The Columbia Courier

My Dear Columbia , I write to you today having weathered, quite literally, a week that offered rain, rhetoric, and civic drama that only a small borough can produce with such enthusiasm. Do sit down. Pour something warm into your cup. This will take a moment. On the matter of progress, and whether we are progressing anywhere good: One must ask, dear reader, where all this technology is escorting us, arm in arm, whispering sweet nothings all the while. Drones overhead, phones in every pocket. And now, data centers, those humming cathedrals to the cloud, which is not, as it turns out, a fluffy thing in the sky but rather a very loud building down the road that wants your water and your peace and quiet (and peace of mind) in exchange for services you did not know you needed. "Progress" marches on, though it rarely asks permission, yet somehow no one seems to have any more time than before. The future arrives whether or not the parking is sufficient to accommodate it. But here we...

   My Dear Columbia, One does so hate to be the bearer of bad news, but someone must pick up the pen when the borough's affairs have once again curdled like cream left out too long. Gather close, dear readers, for there is much to discuss and precious little of it is flattering. After a mere four months in the officially minted role of borough manager, Mr. Jack Brommer has announced his resignation, leaving the town to wonder whether the ink on his contract had even finished drying. This is a gentleman who was received with accolades, handed a six-figure income complete with benefits, and provided with not one but two consecutive part-time assistants to ease his transition, a courtesy so generous one might have mistaken him for visiting royalty. One suspects a rather tidy payout awaits him on his way out the door, a parting gift the town can scarcely afford, particularly since the council president has already confessed the borough's coffers are bare. With Mr. Brommer's exi...

My Dear Columbia , It has come to my attention that an address in town is about to undergo a transformation so complete that one is tempted to check the deed for a misprint. Yes, I refer to 425 Union Street, that modest address which, for more than a decade, has held the town's imagination rather more than it occupied the town's good graces. For years, the building was a gentlemen's club of the sort where the entertainment wore very little. It was, one might say, the only establishment in the borough where the manner of dress (or undress) and the public commentary stood in inverse proportion. But brace yourselves, dear readers, and perhaps sit down if you are inclined toward fainting: the building has been sold to Align Life Ministries, a faith-based, pro-life nonprofit devoted to pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, parenting classes, and assorted supports for expectant families. The ministry has spent its recent years in cramped quarters at 462 Chestnut Street, and announced t...

My Dear Columbia , It has been said that adversity introduces a town to itself (at least I've said it), and this summer we have become rather more intimately acquainted than we may have intended. One hoped a 300th birthday would arrive with bunting and brass bands. Instead, the season delivered homicides, tragic accidents, tornadoes and a beloved building that will soon no longer be with us. Not to mention a bridge that appears to be reconsidering its commitment to standing. Quite a lot for one small borough to absorb between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Your author's nerves are not what they were in June. Then again, neither is the bridge. And yet, amid catastrophes, one constant endures: the traffic. Precious little has been done about it, unless one counts the collective sighing. Where are we heading? At present, "into the intersection, at speed, without looking." Our motorists treat posted limits as charming suggestions from a bygone age. Our pedestrians drift into...