Quarryville police are waiting for a ruling from the state treasurer's office to determine what will become of cash found and turned in late last year.
"If it was identifiable property like a Rolex watch, it would go to the state and be listed in their unclaimed property. But I'm not sure what they will say about cash," Quarryville Police Chief Clark Bearinger said last week. The cash was found in the area of the TownsEdge Shopping Village on November 19 and turned over to police. Police wanted to return the money promptly. That hasn't been possible. Landlords and tenants in Quarryville are subject to new regulations. At their Monday night, January 7, public meeting, members of Quarryville's borough council approved additions to the community's property maintenance code. The amendment makes it easier for the borough to use the code for rental properties.
"The maintenance code does not lend itself well to rental property," said borough manager Ken Work, "and some of those properties are not as well taken care of as owner-occupied homes." The amendment went into effect immediately. As Lancaster County's wettest year on record drew to a close, the Quarryville Borough Authority was stepping up its search for more water.
The authority, which took over Quarryville's water system in 2017, began searching for another well site early last year. Until 2017, the authority had just operated the region's sewage treatment system and the borough operated the water system. "It was our agenda to seek a secondary water source," authority chairman John Chase said. To do that, the authority has begun prospecting for another well site. The new well, when brought on line, will supplement the authority's existing well on N. Church St. Rebuilding one of Second Street's three blocks will be Quarryville Borough's major project in 2019.
"We will reconstruct the street and install new curbing," Borough Manager Ken Work said last week. Once the work is done, property owners will have to install new sidewalks. A few members of each congregation knows which one collected the most food for the Solanco Food Bank. They won't say if the members of Mt. Eden Evangelical Lutheran Church or the congregation of Zion United Church of Christ provided the most food during the annual competition between the two churches. Aaron Haun wanted to become a police officer in a small town in Lancaster County. Quarryville Borough needed to hire an additional cop. The two goals came together on February 6 when Haun, 26, was sworn in as Quarryville's fourth full-time police officer. He started work the following day. "I grew up in Lancaster County and lived in Drumore for a while," Haun said. "I like small towns and the idea of working in one." He, his wife, their son, and his step-daughter live in the county. Haun is also a member of a U.S. Army Reserve unit based in West Chester. He joins patrol officers Cheryl Thompson and Charles Grimasuckas and school resources officer Chris Dilworth. Police Chief Ken Work also serves as the borough manager. The police department also has several part-time officers. Access has become an issue for aging members of local church congregations. "We had to go outside when we wanted to go up [to the sanctuary] or down [to the social hall]," said Merle Farmer, a member of Bethesda United Methodist Church. "That's a problem for people using walkers or in wheelchairs, especially in bad weather." One option would have been to install an elevator in the Martic Township church. "We considered that but the cost was just too high," Farmer said recently. Then the congregation discovered there was another, less expensive, option. There's no place like home.
Even when it's much smaller than the original. The house, a replica of his home place in York County, was built by the late Ernest Fauth in 1983. The Quarryville resident built it as a favor for his daughter, Wilma Fauth Jones. The new engine bays being built on the south end of Quarryville's fire station should be ready for use by May.
"It could be as early as April if the weather holds," said Ron Swayne, chairman of the fire company's building committee. "We're three-quarters of the way done, due in large part to the weather," he said last week. The work got off to a late start. The volunteers expected to begin construction early last summer, but delays in finalizing a mortgage with BB&T Bank put the work on hold until October 31, 2016. That meant the start date actually came two weeks after the original completion date. It's been nearly two years since banners honoring veterans for their service were hung along Quarryville's streets.
