When: Columbia Borough School Board committee meeting, Oct. 6.
What happened: Board members discussed a prior request to name the football field and stadium after two former coaches, John “Jack” Yohe and Michael Burke. Member Thomas Zeigler spoke in support of the naming; however, President Charles Leader, Vice President Lauren VonStetten and other members opposed it, noting that other requests to name buildings and fields had been denied.
Quotable: “I respect the work that Jack and Mike put into the program. There’s no question they should be honored,” said Leader, adding, “Once we do it (name a facility), then somebody’s going to want us to do it again and again and again …. There’s an end line somewhere and we’re trying to draw that now.”
Details: Since a majority of the board was against the request, a consensus was reached. Rather than naming the football complex after the coaches, several board members proposed finding other ways to uphold their legacy, such as creating a scholarship in their names.
A two-vehicle accident occurred at the intersection of North Fifth and Chestnut Streets around 2:10 p.m. Sunday. No injuries were reported. Rain was falling at the time, and the roadway was wet.
A white Nissan sedan and a gray Toyota Prius were involved in the crash. Both drivers immediately moved their vehicles out of the intersection to the curb along Chestnut Street, in front of the Columbia Borough District Administration Center building. The Prius sustained front-end damage. The Nissan was also damaged.
Columbia Borough Police officers responded with three patrol vehicles. A Hellam Fire Co. duty officer’s vehicle also stopped at the scene. The Prius was towed by Patriot Towing & Transport. The Nissan was driven from the scene. An officer cleared debris from the intersection.
Sunday’s crash is the second at the intersection in just over a week. A similar accident occurred there on the evening of October 3.
Rep. Pat Gallagher, a Democrat serving Northeast Philadelphia, introduced legislation in April 2025 that would require inspection stations to measure how much light tinted windows allow to pass through using a tint meter.
Windows blocking more than 70% of light — the limit set by Pennsylvania law — would fail.
House Bill 1142 would also require window tint businesses that install darker-than-legal tint to inform customers that they will be in violation of state law. Failure to do so would be a violation of the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.
A Brad Chambers billboard was recently installed just outside Columbia on Route 462. Chambers is running for State House District 41 in the Pennsylvania Legislature.
[Photo: Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office]
Geraldo J. Maldonado Jr., 43, was found unresponsive in his cell at the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon on Monday, Oct. 5, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.
Expect lane restrictions and travel delays on Route 30 during daylight work hours.
Harrisburg, PA – The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) announced today that upcoming inspections will be conducted on the Third Street (Route 3441) bridge over Route 30 in Columbia Borough, Lancaster County. Expect lane restrictions and travel delays on Route 30 during daylight work hours.
Weather permitting, work will be performed in the eastbound lanes of Route 30 under Third Street between mile markers 254.2 and 254.4 on Tuesday, October 13, from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM.
Work will be performed in the westbound lanes of Route 30 under Third Street between mile markers 254.4 and 254.2 on Wednesday, October 14, from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM.
Columbia Borough will have no updated zoning protections regarding data centers until at least November, it was noted at the October 6, 2026 council workshop. Council originally believed it would need to wait until December, until Code Manager Paula Diffenderfer revealed at the meeting that the proposed change had gone through. Council previously believed the proposed zoning change was not submitted to the Lancaster County Planning Commission in time for review.
The change, which the borough planning commission recommended for adoption on July 21, would alter the permitted uses for data centers. The proposal will now return to the borough to be advertised and adopted most likely in November.
Harrisburg is considering legislation that would let municipalities declare a moratorium while ordinances are updated. “If that passes, then we’ll be in a lot better shape,” Mayor Leo Lutz said.
Embleton: “I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t enact the strictest data center ordinance that we are legally able to.”
Resident Kathy Embleton urged council to write the toughest ordinance possible. “I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t enact the strictest data center ordinance that we are legally able to,” she said.
Embleton named building size as the most protective limit. West Hempfield caps data centers at 120,000 square feet, she said, and Drumore Township at 100,000. By comparison, a 700,000-square-foot facility is roughly the size of three Walmart Supercenters. “The smaller the data center, the less noise, water usage, electricity usage, pollution, and heat generated,” Embleton said, adding that the borough’s legal counsel, Evan Gabel, had indicated a size cap would be legal.
Embleton asked council to have Gabel review stricter provisions from other municipalities, noting that more model ordinances exist now than when council members Kelly Murphy and Heather Zink drafted Columbia’s version. She also proposed a thumbs-up or thumbs-down vote on each point at the next meeting, saying that at the first public meeting too few members spoke for the audience to know where council stood.
Sharon Lintner asked why the borough relisted the McGinness property before zoning was finalized, and whether that creates a loophole. Zink said it does not, since the borough still controls the property and would tell buyers the zoning is changing. She said a buyer would need substantial work already completed to claim grandfathered status, and a land development approval would take too long to finish ahead of the change. The second request for proposals also warned bidders of the coming zoning changes.
Council held a public meeting on the data center ordinance on September 24, 2026. A second public meeting on the data center ordinance has not been scheduled, but Council President Eric Kauffman said he would announce a date as soon as possible. Council hopes to cover the remainder of the draft then.
The next regular council meeting is Tuesday, October 13, at 7 p.m.
A borough resident told council that the newly repaved 100 and 200 blocks of Walnut Street cannot legally be enforced as one-way without a formal ordinance.
Mary Wickenheiser raised the issue during the October 6 Columbia Borough Workshop. (The two blocks were recently repaved and fitted with new sidewalks. The area is still technically a work zone, with crews finishing line painting and road markings.)
Wickenheiser asked whether the borough had ever adopted an ordinance converting the blocks from two-way to one-way traffic.
“That can’t be enforced without an ordinance,” Wickenheiser told council. She said she had checked the borough code earlier in the day. “It’s Article Seven, Section 207-48, and I’m not seeing any kind of amendment there indicating that those two blocks are now one-way headed west.”
Mayor Leo Lutz said council should talk to the borough solicitor (who was not present) to have the ordinance done.
