Law enforcement in Columbia park
A letter to the editor in today's LancasterOnline:
http://lancasteronline.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/law-enforcement-in-columbia-park/article_6ae247ae-74d5-11e4-abc4-2ba060976743.html
Columbia's decision to ban former employee from its property may be 'unconstitutional' [Lancaster Watchdog]
Chris Vera [Columbia Spy file photo] The following information is excerpted from a December 6, 2025 LNP Watchdog article by LNP | LancasterOnline reporter Jade Campos. Still reeling from an abrupt firing from his role as head of the Columbia Market House in March, Chris Vera was surprised to get a letter in the mail from a Columbia Borough attorney two weeks later telling him he was banned indefinitely from borough property. The letter gave no reason for the ban. Nine months later, Vera, who has served as president of the Columbia Historic Preservation Society for more than a decade and has helped with the borough’s comprehensive plan, is still banned from borough property. He believes the ban includes borough parks, which is part of the reason he moved his annual Albatwitch Day festival, which celebrates the myth of a local cryptid, to Wrightsville. Vera said he’s not sure why the borough went to such lengths to keep him away from public spaces given his termination from the borough s...
Comments
Everyone has an opinion about how the police should do the job, but like most it is armchair quarterbacking without a clue.
This is real world not Mayberry.
http://munstatspa.dced.state.pa.us/ReportViewer.aspx?R=MuniPolice&MunicipalityId=360273&rendering=H
--fmb
Figure 3 shifts a day, and with days off, vacations, training, court dates, etc., you aren't going to have many officers on duty at any one given time.
Even if there were more on duty, they still need their cars. Sorry, but a cop without a car is useless in a town this size.
--FMB
Funny you don't see any of our officers quitting because they are over-worked, short handed, too dangerous of a community or because they are being shot at daily. They have it way to good here, they NEVER quit in this borough and none of them live here but 1 or 2. Let's not even start talking about their pension AND benefits! If you want to speak on this topic, do your homework!
Perhaps you should get a better job instead of trying to drag everybody else down. If it is so easy and lucrative, why don't you hire out? Even if you do 2 shifts per day, you still are at 8 officers max. Now account for days off, court dates, sick/vacation time, etc, and you are knocking at maybe half of that at times. Get 2 or 3 calls going at once, and you are stretching a force pretty thin. Yes, these officers deserve to get paid more than minimum wage. 70,000 isn't a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.
--FMB
PS. Stop it with the constant capitalization of random words and exclamation point abuse. You sound like a 14 year old x-box user.
York City school teachers are finding this out right now, they'll either work for the new charter schools for less money & benefits or be unemployed. With the republicans running this country former civil service jobs will be run by private co. This appears to be the only way to rein in the rediculous compensation of these emmployees.
--fmb