Tim Hawk | For NJ.com – “Regina Petrilyak, of Hazelton, Pa., wears an Underdog costume as she tailgates before the NFC Championship Game against the Vikings at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Sunday, Jan. 21, 2018.”
From Governor Tom Wolf’s Twitter feed – “The 
on the road to victory!
Yesterday at the shopping center just east of town on 462.
One of your elected public servants in Wonderland plays the “blame game.” Watch his video message: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrTb3kpt4Q8&feature=youtu.be
When leaders fail to act; do they “practice to deceive?” –
A commenter to Columbia news, views & reviews makes this observation: “Not to mention the death of LOCAL news. It’s only sights like this one that keep us informed. Since it’s your sight, you’re free to jump into national politics but that’s not why I come here. Your efforts are appreciated.”
So, Columbia news, views & reviews is kind of like a poor man’s one-man band. There are no reporters paid to report the news. There is no income stream; in fact, it costs us money to have and maintain the www.columbianewsandviews.com website.
We began this initiative on March 1, 2011 with this as our guiding premise: “This ‘online publication’ is intended to be an information source for the people who live in, shop in, work in and visit Columbia, PA. Columbia news, views & reviews intends to share relevant and topical information about Columbia, PA. Send news releases, comments, ideas, photos and events to 17512@mail.com.”
“A few years ago, someone coined the term, ‘citizen journalism.’ In essence, citizen journalism describes a news and information platform which is built when community members submit their articles, their coming events, their photos, their videos and their ideas to the information provider. In short, the citizens of the community are sharing their local news. This is not at all unique … it’s being done by the larger-base media, local television and newspaper now.”
Because editing Columbia news, views & reviews is not the only thing we do, the demands for our time, and yours, are taken up with real life stuff like family; a job; tasks (cleaning, yard work, car work, etc., etc.); volunteering; meetings and so on. We try to have first person reporting on local news (borough meetings, school board meetings; events; store openings, etc.) but frankly, we rely on citizen input.
Sometimes the reporting here deals with regional, national and international news. Sometimes it deals with opinions. Our intent with this genre of “information” is to make a point about an issue that we feel is tangentially or directly related to our mantra of “to share relevant and topical information about Columbia, PA.”
We hope people who live, work, visit or plan to visit Columbia will get some local information from active, transparent, dynamic, current and updated information sources. We submit that Columbia news, views & reviews and Columbia Spy do just that.
Both these local news sources, however, rely on your input, news submissions and suggestions. Heck, even the news resources with paid reporters, writers and correspondents rely on citizen involvement. We need you.
We do get more than a few “news tips.” Though, we do not report every one of them because, frankly, there’s just not enough time to research or ferret out all sides of the issue.
We’d love to know if there’s truth about to the rumbling of a brew pub coming to the vacant fire station on Front Street.
We’d love to know what happened to the rumbling that a brew pub was going to occupy the vacant old fire station on Fourth Street.
We’d love to know more about the often cited entities who are showing interest in the Hotel Locust/Hotel Columbia property.
We’d love to be on the distribution list of “news releases” from the borough, school district, police department … but aren’t.
We’d love to get reports on the inspections of places serving food in the borough without having to pay for them.
We’d love to know about that food truck that parks at 50 Lancaster Avenue. Has the borough food serving licensing apparatus inspected it? Is is legally parked? Does its owner have the requisite borough approvals? Does it pay taxes to the borough in any form; it competes with Columbia’s brick and mortar food serving establishments.
We’d love to know about lots of rumblings that, frankly, should be posted at Community Websites but aren’t. Heck, one of these community websites is seldom updated at all.
On the other hand,
We do love to get news releases from the Columbia Public Library, the National Watch and Clock Museum, Turkey Hill and lots of other enterprises.
We do love it when citizens do send news items for publication.
We love to get reader comments.
Columbia news, views & reviews 