SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2022 n $3.00 n LANCASTERONLINE.

COM

Grabbing a win
Millersville plays a complete game to
hold off East Stroudsburg in PSAC action
n Sports, Page C1
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WORLD LIVING
Russia’s link to the occupied Green Matters Natural Dye Today’s coupon value

$102
Crimean Peninsula is disrupted Company uses plant-based n See
as the Kerch Strait Bridge is materials, small-batch dyeing Page A2
damaged by explosion. to impact the fashion industry. for details.
n Pagee A9 n Page E1

PA. GOVERNOR’S RACE

Some in
TOURISM

UNCOVERING GOP for

Shapiro
LANCASTER Several say they fear for
democracy with Mastriano
CARTER WALKER
[email protected]

As Michael Chertoff was coming of age in

the 1960s in Elizabeth, New Jersey, he found
himself growing to respect what he saw as
the conservative philosophy: rule of law,
freedom, reasonable but not overbearing
regulation.
“There was a lot of ma-
chine politics on the Demo-
cratic side, and the Repub-
licans were not doing that,”
he said. “I wasn’t strongly
ideological, but I felt more
of a kinship with the gen-
CONNOR HOLLINGER | FOR LNP/LANCASTERONLINE eral, moderate conservative
Balloons lift off at the Lancaster Hot Air Balloon Festival on Sept. 18. Nearly 18,000 visitors flocked to the fields near Bird-in-Hand last philosophy of Republicans.”
month for the annual fall event. The festival turnout is one sign that Lancaster County tourism is on track to hit another record year INSIDE Chertoff would go on to a
despite a continuing struggle to recruit workers and fewer motor coach travelers. successful career in govern-
A look at
where the ment. He served as an assis-
candidates tant United States attorney
Tourism rebounds as adventurers flock to the county for governor in New York under Rudolph
stand on crime Giuliani in the 1980s and led
for festivals, harvest season and holidays and justice.
Page A3
a Senate investigation in the
1990s into Hillary Clinton’s
land deals (aka Whitewa-
LISA SCHEID | [email protected] LEISURE, ter) that ultimately led to the uncovering

L
of President Bill Clinton’s affair with Mon-
HOSPITALITY ica Lewinsky. He served as the Secretary of
ancaster County’s tourism is hot like the flames in the balloons that SECTOR BELOW Homeland Security under President George
drew nearly 18,000 visitors to fields near Bird-in-Hand last month. PRE-COVID SIZE W. Bush, succeeding the agency’s first secre-
“We had lots of guests from the tri-state area,” said John Smucker, Lancaster County’s leisure and tary, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.
hospitality workforce nears SHAPIRO, page A7
who owns the fields where the festival took place along with hotels,
its peak each July, one of the
restaurants and a cafe and bakery in East Lampeter Township that are used by busiest tourism months. The
busy season workforce has
tourists and hosted the Lancaster Hot Air Balloon Festival and Country Fair. recovered since the pandemic
but still has not matched its
pre-pandemic strength. This
“It has a significant positive impact on With 18,000 visitors for the two-day graphic shows the number
the lodging industry. Most of the hotels are event, the balloon festival brought sum- of people employed in the
booked. Some balloonists had to go 20 to 30 mer’s busy momentum to the fall harvest leisure and hospitality sector in
minutes out to find hotel rooms,” Smucker and Christmas season, said Smucker and Lancaster County in July.
said. Ed Harris, president and CEO of Discover
27,600

The festival turnout is just one sign that Lancaster, the county’s tourism agency.
Lancaster County tourism is on track to hit “When summer ends last week of August, P.J. REILLY
24,100

another record year despite a continuing Labor Day has been the last hurrah for the
24,000

LNP OUTDOORS WRITER

struggle to recruit workers and fewer motor summer for 30 to 40 years, but it’s not like
coach travelers. A new record would sur- that anymore,” Smucker said.
Creek project to
19,500

pass the 9.13 million visitors who spent $2.3 The 12-year-old balloon festival was
billion here in 2021, according to Tourism planned to expand in 2020 but was can-
Economics. The tally is key to the health of
the county’s economy as the tourism sector
ranks ninth in employment.
celed due to the pandemic. It falls on the
third weekend of September, well after
Labor Day, and it bridges into the county’s
fix floodplain,
Some measures of tourism have sur-
passed pre-pandemic levels, continuing a
third highest tourism month — October,
Harris said. Visitors are primed to spend at create trail
trend that began in 2021. area restaurants as well as hotels, Smucker

I
Hotel revenues for June, July and August said. The festival’s $10 to $30 entrance fee f you walk toward the Little Conestoga
were about $78 million, which was 15% included life-size lawn games, a corn maze Creek behind Barrcrest Apartments
more than last summer’s tally of a bit more and a music stage. Balloon flights started off Marietta Avenue in East Hempfield
than $68 million, according to Discover at $200 and this year a helicopter ride was Township, eventually you reach a mud cliff
Lancaster. Labor Day 2022 weekend saw added. 0 1 2 that drops as much as 5 feet in some places
19 ’2 ’2 ’2
20,756 room nights, an industry measure of “It’s the second largest (balloon festival) on 20 to the stream below.
hotel room stays. That is a 22% increase over the East Coast,” Smucker said, and referred Note: Numbers are not seasonally That’s not normal, according to Kelly
Labor Day 2021 with 16,981 room nights. TOURISM, page A6 adjusted. Gutshall, president of the Lititz-based land-
SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR
scape architecture firm LandStudies.
“That is not a functional floodplain,” Gut-
shall said. “It’s clogged with legacy sediment
that’s been filling in (the floodplain) for
hundreds of years.”
Within the next week or so, work crews
are expected to descend on a 1,000-foot
section of the Little Conestoga behind Bar-
rcrest to dig out 17,000 cubic yards of sedi-
ment and restore the area to the functional
floodplain that Gutshall said is instrumen-
CONNOR HOLLINGER | FOR LNP/LANCASTERONLINE SUZETTE WENGER | FILE PHOTO CHRIS KNIGHT | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER tal to stopping the flow of dirt and nutrients
Two people take a selfie during Rails and Engineer Rick Musser waves to train fans as Cylo entertains the crowd at the into the Little Conestoga, Susquehanna
Ales on April 9 at the Railroad Museum of he puts Thomas The Tank Engine away for Barnstormers game Sept. 20 at Clipper River and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay.
Pennsylvania in Strasburg. the year in 2018 at the Strasburg Rail Road. Magazine Stadium in Lancaster. “This is a transformational project,” said
PROJECT, page A4

NOTE TO READERS: Sunday LNP is tinted pink each Sunday in October to mark National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For more information, visit nationalbreastcancer.org.

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