Take a good look - you're paying for it!

Take a good look at the painting being done on Tuesday at the Columbia Water Company. 

You're paying for the paint and the painter.

River Park - Is anyone paying attention at all?

Columbia Spy was surprised to learn that the women's room at Columbia Crossing was once again locked today - at about 5:45 p.m., even though the men's room was unlocked (as shown in the video above).  A woman present (from out of town) had to use the men's room, much the same as yesterday morning when the women's room was locked but the men's was not. It is our understanding that the restrooms are to be unlocked from dawn until dusk. (Yesterday morning, the Spy found an unattended handgun in the men's room and contacted police.)  

 Also yesterday morning, two self-tapping screws, like the one shown above, were found outside the restrooms, as were numerous metal shavings (among the dead mayflies).

 Evidently, card/fob readers were recently installed on the exterior of the restrooms. Shoddy workmanship is apparent, as with the abandoned screw hole and scratches in the paint shown in the photo above.

 This door latch was also found outside the restrooms.

Columbia Borough needs to take a more proactive stance in addressing such problems at the Columbia Crossing building.  Pick a plan for the restrooms, post a schedule, and stick with it. The discarded hardware was removed but should not have been left lying around in the first place. Finally, leaving the handgun lying around was irresponsible and unforgivable. It could quite easily have become an instrument of tragedy.

Mayfly-bridge issue on cracked.com

The mayfly issue on the Veterans Memorual Bridge has apparently made it to cracked.com:

http://www.cracked.com/article_22696_the-14-most-insane-things-happening-right-now-623_p9.html

'Little Bigfoot' known for stealing apples in Columbia: Monsters of Pennsylvania

A creature that seems more myth than mystery, and sounds like a miniature Bigfoot, will be the centerpiece of the Albatwitch Festival from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, in Columbia, Lancaster County.

Sightings of the albatwitch - reportedly a very slender, 4- to 5-foot-tall, ape-like creature covered in reddish-brown hair - date back 400 or 500 years to the Susquehannock Indians.

MORE:
http://blog.pennlive.com/wildaboutpa/2015/06/second_annual_albatwitch_festi.html

Service Wednesday night at Mt Zion AME Church

Is it slumping?

Columbia Spy hopes someone is keeping an eye on the structure at 208-210 Locust Street.  In our humble, non-scientific, subjective opinion, the building appears to have slumped a bit on the left side, near the second-story window (even allowing for lens distortion).  

This photograph was taken today:

INVASION! Mayflies swarm by the thousands at Columbia Plaza

At last night's meeting of the whole it was discussed how turning off the lights on the Veterans Memorial Bridge lured swarms of mayflies to lights "further inland." The following video, taken at about 10 o'clock last night, shows thousands of mayflies swarming around lights in the Columbia Plaza parking lot and falling to the asphalt below.