Those banners will be coming down this summer, to be replaced by a new set, organizer Scott Peiffer said last week. "It will be two years in July [since the first set was hung]," he said. "We're starting now to give ourselves four to five months lead time." There are 130 banners along borough streets and in the parking lot of TownsEdge Shopping Village. There are banners honoring World War I veterans through those who served in the ongoing War on Terrorism. The Friends of the Quarryville Library plan to hold their next three-day book sale in October. Those plans are very tentative, said the group's president, Carol Biscardi. The quarterly three-day sales may become a thing of the past before fall, she said. That doesn't mean the group will stop holding sales. They will hold more frequent smaller sales rather than scheduling them every three months, Biscardi said. When she finally steps down from her part-time position in Quarryville's borough office, Diane Hastings will remain on call in case her replacement has questions. Her replacement, Valeria Keene, is also on call when her replacement as Bart Township's secretary-treasurer has questions about the job. Hastings has been working part-time at the borough for several years. She works several days a week, except when the quarter water and sewer bills are being compiled and mailed. Then she can work five or more days at a time. Dr. Thomas Regan was going to follow his father and become an artist. "I was a junior in high school and because of what dad did, I thought I would go into graphic arts and design," he said. "But I realized I didn't have a portfolio to get into a good school." So he chose another route, one that combined art with his other love, science, and became a dentist. After earning a degree in chemistry from Dickinson College and a dental degree from Temple University in 1977, Dr. Regan and his wife, Barb, thought about opening a practice in New England. "We liked to camp and hike but there didn't seem to be much of a demand for a new dentist there," he said last week. So they came home to Quarryville. "I talked with Dr. Hess and Dr. Pennington, and both thought there was a demand for another dentist here," he said. by Hannah Pollock Chronicle intern Winter is a difficult time for people working in the plumbing and heating business. “It’s a tough job,” said Bob Landis on an unusually warm January afternoon. “We spend a lot of time in tight crawl spaces and in the bitter cold. On one eight degree day, we were working on thawing pipes. One of my guys grabbed a shovel with his bare hand and it froze to the shovel. I grabbed my coffee and poured it on his hand to detach it. It was cold and I lost my hot cup of coffee... I wasn’t very happy that day.” Three weeks ago they graced living rooms across the Southern End. Decked out with tinsel and ornaments, lit from top to bottom, evergreens sheltered presents waiting for Christmas day. Last Friday, 159 of them returned to nature, stripped of decoration and chipped into mulch, waiting to be spread along Eden Township's section of the Low Grade Rail Trail. Crews from Quarryville Borough and Eden Township took just over an hour to grind the trees up and truck the chips to the trail parking lot along Bushong Rd. They will be back early in February to recycle the trees that are now piling up in the parking lot of the SECA Pool on Memorial Drive. Firefighters are used to the heat.
But they won't be wearing protective turnout gear when they face grills full of burning charcoal later this month. Nor will they be trying to put out the fires, which can bring them thousands of dollars in needed money. The volunteers will spend two days tending portable barbecue pits, helping cook more than 2,000 chicken halves on Thursday, July 14, and Friday, July 15. Construction is underway on the second phase of an expansion project at Quarryville Presbyterian Retirement Community.
This phase will include 14 cottages, three villa apartment buildings, an access road, and other infrastructure improvements. This phase will cost more than $5 million to complete, said retirement community spokesman Mitchell Hanna. Before the auction gets underway each year, organizers of the annual Gap Relief Auction take up a special offering. In years past, the money has gone to help develop water supplies for African villages and work with people from former communist countries in Eastern Europe. This year, the special offering will be spent much closer to the Southern End. The money raised on Friday night, August 14, will help fund programs for children in nearby Philadelphia. Kyle Munro didn't miss a day of school during his last semester at Solanco High School.
But what he learned during the three hours before he headed off to class in his final semester at Solanco reinforced his decision about how he will spend much of his adult life. Munro will go to Lebanon Valley College in August where he will begin studying criminal justice. The first of 106 Hometown Hero banners began appearing on Quarryville's E. 4th St. last week.
By the time the work is done, the banners will hang on utility poles on 4th St., East and West State St., S. Church St., S. Hess St., and S. Lime St. There will also be a few on Park Ave. At home, Maya Torres likes to swim, play soccer, builds with Legos, and solve crossword puzzles.
Three days a week, the Quarryville resident heads to Lancaster and takes on her other persona, playing characters in Fulton Opera House's staging of The Wizard of Oz. Susan Griffith, a member of Quarryville's borough council since January 1, 2014, has resigned.
Griffith submitted her letter of resignation last week, council president William R. Mankin said Monday. She cited personal reasons, Mankin said. Quarryville Borough is asking four neighboring townships to help pay for the local fire company's workman's compensation insurance.
"We've been talking about this for several years," borough manager Ken Work said last week. "We want the surrounding townships to pay their share." The borough has been paying the entire cost of the insurance, just over $21,000 for the coming year. Although the pillars flanking the entrance to Quarryville's Memorial Park have been restored, members of a local club think there is more work to be done.
The pillars were rebuilt a year ago and rededicated last November. Those pillars carry the names of men who were killed in World War I and World War II. The restoration work began in the fall of 2012. They had to decide months before the National Weather Service or the Old Farmer's Almanac came out with their predictions for the winter of 2014-15.
Even before they finished plowing near-record snowfalls late last winter, roadmasters across the Southern End were being asked to order salt for the following year. There is no good way to make that decision, said William Lamparter, supervisor for Quarryville's public works department. |
Archives
August 2022
Categories
All
|