When Lancaster County Assistant District Attorney Monica Mosely told the Lancaster County Commissioners that there was a real need for three more Youth Aid Panels in the city and township, NewsLanc was curious as to how the panels were working in other parts of the county. Mosley said the rest of the county was adequately covered, so NewsLanc checked with Ephrata about their youth aid panel.

“So far in 2008, we have taken ten juveniles through the youth aid panel who otherwise would have gone through the criminal justice system,” Ephrata Mayor Ralph E. Mowen said. “It has been our experience in the past that on many occasions the juveniles were not being held accountable especially on minor, summary violations. The parents usually paid the fine and nothing happened to the juvenile. In some cases, I suppose, the juvenile paid the parent back through chores at home but I’m not positive of that.”

In Ephrata, the disposition of the juveniles through the youth aid panel is based on many considerations. “A few of the factors are age of the juvenile, type of crime, amount of planning or lack of planning and victim impact,” Mowen explained. “The majority of juvenile crimes we have seen this year are retail thefts of items with little value.”

“They have generally been given twenty hours community service. The community service is usually at the Ephrata Recreation Center or the library. We also request they do a report on the affects of retail theft, to society, themselves and parents. We also ask them to explore their future. If they want to go to college we make them meet with their counselor and come back with a plan. If they want to get in to a High School Vo-tech study, we ask them to meet with their counselor to determine if they qualify and/or find what they need to do to qualify.”

The mayor added that “Most of the feedback we are getting when these juveniles come back in for their exit interview is very positive.”

Mayor Mowen also added that he is always looking for community volunteers to serve on the Ephrata Youth Aid Panel.

Is “puppy love” unrequited due to the scarcity and high cost of acquiring a pet?

It may be because buying a puppy from a pet store in Lancaster County seems impossible these days.

A telephone survey by NewsLanc to six major pet stores in the area found no puppies for sale, although many other forms of pets are available. Clerks on the phone could not explain why they don’t offer puppies. They did suggest that a puppy could be found by checking classifieds or at the Lancaster Humane Society.

No one suggested a purchase from a farm.

A check of the classifieds show Boxer pups offered at $500, Bulldogs at $1500, Great Danes for $750, and Yorkshire Terriers at $700. Labrador Retrievers vary from $200 to $400.

At the Humane League of Lancaster County, 2195 Lincoln Highway East, puppies are available for $175. Joan Brown, President and CEO, said that the cost includes spay or neutering, microchiping, and initial veterinary care. Older dogs cost less, but include all the same services.

While many of the county’s puppy farms are professionally operated and licensed, there are others that are described as “puppy mills” based upon operating standards that their critics consider low. Thus “puppy mill” has come to have a perjorative connotation.

Puppy farms have a majority of female dogs and produce as many puppies as practical.

Most operate as a wholesale operation, selling their puppies to “brokers.” These brokers then sell the dogs in and out of Pennsylvania. Some do sell retail or direct to consumers.

To prevent purchasing from a farm that might mistreat its puppies, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture offers its Dog Kennel Inspection reports online.

“Pennsylvania is taking action to improve consumer knowledge and provide better care for dogs in kennels across the state,” Governor Ed Rendell said last year when the state’s database went online. “This new access to kennel inspection records will help consumers know the conditions of kennels – where they might purchase a dog or board their dog while they travel – so they can make better decisions about the welfare of their pets.”

Does watching everyone, everywhere all the time with cameras deter crime, or at least reveal it before criminals can escalate or escape?

Obviously. There’s absolutely no argument that could say otherwise.

But, does that inherently make it the right thing to do?

Is blanket surveillance of the population, in a free society, the right way to fight crime? Is it fair and constitutional to the law-abiding citizen that they be monitored and recorded every moment that they are going about their business? Is a ratcheted-up Nanny State, acting as baby-sitter, a valid solution to problems whose real roots lie in socio-economic, educational and cultural disparities that remain unaddressed, and thus unchanged?

Or, are we simply abrogating our personal responsibility as citizens to collectively shoulder the burden of maintaining a civil society?

…. To read the rest of this letter, click here.

Michael J. Devaney, Manager of the Bureau of Solid Waste and Recycling, is conducting an anti-litter crusade through increased placement of downtown trash receptacles.

The new trash receptacles are not just placed on the street corners. To Devaney, there is a much better way.

“I’ve actually watched people,” Devaney says. “And I know where they will drop their trash. It’s about 25 steps from the source.”

Therefore, trash cans are strategically placed close to what creates the city’s trash, such as a restaurant or convenience store.

Lancasterians with sharp eyesight will notice subtle changes. Those older, wire trash receptacles have been replaced with newer, streetscape-compatible units. The new trash cans cost $800.

The old units are currently being refurbished, and will soon be installed in other sections of the city.

NewsLanc has added the latest copy of the proposed Lancaster County Charter to this site. Dated May 6, 2008, The Final Report and Proposed Home Rule Charter for County Government submitted to the Citizens of Lancaster County by the Lancaster County Government Study Commission is available by clicking here.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education confirmed to NewsLanc that two investigations of alleged cheating at School District of Lancaster are currently ongoing.

“A PSSA security breach is certainly a lot more than a personnel issue. It can be grounds for suspension of an education certificate,” said Michael Race, assistant press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

“The department has in the past taken certification action against educators who have violated the test procedures,” Race confirmed. “In some cases, that has meant suspension of certification. Obviously, a certification action would be a personnel issue in the sense it could impact the employment status of school personnel. If you lose your certification, you can’t teach.”

Each spring, as part of the federal No Child Left Behind act, local students take the PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment) tests.

In a press release issued Wednesday, May 29, SDL confirmed that the alleged cheating involved their personnel, and not student cheating.

