Two large groups of folks, both looking for answers from Manor Township officials, made for a full house at Thursday night's township supervisors meeting.
One group was a contingent of residents from Letort Manor and Perth Hills, two township neighborhoods where residents are angry over what they may have to pay because of the many failing on-lot sewer systems where they live.
The other group consisted of local volunteer firefighters, who exhorted the township to consider adopting a "fire tax" to help pay to replace what they say is aging equipment and other pressing needs.
The Letort Manor and Perth Hills residents found out Thursday that the township supervisors will hold a special meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 18, at Manor Middle School to discuss the sewer issue that has galvanized their two neighborhoods for most of 2008.
The session at the school, on Charlestown Road, will run from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
The second group, the volunteer firefighters, most of them from the West Lancaster Fire Department, came out on a night that the Manor supervisors unveiled a tentative township budget for 2009. It calls for no tax increases. and represents what township officials agreed is a bare-bones spending plan for next year.
Hearing the firefighters' request for help, the supervisors agreed they're considering the so-called fire tax to help the volunteer companies that protect the township, including West Lancaster ... but it just can't be enacted in time for 2009.
The supervisors heard township finance director Ryan Strohecker outline next year's spending for the township, which includes a $4.9 million general-fund budget.
The township's real-estate tax would remain at 0.78 mills under the proposed budget.
"We are able to present to you a balanced budget," Strohecker said, but the township did have to dip into reserves and other funds, like sewers and the capital reserve, to do that.
But "this budget doesn't do much to help (fire companies) with some of the equipment issues," Joan Matterness of 213 Sutherland Road, told the supervisors.
She doesn't feel safe, she said, living in a township where "this is the kind of equipment that these gentlemen (firefighters) have to live with.
"It's very good that you're holding the line on taxes ... but one of these days we're going to have to pay the piper," she added.
Several of the supervisors voiced support for the idea of a fire tax. Supervisors' Chairman John May said he's "strongly in favor" of such a tax, but said there wouldn't be enough time to develop it for 2009. Next year's budget must be approved by Dec. 31.
Both the revenues (about $4.8 million) and the expenses budgeted for 2009 represent slight increases over 2008, Strohecker said. Salary increases of 3.5 percent for the township's employees are budgeted.
As for the Letort Manor/Perth Hills sewer issue, the Nov. 18 meeting was moved to the middle school to handle the large crowd expected.
Last year, the residents of the 571 homes in the two developments were notified that the cost of switching from on-lot systems to public sewer could cost as much as $16,000 — and that they would be picking up their own tabs.
Staff writer David O'Connor can be reached at doconnor@LNPnews.com or 481-6033.