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

Quote for today … “Now, suppose that this practice was adopted more broadly. Imagine that all those working for the federal government decided that they should have the right to do what Clinton has done. (That’s roughly 4.2 million people, by the way.) Or suppose that state and local officials (another 15 million people) also took the view that what is good enough for Mrs Clinton is good enough for them.” – extracted from this Conversation article about Hillary Clinton’s private email accounts.

• Let’s face it, certain people in government love to do business undercover. Ever wonder why Columbia’s elected public servants don’t have their email accounts with the borough’s Comcast account? Every wonder why their email addresses are not listed with their phone numbers? Heck, by using personal email accounts rather than official government accounts, conversations never happened.

Doesn’t matter – today is a longer day of daylight and warmer days are coming! Sunrise at 7:31 am and sunset at 7:07 pm today.

• We’re one of them – out of 196 countries in the world only 70 countries observe Daylight Savings Time. “In United States it began today, “on the second Sunday of March at 02:00 AM. And it ends on the first Sunday of November at 03:00 AM by setting clocks back to 02:00 AM.” – daylightsavingstimechange.org

• Underdogs win first in battle for state crown – PennLive

• “Celebrate Pennsylvania’s 334th Birthday with Free Admission to PA Trails of History Sites and Museums”

• Another Summit Street Properties acquisition – 231 South Second Street

• “Readability is a website that pulls the content from any page and shows it to you in a nice, readable format, removing all the ads, navigation, etc.  Since it uses it’s own servers to render the page content, it’s not actually your browser that is requesting the content.”

• BUT … packernet.com offers “Tips for Avoiding paywalls.”

• York County inspections – The York Dispatch

• Lancaster County inspections – Lancaster OnLine – Read the comments following the article. Comments like this one: “It’s easily the dirtiest restaurant I’ve ever stepped into. I’ve visited twice. Once two years ago when the food was disappointing, but the bathroom was full of feces on the floor which force me to go outside and get sick.” Yep, it’s the Black Knight in Landisville; that place continues to get lots and lots of “no-no’s”

• “Filthy restrooms, mouse droppings (in a York County School cafeteria): Check out how your restaurant fares in inspections” – Harrisburg’s Patriot-News website has started listing restaurant inspections from five central PA counties.

• A complete listing of all inspections at food serving facilities in Lancaster, York counties and the entire state, except those in Columbia – Columbia persists in having its own inspection system with its own forms and inspection items – rather than the one used statewide, is available at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Website.

• Explosive population growth for the area: “Lancaster County is ranked second with a projected growth of 23.6 percent, increasing its population by 122,370 residents.” – What’s that say for Columbia? Read this Pennsylvania State Data Center Research Brief. It’s a certainty; even the charrette can see that.

• What’s that you say? You weren’t invited to the charrette? “A charrette is an intensive planning session where citizens, designers and others collaborate on a vision for development. It provides a forum for ideas and offers the unique advantage of giving immediate feedback to the designers. More importantly, it allows everyone who participates to be a mutual author of the plan.” In this town, the challenge is to be invited to the charrette. Are you a GOBAG?
  

• The old adage about dragging them “kicking and screaming” into whatever, rings true.

• Posts at the Columbia Police Department facebook page. About the promised SNOW EMERGENCY? No. At 7:02 am, the Borough Website shows the Borough is under SNOW EMERGENCY.

• 2:37 pm – Sunday afternoon … SNOW EMERGENCY still in effect according to the Borough Website

• sometime between the above time and 4:46 pm – Sunday afternoon … SNOW emergency lifted according to the Borough Website

• seven minutes earlier (around 2:30 pm), the Columbia Police Department posted a notice lifting the SNOW EMERGENCY. There’s no time of the lifting of the Snow Emergency – nor is any authority given. Just a statement that says “The SNOW EMERGENCY in Columbia Borough has been lifted.” – U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E! By whom?

• Oh, where o’ where shall Columbia’s citizens and visitors go to find accurate, authoritative, timely information?

• They could look to the ordinances (if the ordinances were followed): “The snow emergency shall continue in full force and effect until the Emergency Coordinator declares it to be over in the same manner as it was declared. The announcement of the commencement time and termination time of a snow emergency may be made simultaneously by the Emergency Coordinator in place of or in addition to any announcement of termination.”