Former Christiana Police Chief Honored for Service

By Marcella Peyre-ferry

PEYRE-FERRY

Correspondent

To kick off Tuesday’s borough council meeting, former Christiana Borough police Chief Thomas Edmundson was honored for his 20 years of service to the community with the presentation of a citation from the state House of Representatives.

Stuart Nelson, aide to state Rep. Bryan Cutler, presented the official citation to Edmundson.

Edmundson also received a plaque from the Christiana American Legion – the organization’s distinguished citizens award. The award was originally intended to be presented last week at the Legion’s Awareness Day event, but Edmundson had been unavailable to attend that occasion.

“I do have to say, I like working here,” Edmundson said. “I like the people here, and I can say that I’ve probably had the longest honeymoon of any police chief that ever served in Lancaster County.”

At last month’s meeting, the council members had discussed bringing the borough’s curfew siren back into service. However, after an inspection, it appears that the mechanism was damaged sometime during the past year, possibly by lightening strikes.

Borough manager Bud Rettew said the system would not be worth repairing compared to the cost of replacing it with a newer model that is easier to program.

The cost of the new system approved by council is $180, plus $85 for surge and lightening protection. There will also be an installation charge, but no quote on that price was available.

Another cost approved by council was $395.05 for a large container of graffiti-removal concentrate.

“We are prepared should we have any problems in the future,” Rettew said. “In the long run we’re going to save money.”

There are also costs pending at the water plant, where two of raw water pumps have failed. After an initial repair, they failed again within hours – then were repaired again only to fail again. They cannot be rebuilt.

As pumps fail, the water department is switching to a different brand.

Getting a new well drilled for the water system will take longer than planned now that preliminary surveys have determined that the well site is a bog turtle habitat. Rather than spend the $25,000 for a full study only to confirm that there could be bog turtles, the engineers will look for an alternate site to drill.

In other business, the annual Christiana Soap Box Derby will be on May 3. Residents are advised that N. Bridge Street will be closed that day for the races.

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