicle driven by Sandra
F. Ruhl, 541 Furnace Hills
Pike, attempted to make a
right turn from Broad onto
Orange and slid on the ice
Please Note:
It is Record Express
policy to print only those
letters to the editor
which are signed and
which include an ad­dress
and telephone
number, although the
names and addresses
may be withheld at the
request of the writer.
Several letters in
support of the Lititz
Police Department and
of Officer Seace were
not published this week
b e c a u s e of th a t
omission.
Fourth Hearing Date Scheduled
Residents' Testimony
Begins At Rothsville
About 50 residents braved
the icy snow-covered roads
Thursday night to attend the
public hearing scheduled by
the Warwick Township
Zoning Hearing Board and to
register their opposition to
the Housing Development
Corp. (HDC) of Lancaster
County’s plant to convert the
v a c a n t R o th sv ille
Elementary School into a
subsidized ap a rtm en t
project.
At Thursday night’s
hearing, which was the
second continuance of the
h e a r in g , law y e rs
representing various in­terests
m the case failed
again to complete testimony.
A third continuance of this
hearing will be held Monday,
March 23 at 7 p.m. in the
Rothsville Fire Hall.
HDC completed its
testimony Thursday night
and O. Howard Mummau, an
attorney representing a
township couple, began
calling his witnesses. He is
expected to complete the
testimony by his witnesses
at the next meeting. The
Warwick Township super­visors
have yet to present
their witnesses. If all
testimony is completed at
the next hearing, the War­wick
Township Zoning
Hearing Board could render
a decision at its Wednesday,
April 15 meeting.
The hours of testimony
that have already been given
and the testimony that is yet
to come will be used by the
Zoning Hearing Board to
decide whether HDC should
be granted a special ex­ception
to the zoning or­dinance
The special exception is
needed for HDC to convert
the vacant Rothsville School
building to 15 units for low
and moderate income
families. Tenants would pay
up to 25 percent of their
incomes toward rent, with
the Department of Housing
and Urban Development
paying the remainder. The
bulk of the project would be
financed by the Penn­sylvania
Housing Finance
Agency.
The residents of Rothsville
fear that the project will
adversely affect their water
supplies. They cite the
scarcity of the water in the
area. They also note that the
quality of the water
available is not good.
HDC, however, has called
engineers, well diggers,
chemists and geologists to
back up claims about water
quality and quantity.
This expert testimony has
been challenged by the
residents on almost every
matter. They question the
type of bucket the well-digger
used and asked the
chemist if he could prove
that the water he tested
actually came from the
Rothsville School well.
Donald H. Nikolaus, at­torney
for HDC, called John
Diem, a Brownstown well-digger,
and Carl Stimeling, a
Reading chemist, to testify.
Diem said he pumped four
gallons of water per minute.
Stimeling testified that four
of the five samples of water
he te s te d met E n ­vironmental
Protection
Agency and the federal Safe
Drinking Water Act stan­dards.
Stimeling said that
from a biological standpoint,
the well that was dug is a
satisfactory souce of water.
He also stated that, in his
opinion, chlorination would
I n t h i s is s u e
Editorial
Sports Section
Social
Classified
Church
4
6,7,8,9
10,11
13,14,15
22
Business Directory 24
not be necessary.
HDC maintains that water
for the proposed project is
both available and safe to
drink. The corporation also
contends that other of its
projects are well-managed
and operated, with tenants
closely monitored and
eviction procedures carried
out, if necessary. HDC says
the need tor subsidized
housing in the Lititz-
Rothsville area is great,
based upon figures from the
1970 census.
Nikolaus called Bette
Schnippel, director of multi­family
housing management
for HDC, to testify. She
presented a breakdown on
population at other HDC
projects.
She said the maximum
number of inhabitants at the
Rothsville School would be
58, based upon her projec­tions,
and those tenants
would have to meet income
eligibility requirements.
During cross-examination
from Mummau, Mrs.
Schnippel said rents in Oak
Hollow South, in West
Hempfield Township, are
$357 for a two-bedroom unit,
439 for a three-bedroom unit
and $466 for a four-bedroom
unit.
(Turn to Page 13)
A spectacular fire gutted
the historic Checkerboard
House in Brickerville
Saturday afternoon.
The 226 year old structure,
located at 312 E. 23rd
Division Highway, suffered
about $75,000 in damage.