It is not uncommon for a venue to have open beam ceilings, presuming they and the ceiling are painted black. (Long Beach CC for instance.) With show lighting, the ceiling disappears.

This assumes that the beams are load-bearing to sustain the weight of the trusses for the show lighting. The ideal is to have catwalks running within the trusses for lighting and facilitate rigging.

Venues with finished ceilings (such as Opryland) have ports in the ceiling (like grommets) through which the riggers have access to the steel (with catwalks.)

Without catwalks, the rigging time is quadrupled, and scissor lifts must be brought in. No mysteries, standard procedures.

If there are no catwalks in the early steel construction, it is not “state of the art.”

The School District of Lancaster declines to discuss what they describe as “possible PSSA testing protocol violations” on the basis “The results of any investigations are a personnel matter and cannot be shared with the public.”

“Personnel matter” as we understand the term relates to the performance of employees in accordance with the policies and guidelines of their employers. But purposefully providing government officials with incorrect information is either a misdemeanor or a felony offense against the State law.*

If indeed the law has been broken and administrators and / or faculty members at Wickersham Elementary School are under suspicion, is this any more a “personnel matter” to be concealed from the public eye than if there was a likelihood that thousands of dollars had been stolen?

We believe that suspicion of breaking of laws on the part of school personnel should not be exempted from disclosure based on it being a “personnel” matter. This isn’t an issue of incompetence or infraction of school regulations. This is a matter of crime against the state!

And if there is reason to believe that a misdemeanor or felony may have been committed, those suspected should be suspended, perhaps with pay, pending their exoneration or dismissal.

Stealing money would be a property crime. But falsifying scores to misrepresent achievement levels of students is to deprive youngsters of the education they deserve!

*State Statute:

§ 4911. Tampering with public records or information.
(a) Offense defined.–A person commits an offense if he:
1. knowingly makes a false entry in, or false alteration of, any record, document or thing belonging to, or received or kept by, the government for information or record, or required by law to be kept by others for information of the government;
2. makes, presents or uses any record, document or thing knowing it to be false, and with intent that it be taken as a genuine part of information or records referred to in paragraph (1) of this subsection; or
3. intentionally and unlawfully destroys, conceals, removes or otherwise impairs the verity or availability of any such record, document or thing.
(b) Grading.–An offense under this section is a misdemeanor of the second degree unless the intent of the actor is to defraud or injure anyone, in which case the offense is a felony of the third degree.

LANCASTER POST, May 30, asks “One law for the rich and connected, another law for the rest of us?” The article goes on to reveal a burglary that took place when, in the middle of the night, celebrating F & M college students discovered a door left open at the Iron Hill Brewery and helped themselves to several bottles of liquor. As a side bar to the article, the Post reveals a letter from John Fry, President of F & M, “threatening legal action if Post News Editor, Ron Harper, Jr. stepped on F & M property.”

WATCHDOG: Although in covering the story NewsLanc would have omitted the names of the students, the issue is legitimate as to whether the same relatively light punishment and opportunity to have their record expunged would have been offered to other young people under similar circumstances.

NewsLanc is not privy to what so offended Fry, but wonders if he overreacted. It is natural for him to want to protect students from potentially career altering consequences for a thoughtless college prank. But a free press also serves an important role in furthering democracy.

Perhaps even more culpable and subject to revocation of their liquor license is the Iron Hill Brewery. The Liquor Control Board would not take lightly a licensed outlet leaving a door open over night, especially one located under a college dormitory.

And also of interest, what was Fry thinking when he approved the location of a brewery restaurant on the ground floor of a college upper division housing unit?

Whoever wrote the watchdog item regarding the “Second Chances” halfway house for sex offenders needs to do a little honest research into the lifelong effects (all of them negative) of sexual assault. There are many therapists, faith-based and community-based programs, and victims themselves who I am certain would be glad to provide true, factual information, and who would paint a different picture than the cavalier, dismissive attitude displayed by this writer.

Sexual assault on a child is NOT a “premature sexual experience”! I state with certainty that NO small child dreams of having their first sexual experience be a forced, violent one at the hands of a stranger!

As for the resultant damage being “neither fatal or, in most case (sic), likely to have lasting results”, I can name six fatal child abduction rape/murders in recent years by name without breaking a sweat. Megan’s Law is named for one of them. As for the likelihood of “lasting results”, it is obvious that the writer was not molested as a child. Well, praise God for that!

Those of us who were not so fortunate would have written your Watchdog item in a very different tone and with very different choice of words. You see, we think something that has impacts the rest of your life could rightly be said to have “lasting results”. This is not an issue of Puritanical views. This is not an issue of “fear and sex”, if you mean NORMAL, HEALTHY, CONSENSUAL SEX! This is about parents wanting their children to be safe, and to be able to just be children. This is about protecting children from perversion and predators.

I appreciate wild animals. I respect their right to exist and go about their business. I am a vegan. I am no threat to them in the least. But I would not want a family of black bears living in the trees behind my house. I would want them relocated to State Game Lands, where they would be safe and my kids would be safe to play outside.

I appreciate that men who have finished their sentences and paid their debt to society need to have a place to re-integrate. But just as I would not want an recovering alcoholic to be given a job as a bartender, a jewel thief to be handed a job at Tiffany’s, I do not want recovering sex offenders dropped into the middle of the community in an apartment building housing other people and their children, who have rights at least equal to the offenders’!

Editor’s note: The context for “premature sexual experience” was as follows: “Though not meaning to belittle the seriousness of involving children in premature sexual experiences, we believe far greater and lasting damages results from psychological abuse, assault, reckless driving, criminal neglect, and murder.”