Columbia Spy

GO HERE:
http://abc27.com/2015/10/03/glass-blowing-classes-with-through-the-fire-studios/

The following Trust members were present at this meeting:

SPY: How do you respond to criticism that trust members have been absent in the market and unavailable to vendors and the general public?
COOPER: It’s not a true or accurate statement.  It’s simply not. We’re not commissioned to be in the market house.  Our agreement – with things that we’re supposed to be doing – does not require us to be in the market house. We go in the market house because we want to go in the market house. It’s not part of our job to be in the market house, although we do try to go in whenever we can. As part of the vendor committee, Don, Kellan, and myself are in there fairly frequently, so we’re in there almost every weekend. Sometimes we have vendor meetings there. Sometimes we’ll have a meeting with a new prospective vendor and we’ll go down and meet them there. We do all those things in the market house because it shows them that we’re there. But it also is a convenient place to meet future prospective vendors. We are commissioned to manage the market either with a manager or us directly when a manager is not contracted.  We also have a vendor committee. We have a Facebook page. We have a website and a mailing address for the general public. We are not in hiding. We are not trying to not be available, but it isn’t our mandate to be there all the time. We are in there as much as we can be.
KERNISKY: To the vendors, we are the face of the Trust. We communicate a lot of things back and forth. In addition to the vendor rep, who is a vendor and comes to our meetings, and talks about issues, we are actual face-to-face contacts for a lot of vendors.
COOPER: And they all have all our information.  They know know how to reach us. They can call us, They can email us. They can text us. They know this and they have that info.
BECKLEY: We work closely with Lancaster Central Market. We go to them when we have questions on things, and they’ve also been kind enough in the past to share things with us, too. One of the things they shared with us is their handbook, and we actually modified that to fit for our market house. We have a handbook, too, for the vendors. The vendors have a handbook that they really need to be following and we got that from Lancaster Central Market. We also have rules that vendors have to follow, and that’s actually something we’re obligated to council to do. That’s in our contract that we would have rules for the vendors to follow. We’ve been asked to create some of these documents that we have out there. We try to talk to vendors about business while the market is open. We decided to create a document for the vendors when they have a concern or question they should be filling out and getting that to us either by the market manager or the vendor rep or any trust member that they see. They can give it to them and it can be discussed at our next meeting. We resolve vendor issues when they come up. They have to come up the right way.

SPY: Do you plan on being more visible in the market house in the future?
COOPER: Basically, it’s no more than we are now. Probably less, if it’s a Trust member. Ideally, if the market house is full, we should have a full-time market manager and have to devote less time in the market as trust members.  However, if it’s full, I’m going to be in there more as a customer.

SPY: Do you think limiting the market to one day as in the past would be beneficial to the market?
BECKLEY: I would say not at this time. It’s not a good time right now for change, number one.  Number two, we have some vendors who are only there certain days. Eliminating certain days – we would have even less vendors. It actually is more of an expense for us to be open three days, but at this point it certainly would hurt the vendors.
COOPER: If we wanted to just  fill the market, we could fill the market. We could take a whole bunch of white elephant stuff. We could become a flea market, and we might do well. We’d get our rent. We could fill it. We could hire a market manager full time, but we would never get our grant, because if we aren’t a certain percentage green, the grant is not for us.
BECKLEY: It’s really all about business and money. If we don’t have enough vendors to pay the rent that cover our expenses, we certainly can’t afford to pay a market manager on top of that, and in order to pay a market manager, we’d have to up people’s rent. So, if we up people’s rent, they would leave.
COOPER: There’s not enough foot traffic to sustain them now, never mind if we raise their rents.

The following Trust members were present at this meeting:

SPY: What steps has the Trust taken to make the market mixed-use?
KERNISKY: That word “mixed-use” has been recently brought up, because in RFQ that’s something that is mentioned, but we’re still working on the RFQ. We’re still working on getting that released. So, at this point no steps have been taken to actually do any type of mixed-use. No steps have been taken by us. It’s not to say we won’t move in that direction if there are some proposals that come in that have great ideas. The term “mixed-use” can mean different things to different people. I imagine it being a mix of a farmers’ market and something else, whether it be a small restaurant or a small taproom. We’re anticipating from the RFQ process to get people who will respond and say, “Hey, I love this, but I don’t need 8500 square feet. Could you do 6000 . . . ”  It’s a term that gives a little bit of flexibility.