Fire was reported at the
Brickerville Fire House at
about 1:30 p.m. by Ricky
Ditzler, Lititz. Ditzler and
his father were passing the
scene when they noticed
smoke. The pair quickly
headed for the Fire Hall
which is located about 500
yards from the Checker­board
House.
Paul Hutchinson, Lititz,
who coincidentally was the
listing realtor for the
Checkboard House sale with
Slaugh Fagan Partners, saw
what he thought was steam
rising from the roof of the
summer house wing when he
and his family were on their
way to pick up Girl Scout
cookies at the Church next
door.
Mrs. Hutchinson reported,
“Paul ran up to the house
when he realized there was
no one there. We first
thought they were putting
pitch on the roof, but there
were no workmen and the
doors were all locked. Paul
shouted ‘It’s on fire! ’ and we
saw some people drive off
toward the fire depart­ment.”
F irem e n re sp o n d ed
promptly but a lack of water
and high wind quickly gave
the fire the upper hand. Wind
sent billowing smoke across
Blaze Caused by Faulty Wire
Brickerville Checkerboard
Two firemen suffered minor burns and Route
322 east of Route 501 was closed for three hours
during the fire which broke out about 1:30 p.m.
the fields surrounding the
house.
By the time the fire was
brought under control,
almost 100 volunteers from
Durlach-Mt. Airy, Lincoln,
Ephrata Pioneer, Lititz and
Brunnerville Fire Com­panies
were on the scene.
Brick erv ille firemen
rigged hose and ladders to
the West side of the house
immediately upon arriving
at the scene but soon
realized the fire was racing
up the walls. Shortly the fire
spread to the roof of the
building.
Chunks of shingle falling
from above, the collapse of
the old bell tower, and the
accumulation of snow on the
ground all combined to make
fire fighting difficult.
The Checkerboard House,
so called because of the
i 1 8 »
and snow and hit the vehicle
driven by Nancy L. Showers,
346 N. Cedar St., according
to police.
There were no injuries and
damage to both vehicles was
light.
A bicycle was reported
stolen from a garage loft at
the property of Luther
Nagle, 221 Front St. Police
said the victim of the theft is
Dennis Nagle.
According to police,
someone broke into the
garage sometime after Feb.
24 an stole the ten-speed,
blue J.C. Penney’s boy’s
Kent bicycle.
Minor and Alcohol
Jerry C. Seig, 19, 107 S,
Broad St., and Gerald G.
(Turn to Page 13)
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The summerhouse wing featured a barn style roof with gently sloping eaves
and oak woodwork within including door and window sills and shadowbox
panelling.
pattern formed by the red-brown
and yellow brick on
the main part of the house,
had been empty since 1952. It
was owned by the Reif-snyder
family at the time of
the recent sale.
In January, Jeffrey Herr
of Pennsylvania Furnace
purchased the house and
began to remodel it.
Herr, a former Ephrata
resident, paid $115,000 for
the property and had in­vested
more money in
remodeling the house in
anticipation of moving in. It
was reported that Herr
planned to use the oldest
part of the house, the stone
section, as an antique shop.
Herr’s father is Dr. Harold
Herr, an Ephrata dentist.
Jeffrey Herr, contacted
Tuesday at the Checker­board
House, said that he
feels very fortunate not to
have been in the house at the
time of the fire and is also
glad that none of the Herr
things had been moved in
yet.
As he walked over the
grounds with insurance
adjusters, workmen were
cleaning the area and
tearing out scorched in­sulation,
getting ready to
rebuild. The property was
insured.
Herr said, “We may be
able to make some of the
restoration a bit more
authentic, and take away
some of the later additions to
the old part of the house. We
plan to rebuild the sum­merhouse
wing, and con­tinue
with the restoration
plans. The brick floor in the
basement (one of the unique
features of the house)
cleaned up especially well,
but of course now it is
covered with mud.
“We certainly plan to go
ahead.”
Work was being done by
S&H Enterprises Con­struction,
118 Akron Road,
Ephrata.
Although the strong
n o rthw e s te rly winds
whisked the fire along, they
did blow acrid smoke and hot
ash away from other
dwellings located on the
North side of Route 322.
In addition to pumping
tankers dry, firemen laid
about a quarter mile of hose
to the scene of the fire from
the Emmanuel Church
Picnic Woods where water
was available.
A total of 14 pieces of fire
and rescue equipment were
on the scene and assisted in
laying hose, providing
(Turn to Page 2)