Junkyard gets ‘no’ in Dimock

Dimock Twp. supervisors have unanimously shot down plans for a junkyard on Camp Ground Road due to overwhelming community objections.
Township supervisors took their vote Monday, Oct. 2, at a meeting attended by over 50 local residents who spoke out against the plan.
“What’s up there now has been an eyesore,” said Jean Miller, who owns a cottage nearby. “It’s disgusting. We have people who come Sunday nights to our gathering. We have families who come in, we have visitors who come in for other functions that we have, and that’s something that doesn’t really need to be seen. It’s really disgusting,” Miller said.
Junk cars and other debris have been stored there for years, Miller and other meeting attendees noted.
“We don’t need that. Nobody needs that,” Miller said.
Gary Underhill, who applied early last month for a license to operate the junkyard on State Route 3023 between Dimock and Elk Lake, did not attend Monday’s hearing and did not send a representative to the meeting.
Ken Summers of the Dimock Camp Meeting Association spoke and also submitted a letter in opposition to the junkyard.
“I have been a member of Dimock and cottage owner and tax payer for 40 years. For all these years you have let exist an unsightly and deplorable condition on those 10 acres. An uninhabited trailer and other vehicles and junkyard stuff are eyesores that folks see when entering out grounds,” he wrote.
Before supervisors took their vote they asked audience members for a show of hands both for and against the plan. When asked for hands in favor of the junk yard, none went up. When asked for hands against, almost all in the room went up.
The township rules on the operation of junkyards have not been updated since 1973, said Supervisor Matt Neenan, and the future of Underhill’s application is hard to predict.
“If we do rewrite it, though, what’s fair for one is fair for all, as far as I’m concerned. There should be no picking and choosing,” he warned.