A score card has been needed lately to keep up with the potential changes swirling around Mount Gretna, the historic wooded Lebanon County community that has long fought to retain its uniqueness.

Controversy is everywhere, what with development proposals for land surrounding town landmarks and contested comprehensive plans to guide future growth in communities surrounding the borough.

Among the strange cast of players involved: Glenn Beck, the John Birch Society, a United Nations guide to sustainability known as Agenda 21 and a Mount Gretna pediatrician who owns some of Mount Gretna's most hallowed icons.

"The Mount Gretna community, as we know it, the preservation of the unique experience there and the quality of life is at a very tenuous point," says Marla Pitt, a third-generation Gretna resident and president of Preserve Mount Gretna.

Here are the battlegrounds:

• For three years, North Londonderry and South Londonderry townships and the borough of Palmyra have been working together on a regional comprehensive plan that addresses future development and community quality-of-life goals.

But with the plan nearing completion, North Londonderry Township supervisors suddenly pulled out of the process in December. They followed that with a resolution that states their opposition to Agenda 21, a 1992 United Nations guide meant mostly for undeveloped nations that encourages sustainability and environmental protection.

Some residents have complained loudly that the plan interferes with property owners' rights and would put in place Agenda 21 policies.

"Agenda 21" also is the title of conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck's new book of fiction. In it, the United States is reduced to a totalitarian state after U.S. Agenda 21 principles have been implemented worldwide.

The conservative, less-government group the John Birch Society also has an active "Stop Agenda 21" campaign. According to the group's website, "the U.N.'s local Agenda 21 program may already be in your local community." It encourages citizens to encourage local officials to repeal "sustainable development" ordinances.

The comprehensive plan was authored by RothPlan, a Lancaster-based community planning firm.

Its owner, Harry Roth, who grew up in Mount Gretna, finds the Agenda 21 concerns "very bizarre."

He says the goals and proposals in the proposed comprehensive plan come from local officials.

"These are their goals," he says. "People alleging this is a campaign to thwart local control and local government couldn't be further from the truth."

Planning for growth -- now known as "smart growth" -- has been around for three decades, he says.

Roth says both Palmyra and South Londonderry Township are moving forward with the comprehensive plan and that he's hopeful North Londonderry officials will rejoin.

• In another joint venture, five municipalities near Mount Gretna have joined together to prepare a regional comprehensive plan.

But the Agenda 21 protest also has struck there. Last month, Cornwall Borough pulled out of the effort and passed a resolution that reads, in part, "Citizens across the United States of America and citizens of Cornwall Borough have raised concerns that United Nations Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering and global political control," and that it "attempts to erode the local control found in our communities across the nation, and turns home and regional rule over to a global agenda."

West Cornwall Township also passed an anti-Agenda 21 resolution but has not yet pulled out of the comprehensive plan.

"It's about local planning from the bottom up," says Doug Lorenzen, a resident of the Campmeeting section of Mount Gretna.

"It's just common-sense stuff, like having buffer zones, which is the most effective way of controlling pollution in our streams."

• Eastern Enterprises, a company owned in part by Mount Gretna pediatrician Dr. Eugene Otto and his family, owns and runs Mount Gretna Lake and Beach, a miniature golf course and other commercial properties.

In separate ventures, the company has asked two townships to rezone property surrounding and near the lake for possible development. The land is adjacent and south of Soldiers Field from the Spanish-American War days. The Lebanon Valley Rail Trail runs through it and it includes Mount Gretna's oldest building, a former roller rink.

In West Cornwall Township, Eastern Enterprises originally sought a rezoning of 90 acres adjacent to the area where the town's amusement park once operated from Residential Forest to R1 and R2.

The 2011 request was dropped in favor of a 10-lot subdivision on 37 acres of land bordering the rail trail. That request is pending.

Also still pending is another request to develop land near the lake in South Londonderry Township from Conservation to Residential. Supervisors will field public comment at a meeting Tuesday.

All this worries people such as Pitt, of Preserve Mount Gretna.

"We're not against development. Our mission all along has been to retain the land and the unique and historic character of the community. Where is the tipping point in retaining that character?"

acrable@lnpnews.com