SPY: What recent steps has the Trust taken to be more transparent and to promote the market?
COOPER: For the advertising, we would love to advertise on special dates, monthly events, but we don’t have the income. It’s as simple as that. We’ve asked council two consecutive years for advertising money, but we were turned down both years. However, in their defense, it is not their job to subsidize our advertising. They don’t do that for other businesses in town. Again, if we have a full market we have plenty of money we can do that.
BERNTHEIZEL: We do things for advertising. We just had to cut back on what the market did originally, advertising in The Merchandiser every week. The one year we spent $8,000. The Columbia brochure – the market house is in that. They paid a hundred dollars to be in that publication. We’re looking at the light box that’s outside the visitors’ center right now. We do those things, free or paid, in small numbers.  We just thought it was important not to spend money on something and it’s not making a difference. What happens, you come into market and there’s just not enough here to come back the next time. When I was on council, we closed the market in the mid-90s because there was a $16-20,000 deficit. That’s when they started doing some studies.  A couple of years later, they did the study in 2005.  They got it back open. They spent a million dollars on the exterior.  They did very little on the interior. They should have done a whole package, and then the neighborhood market would’ve had a chance. They basically opened it the same way as when it closed. Very little services to vendor stands. No water. When the borough started having issues with market managers, they said we have to get this away from the borough. And that’s when the Trust was born.
BECKLEY: That’s why we were born. Because they were done with it. They didn’t want politics in it anymore. They wanted to wash their hands of it. They didn’t want it costing taxpayers any money anymore.


COOPER: [Criticism] hurts our feelings as the Trust because we’re just a bunch of volunteers trying to do a good thing. But it kills the market. It absolutely kills the market. They [the vendors] are the ones who are losing. We don’t have a financial stake in the market. These people all went into money, borrowed money, did whatever they had to do to start the business. And it hurts them. That’s what we can’t make anybody understand is that it just comes back on the market.
BECKLEY: And it’s always our fault. When a vendor leaves, they don’t take accountability for why their business failed. It’s easier to just blame us.
BERNTHEIZEL: They all don’t fail. They move on to something else.
BECKLEY: But think about it. If you were to rent a building on Locust Street to run your business out of. What are your expectations of your landlord? That’s what we are. Do you expect us to pay your advertising if you moved your business into Locust Street: pay to have the bathrooms cleaned, pay to supply the bathrooms, pay to remove the snow? That’s another reason that our meetings aren’t open to the public. There are things we talk about like this. How much work would we get done if we had 20 people sitting in the audience wanting to quiz us? We would not get anything done.
COOPER: The market and the Trust are two different entities. They’re not the same thing. The market house is the vendors – people trying to do business. The Trust is the management company for the vendors. We’re not the same thing.
BECKLEY: We technically should be meeting once a quarter by our bylaws.
COOPER: We meet twice a month.
BERNTHEIZEL: Just to keep ahead on things and to try to keep fires from coming up. And because we want to get things done, as well.
BECKLEY: They understand how much time we put in, how much listening we do.
HAINES: And we’re all volunteers.

COOPER: Regarding transparency, I think we’re transparent. However, there are a lot of misconceptions I’d like to clear up on behalf of the Trust. We, unlike the borough, are not funded by tax dollars.  We raise the money, and we accept donations. We’re not subject to the rules of the borough but by the terms of our contract with the borough.  We’re not subject to sunshine laws. We’re a different kind of entity. We’re nonprofit. We’re not elected.
BERNTHEIZEL: It’s almost like the Chamber of Commerce. I can’t just go to a board meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, unless I’m invited.
COOPER: In an effort to calm some citizens’ concerns, we do make our financials and minutes available to the borough. We’re not required to make our minutes available, but we do. They’re public record and available to be viewed. You may have to pay for them, but they’re there. The members of borough council are invited to our meetings, and our vendor rep and our market manager are invited to the beginning of our meetings to keep us in the loop and the happenings within the market house so that we all know what’s going on all the time.

