Come Tuesday, after months of waiting, Sheryl Holzbauer finally will be able to sign on the line.

That's when she and other West Lampeter Township residents can start signing petitions to put a question before the township voters in the May primary:

"Do you favor the granting of liquor licenses or the sale of liquor in the Township of West Lampeter?"

Holzbauer is eager because it's the beginning of a process that she hopes will lead to an $8 million renovation of her family's business, the Willow Valley Resort & Conference Center, in the township.

As the New Era reported last month, the renovation would include turning half of the property into a DoubleTree hotel.

But DoubleTree, a national chain, requires its locations to have restaurants that serve alcohol.

That's not possible at the moment in West Lampeter — "dry" since 1935.

So Holzbauer and her sister, Diane Poillon, have formed a political action committee, the West Lampeter Future Fund, which seeks to put the alcohol question on the May 19 ballot.

Under a procedure spelled out by the state election code, if 2,205 registered voters who live in the township sign petitions favoring putting the question on the ballot, it will be.

(Signing the petition does not mean you support a "wet" township, just that you support putting the question on the ballot.)

Signatures can be gathered between this Tuesday and Tuesday, March 10, according to a timetable specified in the code.

Holzbauer is looking forward to Tuesday, when the petition process will get under way at last.

"It's the first step," she said. "After months and months of planning, it will be nice to start to actually work on it."

Holzbauer is optimistic that the petition drive will gather enough signatures from among the township's 11,276 registered voters.

"We've been overwhelmed by the support we've received from the community.... We couldn't be more pleased," she said.

The PAC has hired about 30 people to get signatures on the petitions, with more likely to be hired. They'll be paid $15 an hour by the PAC.

Holzbauer is an executive vice president of Willow Valley Associates, which owns and operates the resort and conference center. Poillon is president and chief operating officer.

The sisters registered the PAC with the county elections office on Feb. 3, listing Holzbauer as president and Poillon as treasurer, said Paul Kralicek, a clerk in the office.

The PAC's first campaign finance report is due May 4.

The number of signatures required to put the question on the ballot is determined by a complex formula. The number equals 25 percent of the highest vote-getting office in the township in the last general election.

In the November election, Kralicek explained, the presidential race drew the most votes in the township — 8,821. Twenty-five percent of that is 2,205.

(Staff writer Tom Murse contributed to this report).


Staff writer Tim Mekeel can be reached at tmekeel@LNPnews.com or 481-6030.