Year: 2016

At the April 11, 2016 meeting of the Columbia Borough Council, Council President Kelly Murphy read from a prepared statement explaining the borough’s policy on transparency and presenting a new process by which the borough will post draft agendas on its website before meetings are held.   The text of the statement, which was provided to Columbia Spy by Murphy, is published here: 


“At no time has Council or the Borough of Columbia purposely failed to disclose, or to conceal from the public, items which will be discussed at its public meetings. Rather, the Borough’s process has historically (at least the 8+ years I have been on council) been to complete its agenda on the day of a meeting, which has made production of Borough’s agenda prior to the meeting difficult.

Borough Council of the Borough of Columbia has always been and intends to continue to be completely transparent with respect to its activities and the matters that it votes on. We encourage residents from the Borough of Columbia to appear at all meetings and to actively participate in discussion regarding Borough items. Many if not all of the items on Council’s agenda every month have previously been discussed at a public Committee meeting.

The Borough Manager and Council President are developing a new internal process to have agendas developed and finalized by Thursday or Friday of the week immediately prior to a Borough Council meeting and to have that agenda posted on the Borough’s website, along with the documents which are to be approved or discussed pursuant to that agenda. At no time has the current process violated Sunshine or Right To Know laws.”


Recently, questions were raised regarding the availability of public documents  requested from Columbia Borough through the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law. The borough was also criticized in a Lancaster Newspapers editorial  focusing on compliance with Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act.

SCCA will present the following on Friday, April 22, 5-9 p.m.: Penn’s Woods Printmakers; Jewelry by Richelle Leigh Walk; Print Signing by painter Frank Morgan and a special exhibition featuring art work from Hempfield High School’s National Art Honor Society.

The Columbia Borough farm makes money! No, not literally, but it does bring in much-needed revenue for the borough.

Prior to leaving his council seat at the end of 2015, Jim Smith showed Columbia Spy how the borough does it.

“We’ve kept this a secret too long,” he said, referring to the farm hidden just off Blue Lane. Smith wanted residents to know about the operations underway on the property, which he sees as beneficial to the borough. He asked Public Works Director Ron Miller to explain the details:

According to Miller, the farm was in disarray just a short time ago. “ It was a dump,” Miller said. He said it took a year to clean up piles of concrete and debris that had been dumped at the farm over many years. Miller credits Jake Graham of the highway department with grading the entire area, with the aid of local excavator Sam Logan, who provided a bulldozer to help complete the work.

After this initial phase was finished, phase two was put into place: Miller applied for and obtained a permit to operate a yard waste facility. He also obtained a grant to purchase equipment required for the operation, thereby saving the borough thousands of dollars on the purchase. Currently, 12 municipalities dump yard waste at the farm, at a cost of $25 a ton. The material is then recycled and sold. (Used asphalt from from road milling is also taken to the farm, where it is processed for reuse in road paving.) Miller projects that the operation could potentially bring in $100,000 this year for the borough, simply by turning what was once perceived as trash into welcome treasure.

The draft agenda for the April 11, 2016 Columbia Borough Council meeting is posted on the borough website at columbiapa.net and is shown below. Draft agendas will now be posted on the borough’s site prior to meetings.