today’s news and information gleanings from here and there!

Quote for today… “Now they’re giving us this, which is less bad, and we’re going to think, oh this is good, and it’s not, it’s just less bad.” – Ken Foster, Columbia, in this FOX43 report about the “natural gas pipeline” informational open house meeting at Millersville University last evening.

• WGAL-TV8’s top story: THE break-in

PHOTO SOURCE: FOX43

• Dashed hopes … at Monday’s council meeting. A fair number of folks come to Monday’s meeting prepared to speak to the topic of the next step in the path for Columbia’s sewer system. Some, in fact, spoke and tried to express their thoughts; some were metered and reminded that that discussion would take place at the next council get-together on June 23. At the very end of the meeting, new Columbia business owner, Bill Collister, said he’d been given information, too, that the discussion would be on the agenda. He commented that many of his acquaintances, in and out of Columbia, asked him why “in the world” he’d decided to open the business, Columbia Kettle Works, in Columbia. He said when looking for a “place” he noticed all the empty buildings but decided that there was ample potential in the borough. He offered, though, that the decision of Columbia’s sewer system is very important to supporting his decision to invest a “fair amount of money” in the borough. He stated that this decision is in some way a “microcosm of the decision-making processes” that are made in Columbia. He came to the meeting because he wanted to express his feelings about the critical nature of a supportive business environment in Columbia. He added that he’d been misinformed about the agenda topic, but that he would attend the “meeting of the whole” to speak to the topic.

• Sigh! Back to the question of too many unenforced codes and too many signs signs with no enforcement. A reader sent along the above snapshot of a bucolic riverfront scene with kids fishing in the old watering hole. (Columbia news, views & reviews added the commentary and arrows pointing to the sign.) Notice, though, the sign in the foreground: NO FISHING ON DECK. What Lancaster County kid of certain generations did not swim in the signless “crick” or the watering hole that could have been the Susquehanna or any other river? Wonder whether the phrase “attractive nuisance” ought to be considered?

Cornell University’s Law School definition of an attractive nuisance is: “A dangerous condition on a landowner’s property that may attract children onto the land and may involve risk or harm to their safety. Because child trespassers may not appreciate the risks that the dangerous condition poses, landowners have the duty to either eliminate that danger or make it inaccessible to trespassing children.”

• Google’s home page joins the world’s attention as it turns to Brazil for the World Cup

• “Researchers have identified a way for Pennsylvania to save money on state government operations: reduce corruption.” – Harrisburg Patriot-News

• Flag Day celebration in Columbia on Saturday – LancasterOnLine

• Presidential Proclamation – Flag Day and National Flag Week, 2014 – Flag Day is Saturday, June 14

• Monday is Story Time at the Library