Dimock files suit against Campground Road junkyard

Dimock Township supervisors have filed a lawsuit against the owner and the occupant of a Campground Road junkyard for violating township ordinances over junkyards.

Supervisors filed suit late last month against owner Shirley Morden of Nicholson and Gary Underhill, who lives at the Campground Road address, after residents complained of piles of junk on the property and a trailer blocking the road. Several residents who appeared at an early May meeting of the Dimock township supervisors expressed concerns over debris blocking emergency access to ambulances or firefighting equipment and abandoned motor vehicles lit on fire.

According to the lawsuit, Dimock Township passed an ordinance regulating junk yards in 1973 granting the township authority “for the issuance of licenses for junk dealers and for the maintenance and operation of junk yards under prescribed conditions . . .”

The lawsuit, filed June 28 by township solicitor Michael Briechle, notes that neither Morden nor Underhill have a license from the township to operate such a junkyard, which the lawsuit notes they have maintained since August 2020.

Neither of the two named defendants have filed legal responses to the lawsuit.  Piles of debris appeared to have shrunk since the filing of the lawsuit and no longer block Campground Road.

According to state law, as the lawsuit notes, the defendants can be fined “Fifty Dollars ($50.00) per day for each day” they are found to be in violation of the ordinance, since August 2020.

 “Further, Defendants Shirley Morden and Gary Underhill have, jointly and/or severally, allowed junk, garbage and/or refuse to be maintained, or have maintained junk, garbage and/or refuse, on Campground Road and within Plaintiff Dimock Township’s right-of-way.”

In its lawsuit the township asks a judge to keep Morden and Underhill from bringing any more junk to the junkyard; asks them to “remove all junk, garbage and refuse” and fine them “each day that the Court finds that they have been in violation.”

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