Late fees restarting; unpaid bills may get liens

HELMSBURG — Starting with the May billing, Helmsburg sewer customers who pay late will start seeing late fees tacked onto their bills again. Late fees have been suspended for more than a year as the country dealt with the effects of the pandemic.

To avoid late fees, Helmsburg Regional Sewer Board members are encouraging customers to sign up for automatic, electronic payments. Forms are being sent to customers to help get that done. Cash and in-person payments are no longer being accepted.

Also at the April 7 sewer board meeting, board members discussed what to do about unpaid back payments that have been piling up. As of that date, the total of unpaid bills more than 90 days late was $5,964.60.

Customers who are more than 90 days late in paying may be subject to a lien being put on their property. By the May 6 board meeting, the board plans to move toward placing liens on properties for customers who are at least 90 days in arrears.

Wedding barn request on Bellsville Pike denied

A couple seeking to turn a historic barn on their property into a wedding venue was denied their request.

Troy and April Williams were seeking permission from the Brown County Board of Zoning Appeals for a private recreational development. They live next door to the property on Bellsville Pike where they were planning to turn an unused barn into a wedding barn.

The couple had first gone before the BZA in February with this request and explained their aim. They proposed set operating hours, ending by 9 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m on weekends. They would be on site to provide supervision.

Planning Director Chris Ritzmann told the board that the project was not likely to have substantially different impact than other PRDs the board has approved in the past, as the application met the minimum requirements.

Two sets of neighbors spoke up at the February meeting and at the March meeting of the BZA. Their main concerns were about the impact that the noise from the event barn could have on their comfort and peace at their properties.

The Williamses took a month to check into what operating with acoustic music only might do their potential business at the wedding barn. At the March meeting, they were prepared to agree to having no amplified music after 9 p.m. on weeknights and not after 10 on weekends. They also proposed planting a row of trees to create a sound barrier for the neighbors north of the barn. There would be no sound-proofing inside the barn right away.

Neighbors Bill and Becky Freeman and Michael and Linda Voland attended the March meeting too and restated their objections. Bill Freeman said that if the doors are opened to the barn when acoustic music is playing inside, the noise might be worse than having amplified music outside.

No one spoke in favor of the proposal other than the Williamses.

BZA board member Deborah Bartes said she thought the petitioners had gone out of their way to try to mitigate the neighbors’ concerns and she was inclined to approve the petition.

Member Darla Brown said she was inclined to approve it, too, though she said she knows sound can be “freaky” in the way that it travels in some areas and no one could be sure how it might affect neighbors.

Member “Buzz” King said he understood the neighbors’ concerns, but he lives next to what is now a town park and “it’s something you can get used to.” He said he was inclined to approve the request.

Member Randy Jones said he had concerns and he wasn’t sure this use was a proper fit for that community.

BZA President John Dillberger said that the fact that these neighboring residential properties have existed for years out in this area, and “now they’re being asked to accept this,” was weighing on him. “And at the end of the day, I think it’s called a ‘special exception’ because there should be special circumstances that suggest it’s in the best interest of the public to put in a business which will periodically invite a large number of people to come in for a celebration,” he said. “… And that will change the environment, change the neighborhood, if you will.

“I think the petitioners would do as good a job as anybody possibly could of creating an attractive and considerate business, but at the end of the day, it’s a business placed in what is currently a residential neighborhood. … I think that’s asking too much of the neighbors to increase, perhaps, the tourism in the county and to benefit the petitioners. The balance, for me, leads me to be inclined to not approve this petition.”

Bartes made a motion to approve the petition, with only she and Brown voting in favor. Since it did not pass, a different motion had to be made, and Jones motioned to deny it. The denial passed 3-2 along the same voting pattern.