Due to larger than normal attendance expected, the location of the May 26, 2026 Columbia Borough Council meeting will be held at the Columbia Borough Fire Hall, 726 Manor Street, Columbia.
[Source: Council President Eric Kauffman]
Thursday, May 21, 2026
Monday, May 18, 2026
Deeds Recorded — Columbia Borough — May 18, 2026
Hunt Cory, Hunt Mary conveyed 855 Lancaster Ave. to Yaricer Diaz for $160,000.
Buchanan Alex B, Hatch Kaley R, Buchanan Kaley conveyed 227 N. Third St. to Mousley Christopher, Darcas Emme for $245,000.
Clyde Investments LLC conveyed 20 N. Seventh St. to Bedolla Elizabeth, Bedolla Reyes for $230,000.
JDW Property Solutions Inc. conveyed 601 Manor St. to Kolsovsky Kodie C, Kolsovsky Alexa for $230,000.
Sapone Deana M, Cannon Deana M, Gaugler Deana M, Gaugler David conveyed 37 S. Eighth St. to Sahm Amy L, Sahm David K. for $232,000.
Yohe Wayne A. Jr., Yohe Toni Lynn conveyed 370 Kinderhook Road to Wayne A. Yohe Jr. for $1.
Columbia Borough receives single bid of $6.35 million for former McGinness property
JOE LINTNER | COLUMBIA SPY
Columbia Borough has received one bid for the sale of 41 acres of the former McGinness property at 1020 Manor Street. The bid proposal, submitted by Saadia Holding LLC, is in the amount of $6,350,000, which exceeds the minimum required bid of $6.2 million by $150,000.
Evan Gabel, borough solicitor, opened and reviewed the proposal with borough officials at a public meeting at Borough Hall on Monday morning, May 18. The package included documentation on the organization and project team, a land use proposal with scope of work, estimated job creation figures, a financing section, community benefits, traffic impact analysis, a project timeline, and a sketch plan.
The company has also committed to providing the required 4% deposit within 10 days. "We have everything we need to consider this a responsive bid," Gabel said.
Borough Council will hold an executive session Monday, May 18, at 7 p.m. to discuss the proposal. A decision on the bid is expected to be made at the regular council meeting on Tuesday, May 26, at 7 p.m. at Borough Hall.
In early 2026, Columbia Borough Council announced a Request for Proposals for the purchase and redevelopment of 41.388 acres at the site. The RFP, officially released on March 30, 2026, sought an experienced developer to purchase and transform the property into a development that would expand the borough's tax base and create jobs.
Columbia Memorial Day Ceremony and Parade to be held Sunday, May 24
The Columbia Memorial Day Ceremony and Parade will be held at noon Sunday, May 24. Theme: “Honoring All Columbia Fallen Veterans.” Event kicks off with Bainbridge Band patriotic concert in Locust Street Park in the gazebo, followed by a Memorial Day parade at 2:30 p.m.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
About Town — May 17, 2026
This week's photos of Columbia
The first two blocks of Walnut Street will be closed for a few months, just in time for the 300th anniversary celebration and the Chip Factory hotel opening. Couldn't the construction have waited a while?
Here's a celebratory banner at the Columbia Historic Preservation Society on the first block of North 2nd. Across the street is the new hotel. This block will be affected — indirectly — by the Walnut Street closure.
Click on photos to see larger, sharper images.
JOE LINTNER | COLUMBIA SPY
Salem United Church of Christ at 324 Walnut St., believed to be the oldest church in Columbia, will close its doors after 220 years, the result of declining membership and attendance.
The congregation was founded by German immigrants in 1803 on land donated by one of the town's founders, with the current brick building completed in 1860. Once drawing 75 to 100 worshippers on Sundays in its 1970s and '80s heyday, with the final service on May 24, Pentecost Sunday, which fittingly symbolizes new beginnings.
The property will transfer to the Keystone Conference UCC, which will determine next steps, and congregants are welcome to join Trinity Reformed United Church of Christ in Mountville, about 10 minutes away.
Salem served the Columbia community through food distribution, free dinners, and hosting organizations including Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Rivertown Pride Center, and 12-step programs. The church was also notably Open and Affirming, welcoming LGBTQ+ members. Pastor Mark Harris, who has led the congregation for nine years, reflected that Salem's blend of tradition, history, and inclusivity is "rare in churches today." [Source:LNP/LancasterOnline]
This would be a good time to reinstate the name of this armory to the "Gen. Edw. C. Shannon Armory," considering it's Wrights Ferry/Columbia's 300th anniversary, and the town's in a "history mood."
Meanwhile, on the 200 block of Locust
You gotta act right.
Students' Arbor Day art
A juvenile mourning dove in the morning
It's not mourning, though. Just taking a bath
What's that price again?
Peonies galore . . .
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The Daniel Bus at Tollbooth Antiques . . .
Also at Tollbooth: part of a lift (?)
Sparrow, apparently content
This tree grate on Locust has become a tripping hazard.
There were free pony rides at the Market House on Saturday.
And there are the ponies.
