BEACH LAKE, PA — For a second consecutive month, the Berlin Township Board of Supervisors meeting was attended by a standing-room-only crowd protesting the proposed nuisance abatement ordinance currently under review by township solicitor Jeff Treat. But there was a marked difference in character between the January 20 public hearing and the February 17 meeting.

The January public hearing was a forum of articulate commentary expressed in tones respectful of the board and fellow speakers, while the 30-minute public comment portion of the February meeting frequently lapsed into shouting matches, with longtime residents accusing supervisors Paul Henry, Cathy Hunt and Charlie Gries—all lifelong Berlin residents themselves—of giving newcomers and other unfriendly neighbors the opportunity to “tell us what we can’t do on our own land.”

Some of the rhetoric was so loud and threatening that Hunt told one speaker, “You have to bring down the hostility and volume levels.” Henry was repeatedly forced to restore order, reprimanding speakers who had their say at the expense of other speakers and without recognition by the chair.

Although at least two residents at the January public hearing had openly endorsed the proposed ordinance as originally drafted, the February meeting appeared to attract opponents only, a hypothesis seemingly confirmed when one of the speakers asked for a show of hands in support of the ordinance. Two hands went up. One was Hunt’s. The other was Henry’s. Inconspicuously silent until that moment, Gries was then asked point blank if he was in favor of the ordinance. He quietly replied that he was not in favor of the ordinance as currently worded, which led Hunt to say, “That’s because you never go out on these complaint calls. It’s always either Paul or me. You’re going out on the next one.”

If Berlin were a zoned township, the type of nuisance complaints that Henry and Hunt routinely investigate would be handled by a code enforcement officer, but Berlin is not a zoned municipality. So when residents asked the board why it thinks this ordinance is now necessary, Henry and Hunt told them that they are responding to an ever increasing number of complaints about which they can do little except beg negligent property owners to mend their ways. Per Hunt and Henry, this gambit often proves ineffective, forcing them to pay multiple visits to the same violators, usually without satisfactory resolution. “The ordinance is a legal instrument that gives us power of enforcement. Without it, we haven’t a leg to stand on,” said Henry.

Residents not swayed by Henry’s argument expressed doubts that the problems are as serious and widespread as Hunt and Henry claim. In answering those doubts, Hunt described a recent complaint investigation against someone residing illegally inside a house in foreclosure. Cat litter box contents had been dumped out the back door and the yard was overrun by rats. Residents were also startled to learn that many nuisance complaints made to the Pennsylvania State Police are turned over to the board of supervisors for handling.

After all was said, the question of ordinance interpretation hung in the air, “Who decides when rustic charm turns into rural squalor?”

The next board of supervisors meeting is scheduled for March 17 at 7:30 p.m., preceded by a public hearing at 7 p.m.