Gettysburg Connection Podcast

The Fall 2019 Adams

County Municipal Election will be held on Tuesday, November 5, 2019.

In this episode I talk with Judith Butterfield, Republican candidate for Gettysburg borough council member from the 3rd ward.

Butterfield is

currently a member of the council, having been appointed earlier in the year to

temporarily fill the seat vacated by Charles Strauss.

Butterfield has been involved in the Gettysburg community since 1994, acting on task forces and boards of directors.  She has also managed the Borough’s website.

View Butterfield's resumé here.

Butterfield

Remember that the last

day to apply for an absentee ballot for the November election is October 29,

and that Adams County polling places are open for voting from 7:00 a.m. until

8:00 p.m.

View

the ballot you will see on election day.

Gettysburg

Connection brings news, events, and opinions to Adams County residents.

If you enjoy the podcast, please take a few seconds to

support us by signing

up for our weekly mailing list.

The site is completely free of charge, but we do ask your

help in sharing our content with other people in the community.

Please, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Musical Introduction by Daddy Long Legs.

Waldo’s and Company is a Gettysburg nonprofit that brings people together to make art and music, to drink fresh-roasted coffee, and to enjoy each other’s company.

It’s a bohemian experience, a Gettysburg treasure, and an experience that should not be missed.

In this episode I talk with Chris Lauer, Waldo’s founder.  He talks about this trek to Gettysburg from Minnesota, his love for the borough, and the many ways that Waldo’s helps people in their creative endeavors.

Gettysburg Connection brings news, events, and opinions to Adams County  residents.

If you enjoy the podcast, please take a few seconds to support us by signing up for our weekly mailing list.

The site is completely free of charge, but we do ask your help in sharing our content with other people in the community.

Please, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Musical Introduction by Daddy Long Legs.

As the school year begins, students in the Gettysburg Area School District (GASD) find themselves able to customize their own learning through sophisticated curricular programs provided by the district.

These personalized, courses involve offline (unplugged), face-to-face, and online approaches and provide students with the opportunity for independent learning.

Two of the most interesting of these activities include Robert C. Hoffman Trust sponsored "genius hour" sessions in which fifth grade children create projects that showcase their unique talents, and computational thinking programs, funded by a PDE PA Smart Grant, that help teach middle school children persistence, patience, and critical thinking through computer programming.

In this podcast I talk with Ann Baum, GASD Instructional Technology Director, who shares her thoughts about student learning and the many ways the school district is responding to changes and advances in learning and technology.

Ann Baum

You can contact Ann Baum at [email protected] or by calling 717.334.6254.

Gettysburg Connection brings news, events, and opinions to Adams County residents.

If you enjoy the podcast, please take a few seconds to support us by signing up for our weekly mailing list.

The site is completely free of charge, but we do ask your help in sharing our content with other people in the community.

Please, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Musical Introduction by Daddy Long Legs.

Gettysburg resident Charles Strauss ran for a borough council seat in 2015 and again in 2017 when he was elected from the third ward.

Strauss served on the Gettysburg Borough Council from January 2018 until he resigned this year because he and his family moved from the 3rd ward to the 2nd ward.

Strauss

During his time on council Strauss was an instrumental part of a well-functioning council that made progress on zoning and other important issues facing Gettysburg.

In this episode Strauss talks about his ideas about government, his time on the council, and his visions for Gettysburg.

Gettysburg Connection brings news, events, and opinions to Adams County residents.

If you enjoy the podcast, please take a few seconds to support us by signing up for our weekly mailing list.

The site is completely free of charge, but we do ask your help in sharing our content with other people in the community.

Please, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Musical introduction by Daddy Long Legs.

The Adams County Farmers Market is at its best during the harvest season, and the vendors’ tables are now overflowing with produce.

But in addition to hosting the Saturday

morning market, the Adams County Farmers Market Association also sponsors many

community and educational activities in the county.

In this podcast I talk with Reza Djalal who

has been the market manager since May 2018.

Djalal is an Adams County native who grew up

in Biglerville. He graduated from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM in 2015

with a BA in Philosophy and the History of Science and Mathematics.

Djalal

You can learn more about the farmers market at its website or Facebook page.

Gettysburg

Connection brings news, events, and opinions to Adams County residents.

If you enjoy the podcast, please take a few seconds to

support us by signing

up for our weekly mailing list.

The site is completely free of charge, but we do ask your

help in sharing our content with other people in the community.

Please, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

A transcription of the podcast follows:

GC: Hi Reza, and

welcome to the podcast. So you've been in your position as market manager of

the Adams County Farmers Market Association for about a year now, and so I

thought it might be a good time for you to share your thoughts about it. Can

you talk a little bit about the Farmers Market Association? When did it start?

Who founded it? And what's its mission?

RD: Sure, So the

Adams County Farmers Market Association is a 501c(6) nonprofit. It has a

twofold mission, sort of.  One side of

that mission is to help support businesses, especially small businesses. We

want to help small farmers and ranchers and dairies thrive in the area in Adams

County. On the other side of that mission is to increase food access and

wellness for all residents and all community members. So we do a lot of

programming that helps support both ends of that, namely, by operating a farmers’

market that offers a high reward, low risk environment for small businesses to

kind of get their start as a platform to launch off into economic success.