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A road crew fixed that nasty pothole on the 100 block of North 5th Street (Route 462) after a resident reported it to PennDOT.
What happened at McGinness?
A rolled grass seed mat was added to the dirt piles from last week.
Then, one day, everything was gone.
The apartment building project on South 9th is going full force.
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Parking restrictions are coming up at River Park.
Birdwatchers were at River Park the other day, no doubt watching for falcons under the bridge. While there, they couldn't have missed . . .
a goose invasion . . . !
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Columbia Curiosities always has a unique window display.
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Observations on Columbia's finances: What officials might not want you to know
Dearest Gentle Reader,
First of all, your dedicated correspondent must thank the Columbia Spy for the privilege of publishing her column in this space, which will now appear weekly on Sunday mornings and will focus on the doings in Columbia in this, its 300th year.
And now, it is with a heart most tenderly divided — between the keenest anxiety and the most cautious optimism — that your devoted correspondent takes up her quill to address the matter of Columbia Borough's financial affairs. The present circumstances demand not merely attention, but earnest contemplation.
Let us begin with the unvarnished truth: with a budget of over $9 million required to sustain Borough operations and yet a total of only $2.3 million presently in hand, one need not possess the mathematical acumen of a Cambridge scholar to perceive that the ledgers are in considerable distress. One notes, with charitable restraint, that the Borough has been conducting its fiscal affairs entirely without the guidance of a finance manager for several months past.
In February of this year, the Borough Council voted unanimously to seek a bridge loan of $2 million to carry the municipality through the treacherous financial waters of early 2026. This, following a tax increase to 10 mills in 2024 that proved insufficient. Whether said loan was ultimately approved remains unclear.
The previous year closed with a shortfall exceeding one million dollars. Rather than raise taxes, the Council drew upon reserves — reducing them to a mere $300,000, a figure officials themselves have called "uncomfortably low." Your correspondent would suggest that is a phrase of considerable understatement.
Among the Borough's additional financial obligations: the Columbia Market House continues to operate at a loss since its multi-million dollar renovation and 2019 reopening, with Council Vice President Heather Zink suggesting it shall remain "in the red" for the foreseeable future. The Columbia Crossing building requires $500,000 in repairs. The recently acquired Ridge Avenue property will demand several millions more to ready it as the Borough sheds. And a series of municipal bonds (originally $9 million) taken out a decade ago remain outstanding. The list continues.
Further unsettling news arrives in the form of Truist Bank, which shall depart Columbia Borough on July 28, 2026, leaving the community without a banking institution. One council member said this is the third time in ten years in which a bank has left the Borough. Most remarkable is the Council President's candid admission that he is uncertain how one attracts a replacement bank, or indeed whose responsibility that task might be. One hopes clarity on this matter arrives before July.
And yet, your correspondent insists upon this point: Not all is doom and gloom. Borough officials are actively pursuing several avenues of relief: the sale of the former McGinness property, for which bids (if any) will be opened on Monday, May 18th with a minimum of $6.2 million; the sale of Borough sheds and the former Front Street firehouse; and the long-anticipated receipt of $1.75 million in state RACP funds for the Market House — though hopes for that particular sum diminish with each passing season.
Should these transactions proceed favorably, a large tax increase may yet be avoided for 2027, and Columbia Borough may find itself upon considerably firmer ground.
(This correspondent must also note with sadness the impending closure of Historic Salem United Church of Christ on Walnut Street — founded in 1803 and the oldest congregation in the Borough — which shall merge with Trinity UCC in Mountville after more than two centuries of faithful presence in Columbia.)
In short, the challenges are real and they are serious. But communities of character have navigated troubled waters before, and this correspondent has every confidence that Columbia possesses the resolve to see it through.
With warmest regards and the most vigilant of quills,
Your Most Devoted Correspondent,
Lady Whistletown
P.S.,The views expressed herein are offered in the spirit of civic transparency and community concern, with no malice toward any individual — only the deepest affection for Columbia Borough and all who call it home.
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Columbia Borough School District offers lessons about how to ensure schoolkids get vaccinated [editorial] | Our Opinion | lancasteronline.com
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Vaccination rates for measles, mumps and rubella vary among Lancaster County students, but one local school district is setting the standard: Columbia Borough School District. Pennsylvania requires schoolchildren to be vaccinated against tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (chickenpox), hepatitis B and bacterial meningitis, but exemptions are available.
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. But thanks to dangerous and misguided anti-vaccination forces, measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases are making a comeback.
While 94% of the kindergartners at Park Elementary School, Columbia’s sole elementary school, were vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella for the 2024-25 school year, 100% of Columbia seventh and 12th graders had received both doses of the MMR vaccine.
One-hundred percent.
In discussing this achievement, former Columbia Superintendent Bob Hollister pointed to the tight-knit nature of the Columbia Borough School District community.
The day you move into Columbia, he observed to LNP | LancasterOnline, “you’re a Columbian. So they do ... look out for one another.” This has led to a “sort of a community incentive to keep everyone healthy.”
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