page_59 < previous page page_59 next page > Page 59 Mrs. Olin, who attended the meeting, said Plain people were "quite horrified by it." "I protest the use of the police to intimidate people as they came into the hearing," attorney Christian E. Eaby said at the meeting. Mrs. Olin said she was "puzzled" when Schannaeur claimed she had heard the threat. While both she and her husband have protested the development plans, she said, neither they nor anyone affiliated with the Earl Township Farmland Preservation Trust citizens group would threaten violence. She said her husband may once, more than six months ago, have said something to the supervisors like "he was surprised nobody had ever taken a shot at them," she said. But "he just meant, 'You're going against what everybody wants here.' He's surprised nobody has gotten really angry at them yet. It was just an off-the-cuff kind of remark," she said. Schannauer said the words he heard seemed to convey a threat. "I consider it a very serious threat given the demeanor of the person at the time it was made. I encouraged Jack [Buch] to file criminal charges." Buch decided against it. Schannauer said the reason for searching people entering Monday night's zoning hearing board meeting was because of "the threat that I heard, as well as the fact that the supervisors were subpoenaed" to attend, and therefore were required to be there. Also, he said, he thought a decision being made by the zoning hearing board that night would be in the township's favor, which might anger the person who made the threat. The zoning hearing board Monday night dismissed Olin's appeal of a township supervisor's decision involving the proposed sewage treatment plant. The board dismissed the appeal because it felt it didn't have jurisdiction to hear it, Schannauer said. The editorial page of the next day's Lancaster Intelligencer Journal rebuked Mill Creek Valley residents, declaring it was "time for civility" and denouncing "the fact that mature, educated adults have not been able to discuss these important issues without losing their tempers or resorting to threats.... If the opponents hope to halt this project, they should mobilize, not terrorize." 5 A number of letters to the editor took strong exception to the Intell's admonishment. Underscoring Plain Sect reaction, Doris Goehring wrote: "I am appalled," said an English woman; "I am very disturbed," said a Mennonite lady; "I'm really intimidated,'' said an Amish girl. These remarks were heard outside the Earl Township building Monday evening at the Zoning Board Hearing for Dr. Keith Olin. All citizens attending the hearing were examined by two policemen with a metal detector. Such actions should not be tolerated in any free society, let alone a pacifist society as constitutes the Earl Township community. We attended this "open" meeting to support Dr. Olin as he brought his dissentions [sic] about the proposed sewer lines through the Historic Mill Creek Valley to the Zoning Hearing Board. These were dismissed as not being proper Zoning Board concerns. Â < previous page page_59 next page >