BECKLEY: Council is not invited to our meetings. We agreed that we would invite a certain councilperson every month and we’ve done that more months than we haven’t, and that person never comes so most times we don’t even extend the invitation anymore. They actually decided when they wrote the contract that there is not allowed to be an elected official on our board. They put that in the contract. That was their choice. On the board, not every member gets to vote, but every director gets to vote. We have a board member at large and we have a market manager and we have the stand holder rep. They don’t vote.
COOPER: Generally speaking, our meetings are not public. Neither are the meetings for Central Market, the Columbia Library, the SVCC, the CDDC, etc., but no one calls them out, only the Trust. We have nothing to hide, but we like to try to get as much accomplished as we can. We’re all volunteers and only have so much time.

SPY: What do you want the public to know?
BERNTHEIZEL: Our goal as the Trust is to keep the market – in some shape or form – open. And to grow it, if it’s a mixed-use, or if it becomes an entire market. We don’t have a city around us to support us like Lancaster or York.
COOPER: All the drama – all it does is hurt the vendors.
BERNTHEIZEL: Who knows what the future might bring. It might not end up being mixed-use.
BECKLEY: If the community is not going to support that, maybe it becomes something else that people will support.  Maybe it’ll be a restaurant. When we get responses to the RFQ that’s what’s really going to be interesting to me. The request for qualifications is a step before the RFP because it removes the financial risk.
COLLISTER: I think you’re going to get concepts and ideas – this is what we think will work and so forth. We’re not going to spend money on drafting a business plan, or how much it’s going to cost to do, or anything like that. This is what we think it’ll be.
COOPER: Once you do the RFQ, then they have to put their money up front and do all the work that needs to go into the RFP. So they have to put together a proposal.
BECKLEY: That’s where I think people didn’t understand maybe what this was and the public hasn’t really gotten behind it, because they have to understand that this is exciting. It could be anything. It could be an upscale restaurant. It could be a traditional farmers’ market. Full and healthy – running well. It could be a brewery. It could be a mix of uses.

From Facebook:
The Columbia Lions Club and Sunsnappers are pleased to announce that Mary J. Loreto will serve as grand marshall for the Columbia Mardi Gras/Halloween parade on October 22.

The 69th annual parade will feature several bands, floats, walking groups and costumed individuals. More than $1,500 in prize money will be awarded. The theme for this year’s parade is Fairy Tales and Fantasy Land. For more information or to register, call Cheryl or John Grunden at 684-2714.

Loreto, a lifelong Columbia resident, has a long history of dedicated service to Columbia and Lancaster County. She is a tireless advocate for children, senior citizens and the needy.

Loreto has served on the following boards: Columbia Borough School Board, Columbia Catholic Housing for the Elderly, Community Action Program, Lancaster County Board of Assistance and Housing Development Corp.

Loreto, 90, was instrumental in the effort to open a child care center in Columbia. She also served on a special borough committee that identified affording housing for senior citizens and disabled persons as a critical need in the community. Those efforts led to the construction of Trinity House and Saint Peter’s Apartments. A special tribute to Loreto is planned as the parade passes by both buildings.

Over the years Loreto has lovingly opened her home to many people including new immigrants from Egypt. She also has invited residents of local nursing homes with no family in the area to share holiday meals. 
Loreto, who is trained as a nurse, was a successful businesswoman, having owned and operated several antiques and retail stores over the years. She also worked at the former Loreto’s Ristorante, where she prepared many of her family recipes including her homemade signature pasta sauce.

Loreto was a church sacristan at St. Peters Church for more than 40 years. She has 10 children, 20 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.

The Bridge Bust is ON today, despite the weather.

    Source: York Daily Record/Sunday News

Legislation is moving through the state senate to address this.

MORE HERE:
http://m.cumberlink.com/news/measures-would-help-ems-get-paid-for-services/article_d89102eb-3c4c-5d50-a92e-925c3f4c2726.html?mobile_touch=true

• Jeffrey Helm, code enforcement officer/supervisor. Helm also serves as zoning officer, planning officer, emergency management officer, and borough tax collector.

• George Weiss, part-time code enforcement officer

• Thomas Millhouse, part-time code enforcement officer