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
How about you start spending our money more wisely and lower our taxes.
Wants or needs? Boosting egos or helping residents?
Why not a real rec center for the community instead of a pedestrian bridge across the river? Which one would help residents more?
Please define what you mean by "When all was good?" It's not 1918 anymore.
How do you suggest the pathetic people chip in? Maybe they should have chipped in and bought Hotel Locust.
Residents are paying for services and therefore they must pay attention and ask questions about the spending of their money. If they disagree with those decisions, then yes, they should complain.
It time for the elected officials to remember who they are serving. It's past time for them to stop berating residents.
I'm not sure I always agree with these kinds of projects, but if we have a vacant building that isn't generating any revenue for the borough or schools, we have to find some way to turn things around--we have to. Can we really afford 300 bucks from vacant properties, if we even get that, when we could realize so much more? Look at the school side, that were the tax burden in Columbia really is--with these numbers, you are looking at just over a thousand v. a quarter million.
Again, before anyone yells at me here, I'm not always comfortable with the idea of government-assisted projects, but i'm not sure the numbers lie either. We have a tax problem- our tax base is not growing, that means the average homeowner has to keep on footing the bill. We need to figure out a way around that. We can't lower the taxes to try to encourage investment here and just sitting back and doing nothing hasn't seemed to work in the past 50 years. It does seem that some of the activity with the antiques, trail, breweries, and so on is encouraging other private investment, but maybe some things need a nudge, I don't know...