Championship Flight winner defends his title — B1
Annual Farm to Table dinner held at Strite’s Orchard — B8
Press And Journal
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2016
14 PAGES
Police regionalization meeting: contracting for services top option By Eric Wise
Press And Journal Staff
Setting up a contract for police services was the clear favorite among options discussed during an Aug. 12 meeting in Harrisburg about the future of the police for Lower Swatara Township and Middletown, according to a Dauphin County official’s take on the meeting. Lower Swatara commissioners and a Middletown borough council member
discussed three options — including setting up a new joint police authority, contracting for police services and doing nothing — with Chad Saylor, chief clerk of Dauphin County. “That option (a shared services contract) seemed to have the most potential,” Saylor said. If one municipality would provide services to the other, it’s unclear which one would contract its services to the Please See POLICE, Page A6
VOLUME 126 - NO. 33
75 CENTS
Timeline in place for Amtrak station By Dan Miller
Press And Journal Staff
The all-important work of relocating railroad track for the new Amtrak station in Middletown is expected to start in the last three months of 2016, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick told the Press And Journal. PennDOT, which is in charge of the train station project, has said that work on the station itself cannot begin until after crews with Amtrak and Norfolk Southern railroad complete the necessary track relocation near West Main Street. PennDOT anticipates Amtrak workers to be on site to do their track relocation work sometime in the fourth quarter of 2016, Kirkpatrick said. Norfolk Southern is scheduled to do its track relocation work in the third quarter of 2017.
Street to West Main Street for better access to downtown Middletown. Two other components of the train station project — a pedestrian bridge over West Main Street to Penn State Harrisburg, and a possible parking garage — are to be built by a private company under PennDOT’s public private partnership (P3) program. However, PennDOT has not yet awarded a contract for the P3 part of This artist’s conception shows a walking bridge over the project. Kirkpatrick could not say West Main Street from Penn State Harrisburg to a new when it will be awarded. PennDOT in early summer awarded a Amtrak station. $2.6 million contract to Horst ExcavatPennDOT hopes to start work on the train station ing to prepare for construction the train platform and on the station itself in the third quarter station site just west of Westporte Centre shopping of 2018, Kirkpatrick said. center. That work is ongoing, Kirkpatrick said. The project also includes extending West Emaus The station is currently on Mill Street.
Man’s death called sign of drug problem that keeps growing INSIDE TODAY’S EDITION Our PSU Guide helps new students get ready for life on and off campus.
By Eric Wise
Press And Journal Staff
Campus history, from Gen. Meade to Three Dog Night By Dan Miller
Press And Journal Staff
Longtime residents might think they know everything there is to know about Penn State Harrisburg, but they probably don’t know as much as Heidi Abbey Moyer. The archivist and humanities reference librarian at Penn State Harrisburg has written a book in honor of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the campus upon the former Olmsted Air Force Base
located just outside Middletown. For example, did you know that Three Dog Night — a rock supergroup in the early 1970s if there ever was one — was to perform at a rock music festival at Penn State Harrisburg in 1971? Moyer But the group ended up a no-show, most likely because the festival couldn’t or Please See BOOK, Page A5
Is Middletown a ‘campus town’? What would it take to get it there?
The area in front of the Olmsted Building at Penn State Harrisburg looks a lot different during the 1972 Harrisburg Rock Festival, above, then it did on a recent Monday, right.