GC: Right.  So I want to come back and talk about all the

many different programs that you have. But maybe you can tell us where the

farmers’ market is located and when it's open and how late it's going to be

open this year.

RD: Sure. So we

operate every Saturday morning between May through October from 8 a.m. to 1

p.m. And we're set behind the Gettysburg Transit Center. We’re a couple yards

away from the Majestic Theater down Carlisle Street. So, yeah, we're behind the

transit center every Saturday morning.

GC: Yeah, and

what actually is sold at the market? I mean, I know there would be fruits and

vegetables and fresh produce like that, but what else is there?

RD: Uh, well, you

know, we have a lot of the typical array of farmers’ market niche items. We

have Ragged Edge Roasting Company with us, and they're pretty well known and

have a great coffee product that people might know. We also have some baked-goods

vendors. Robin's Nest does the vendor circuit in different locations. And we

have a cool vendor called Sweet Rollers. They only sell cinnamon rolls. That's

it. And it's kind of like a fundraising organization, and they try to raise

After being founded by a group of local women in 1982, the local non-profit Survivors Inc. helped Adams County women and families who were in abusive relationships for almost 40 years.

The organization was funded by local, state and federal grants and provided assistance to hundreds of families.

In early 2019 the organization lost its funding and closed.

In this podcast I talk with Kathy Gaskin, currently Executive Director of Healthy Adams County, who is a former Executive Director of Survivors and who has tracked its evolution over its lifetime.

Gaskin

In the interview, Gaskin talks in a frank and heartfelt manner about the history of the organization, the people who worked for it and who it helped, its services to the county, its successes and failures, and where we are after its closure.

Gaskin also thanked all of the past staff of Survivors who have given their time and passion to helping victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. She especially wanted to remember two staff who meant a lot to her over the years and who have since died. They were Martha Inskip and Nereida Simon. Martha was at Survivors for over 20 years and Nereida worked there for over 10 years.

Please stream the interview here.

There is a transcription of the podcast available here.

Editor's Note: We first published this podcast interview two years ago when the stormwater authority was just getting started. I think you might still find it interesting and important.

If you own a property in Gettysburg Borough, you're going to receive your third annual storm water bill in the mail this week.

If you have an average home in the borough, your fee will be $100. If that seems a lot, you might feel a bit better knowing that Gettysburg College is going to receive a bill for about $100,000.

The fee is the end result of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 and the Clean Water Act, which was signed by President Nixon in 1972, and will allow the borough to manage the rainwater that falls in the borough as required by those regulations.

In this podcast I speak with Mike Malewicki, chair of the Gettysburg Borough Stormwater Authority. Malewicki describes the origins of the fee and the many benefits of containing storm water runoff. He also explains how your fee is calculated and now you may be able to reduce it in the future.

There is a lot more information available on the Gettysburg Borough Stormwater Authority webpage.

Malewicki mentions a video that was produced by the storm water authority, and you can see that here.

Riggs talks candidly about her career, the college, academics, and the Gettysburg community.

The Adams County primary is on Tuesday May 21st.

The ballots have been prepared. You can see yours here.

Stokes

Harry Stokes is running as a Democrat for an at-large Gettysburg Borough Council seat.

I had a chance to talk with him about his candidacy.

Stokes is an experienced local politician, having spent three terms as county commissioner and one-plus term on Borough Council from 1986 to 1991.

During his time on council Stokes helped with the Hotel Gettysburg rebuilding project, the construction of the Race Horse Alley parking deck, the relighting of the Peace Light, a redesign of the Gettysburg square, permitting of horse drawn carriages and sidewalk cafes, and getting the historic district certified by the state.

Stokes also helped get the Adams County library installed in the old Post Office Building which was purchased from the federal government, with the help of the Rotary Club.

Stokes said the only historic building lost while he was on the council was the Old Agricultural Hall, in which Frederick Douglass spoke in 1869.  Stokes said losing that building "was a real heartbreak."

You can listen to the interview here:

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Contact Stokes:

Harry Stokes

+1 (717) 495-4274

26 Mummasburg St.

Gettysburg, PA 17325

The Adams County primary is on Tuesday May 21st.

The ballots have been prepared. You can see yours here.

Jake Schindel is running as a Democrat for an at-large Gettysburg Borough Council seat.

I had a chance to talk with him about his candidacy.

Schindel is the owner of the Ragged Edge Coffee shop and has been a representative of Ward 2 for two terms.

He has also served on the boards of the Interfaith Center for Peace and Justice, the Gettysburg Area Retail Merchants Association, Destination Gettysburg, and Project Gettysburg Leon.

He's also a current member of the Gettysurg Area Recreational Authority Board of Directors.

Schindel says he has a track record of votes promoting an overall better holistic vision of Gettysburg.

You can listen to the interview here:

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Contact Schindel: