Panel: Dismiss MetroParks bikeway case in favor of Angels founder | News, Sports, Jobs

YOUNGSTOWN — A panel of appellate court judges in central Ohio has ruled that two Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judges should have ended Mill Creek MetroParks’ effort to acquire a right of way on land owned by Diane Less of Green Township, and the company Green Valley Wood Products, to extend a bikeway in southern Mahoning County.

Less is a founder of Angels for Animals, West South Range Road, Canfield, which provides an animal shelter, veterinary care and other services.

The ruling reverses the common pleas court judges’ decisions more than one year ago and orders them — John Durkin and Maureen Sweeney — to rule in favor of the request of Less and Green Valley for the eminent domain cases to be dismissed without a trial, through what is called summary judgment.

The panel from the Fourth District Court of Appeals, in Circleville, ruled in favor of Less and Green Valley because it found that the MetroParks did not have authority to appropriate the right of way for a bike trail.

WHAT THIS MEANS

Attorney Carl James of Youngstown, who represents Less and Green Valley, said the ruling means the appeals panel found that the Ohio eminent-domain statute pertaining to park boards “does not authorize a taking for ‘highway purposes,’ including a bicycle path.”

When asked about the ruling, Less said she suspects the case will end up in the Ohio Supreme Court, but she wishes the issue was over.

“We have enough to do, and we just want this to go away,” she said of herself and the other property owners, adding that it also costs a lot of money to hire lawyers.

Less said she wonders how the members of the MetroParks board would feel if they were the ones facing the loss of their property.

“If I came over to your house and said, ‘Hey, your back yard is really nice. We’re taking it.’ What are you going to say? No — because you don’t want me to. It’s yours,” she said.

“So, it’s mine. It’s my family’s. We’ve lived here 100 years. Go away.”

When asked about the ruling Thursday afternoon, Aaron Young, Mill Creek MetroParks executive director, said he had received a copy of the ruling but had not yet conferred with the MetroParks’ attorneys regarding the issue.

“Until we have had the opportunity to review this ruling with counsel, we will be withholding any further comment,” he said.

THE RULING

The MetroParks filed two separate petitions asking the court to allow it to acquire the rights of way on property owned by Less and Green Valley, but the cases were consolidated for the purposes of appeal.

The appellate ruling states that the jurists had found several court rulings that addressed issues related to the creation of recreational trails by park districts, but “we have found no cases in our research which directly address the question of whether (the part of Ohio law related to such property acquisition) actually authorizes park districts to create these types of trails.”

The ruling notes that James has argued that park property acquisition “must be ‘for conversion into forest reserves and for the conservation of the natural resources of the state, including streams, lakes, submerged lands, and swamplands,’ as expressly stated in the statute.”

The ruling continues, “It appears to be generally accepted that the creation of recreational trails for public use benefits the general welfare of the public; however, such a public use certainly does not constitute conversion into forest reserves for purposes of” the state law governing park acquisition of land.

BIKEWAY

The right of way owned by Less is one of 13 parcels the MetroParks seeks to use to complete the third and final 6.4-mile phase of the MetroParks bikeway in southern Mahoning County. Some of the property owners negotiated a resolution to their cases, Young has said.

The third phase was designed to continue the trail from Western Reserve Road to the Mahoning County line at Washingtonville. Phases I and II run through Austintown, Canfield and Canfield Township.

The Mahoning County bikeway is part of the 110-mile Great Ohio Lake-to-River Greenway that will begin on the shores of Lake Erie and travel south to the banks of the Ohio River in East Liverpool.