By Jason Maddux Press And Journal Staff
Does Penn State Harrisburg’s continued growth mean that Middletown is becoming a college town? Dr. Donald R. Holtzman, senior director of student services and special projects for Penn State Harrisburg, says yes. Ben Kapenstein, the borough council president, says he sure hopes so. But for many students, it still has a ways to go. There are challenges. Route 230 is a physical separation of the two. Some Middletown
Above, Penn State Harrisburg archives. Right, Press And Journal Staff Photo by Jason Maddux
residents are still cool to the idea of having students be an active part of the borough. Never mind that it’s called Penn State Harrisburg, not Penn State Middletown. And the entire campus is almost entirely in Lower Swatara Township to boot. But the challenges go far beyond that. The consensus is clear: To be a college town, Middletown must provide options that draw students. While there are some exceptions, that is not the case at the moment. But Holtzman is seeing changes. An area becomes a college town, he said, when its Please See CAMPUS, Page A5
Charges: Driver was going 70 on Emaus ... past police station Police: Drowning of girl, 3, ‘not intentional By Dan Miller but very careless’ Press And Journal Staff
By Eric Wise
Press And Journal
The inquiry into the July 31 drowning death of a 3-yearold girl has become a criminal investigation, according to Lower Swatara Police. “We believe the child’s death was a result of improper supervision,” Detective Robert Appleby said. “This was not intentional, but it was very careless.” The girl wandered away from her uncle’s home on the Please See DROWNING, Page A6
A man who allegedly led Middletown police on a car chase reaching speeds of over 70 mph on Emaus Street in the early morning hours of Friday, July 29 — including past the police station — is charged with DUI and numerous traffic offenses. At one point Nicholas Allen Dippery, 21, of the 200 block of East Second Street in Hummelstown, narrowly avoided a headon collision with a second borough police officer who had been brought in to assist, police said. Police first saw Dippery at about 2:40 a.m. when an officer in an unmarked cruiser
observed a small gray vehicle turning onto Pine Street from East Emaus at a high rate of speed, according to court documents filed with District Judge David Judy. The car was on the wrong side of the road and “very close” to parked vehicles on the west side of the street, police said. Dippery led police right onto Columbia Street off Pine, then across Spruce Street and through a stop sign at Columbia and Race, documents said. Police with their lights on and sirens activated kept following Dippery throughout the neighborhood, before he turned back onto Emaus heading east. Dippery was finally apprehended when he reached a dead-end in the Village of Pineford
after running a stop sign and speeding past the borough police station at Race and Emaus streets. He told police officers he had come from a bar in downtown Harrisburg where he had spent “hours” consuming beer and mixed drinks. Dippery was arraigned on July 30 before District Judge Joseph S. Lindsey and charged with fleeing and eluding police, recklessly endangering another person, DUI, and multiple traffic summons for running stop signs, reckless driving, failing to keep to the right, speeding, and driving with unsafe equipment. A preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 22 before District Judge David Judy.
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The July death of a Lower Swatara man is the latest example of the growing problem of heroin abuse in the area, law enforcement officials told the Press And Journal. Police responded to the first block of Nissley Drive at 9:14 a.m. July 24 to find Shane Feathers had overdosed at his home. Feathers appeared to have died from a drug overdose by heroin, said police Detective Robert Appleby. The case will be investigated as a “death by delivery,” which is punishable by a jail sentence of 40 years, Appleby said. There is a suspect in the case. The investigation is on hold because Appleby has been busy since July 31 investigating the drowning death of a 3-year-old girl. Heroin problems plague Dauphin County communities, and Lower Swatara Township police have seen it firsthand. After having just four overdose calls in the township in 2014, police responded to seven in 2015 and 12 this year, Appleby said. “I have seen more heroin deaths in the last year than ever before,” Appleby said. The number of drug overdose deaths has risen in Dauphin County, according to information from the coroner’s office. After annual drug overdose deaths (among accidental deaths) hovered around 40 a year from 20122014, the coroner reported 71 drug overdose deaths in 2015. “It’s the worst I have seen it ever here,” said Stephen Zawisky, a senior deputy district attorney who heads Dauphin County’s drug task force. The State Police and many local poPlease See DRUG, Page A6
public notices in this week’s press and journal: MIDDLETOWN BORO: Proposed Ordinance Meeting
LETTERS TESTAMENTARY: Stauffer, Bryan
NOTICE OF DISSOLUTION: CJ Pony Management, Inc.