Month: August 2019

Heather Zink’s complaint was the second such filing with the district attorney’s office against Columbia in seven months. The first complaint, which was settled just over a month after the alleged violation occurred in November, led to a stern letter from the district attorney’s office.

While the office declined to investigate the first complaint because it could not prove there was an intent to violate the act, it said a subsequent inquiry would result in an investigation.

At points, the warning letter sent to Columbia in December was word-for-word what the district attorney’s office wrote to the Manheim Township School Board in 2016 for holding 11 closed-door meetings with little to no explanation for them.

When: Council meeting, Aug. 13.

What happened: Council voted to issue requests for proposals for five different professional services contracts, including the borough solicitor and auditor, two positions that have been filled by the same firms for several decades. Council also voted to advertise for requests for proposals for a new parking meter technician, a firm to do work on a survey of a proposed expansion of the borough’s historic district, and one to conduct a study of parking in the downtown area. Council also approved a proposal to retain Capital Construction Management to provide a cost estimate on proposed interior renovations to the Columbia Market House.

“From Columbia Borough… to Elanco, to Manheim, to Ephrata to Elizabethtown – I hear it everywhere,” Aument said in an interview in Harrisburg on Wednesday. “I don’t think there’s a district, at least in northern Lancaster County, that’s immune from passion around that topic and that issue.”