Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Incident on East High Street gives residents a scare

Residents in the 500 block of East High Street near C.R.'s Friendly Market were on edge last night after the Elizabethtown Police Department called in the Lancaster County Special Emergency Response Team.

At about 8 p.m., police had received a report of a male entering an apartment with a shotgun and loading it as he approached the entrance to the apartment, according to a news release from the police department.

Officers tried to contact the resident of the apartment by phone but were unsuccessful and requested assistance from SERT.

While preparing to enter the apartment, the suspect exited the apartment and was taken into custody. The male was a friend of the apartment's resident. There was also another female in the apartment.

Police interviewed both individuals and determined that the male had taken a shotgun, which he owned, into the apartment but it was not loaded in the parking lot area.

No charges were filed and the police and SERT cleared the scene at about 11 p.m.

Elizabethtown Police were also assisted by officers from Mount Joy, Northwest Regional Police Department and Pennsylvania State Police.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Changes coming to Elizabethtown in 2011

With the start of 2011, it's been a relatively quiet time for Elizabethtown Borough Council. That said, the borough has a number of projects in the works (all of them funded through grants and not your local property taxes) for the year.

The most visible ones are the Elizabethtown Train Station, left, which is on schedule to be completed this month. Some before and after pictures of the interior of the historic train station and some exterior views are below. It really is a stunning difference and a huge improvement for Elizabethtown.

Other projects that will get started this year include the extension of West College Avenue. Bids for the project have been forwarded to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for review, and last Thursday Borough Council  authorized the borough manager to file and execute documents with PennDOT for the project. The goal is for the construction to begin in March for the 18-month project.

Interior of the train station before renovations.
In addition, Center Square is going to see nearly $220,000 in improvements, such as new trash and recycling receptacles, benches, stone planters, umbrellas and bike racks.

Center Square also will see some other significant changes. As part of a traffic signal improvement project, left-turn lanes on High Street will be added. To accommodate the lanes, and to meet PennDOT requirements, Borough Council voted to eliminate parking on East and West High Street beyond Peach and Cherry allies, respectively. Although motorists now create turn lanes there, it is a dangerous -- and illegal -- maneuver.

In response to comments from the owner of Highlander Cleaners, which has 10-minute parking spots in front of the business that have been eliminated, Borough Council has created two 10-minute parking spots in the municipal parking lot next to the dry cleaner and also in the municipal parking lot on East High Street.

These changes and improvements are part of a signal synchronization project with Mount Joy and West Donegal townships to install new traffic signals at all intersections in the region, from Cloverleaf Road at Route 283 all the way through the borough and up to the intersection at Route 743, Holly Street and Mount Gretna Road.