What is Bainbridge Getting?
Bainbridge Township needs improvement of present services before taking on more. I am concerned about Bainbridge Township taking on a project like what is planned for Geauga Lake. I don’t believe that Bainbridge can handle what they have already promised. I want safe roads, road and speed signs, salt and snow trucks when needed, and zoning protection.
In September 2018, I attended a township trustees meeting and presented my concerns. My major concern was the roads: Root, Fields, Catsden, Cope, Country Lane, Jackson, Haskins and Wilson were redone in the fall of 2016 using the “chip and seal” method. After these roads were completed, they failed. The gravel ran to the side of the road, and what was left was mostly tar. In the summer, sand is thrown on the roads to subdue the tar.
I also pointed out road signs and speed limit signs were absent from some of these roads. It is April 2021 and there are still no signs, and the roads that have been redone are one half of Root (from Pettibone to the Parkside Church gate), Haskins, Country Lane and Wilson.
While I am discussing roads, Geauga Lake is absolutely dangerous and the traffic and speed will only increase with the development planned.
We consistently support road levies, yet we have roads that need to be replaced or repaired. How much worse will this get as more development happens? The residential people of Bainbridge pay the bulk of the taxes; yet, we are getting the short end of the stick.
There are six kindergartners that get on the Kenston bus a little before 8 a.m. in my neighborhood. There is no snow plow or salt truck on certain roads until much later, if at all. However, before 8 a.m., on Good Friday, the sun is shining and it’s nice out — there is the Bainbridge truck. How often are we paying for things like this or do certain places get preferential treatment?
However, my biggest disappointment is the zoning protection that Bainbridge says it offers has been nonexistent. I have had complaints in since September of 2018. There is a residence half-a-mile from my house that has 10 abandoned vehicles that are visible from the road. Or another residence that lines their inventory of big metal boxes along their driveway and conducts business.
Karen Endres, head of zoning, says she will not do zoning complaints until they hire her an assistant. The assistant was hired four months ago. He showed me two rooms of work that has yet to be looked at.
The zoning protection we thought we had does not exist and we have outgrown regulations on noise. Hearing construction noise before 6 a.m. or after 9 p.m. needs another look.
We pay twice the taxes for the same value house in comparison to Aurora or Twinsburg. The school wants another levy and the Geauga Lake project promises even higher taxes.
What are we getting in return?
Karen Skeel Bartlett
Bainbridge Township
Multiple Use, Multiple Abuse
I am one of those who strongly agree with the letter to the editor from author Rosemary Balazs, who wrote that turkey hunting was inappropriate for our Geauga parks.
Let me add some information that may further inform Geauga park lovers.
First, let me say that I write this as a hunter who hunted deer successfully for many years — for meat, not for enjoyment. I occasionally am pressed, with regret, to shoot a ground hog that manages to get into my vegetable garden in spite of the buried fence and electric fencer on top. I am not anti-hunter, but feel that in our parks hunting should only be used as a management tool.
Prior to the era of Grendell mismanagement, the park district did allow hunting only as a management tool, not as an enjoyable pastime for Danial Boone wanabees. The natural area ecology is out of balance in most areas of this country. A good example is the white-tailed deer population that have no serious predators to check their population and distribution. Because of this situation, our state wildflower, the white trillium, has disappeared from many forested areas of our state — the deer love to eat them. This is one management reason why deer hunting has been managed in the parks in the past under the supervision of the park biologist.
Boy have things changed. Likely the park biologist is not even consulted as to hunting in the parks. I recall a past park commissioners meeting some years ago when the park biologist was asked his view on turkey hunting in the parks. He did not recommend turkey hunting because he stated there was no evidence that such management was needed or advisable.
There’s an old saying, “multiple use equals multiple abuse.” This saying applies to many of the abuses the park director has been allowing in the parks, such as recreational trapping, hunting, snowmobiling, I could go on. Most folks that walk the park trails do so to enjoy the natural sounds of nature and to see and enjoy the wildlife in the parks. They don’t do so to hear guns being discharged, to hear 110 decibel snowmobiles whiz by or smell their toxic exhaust.
In areas where hunting occurs, wildlife tends to avoid people to a great extent and thus deprives folks of wildlife viewing enjoyment — multiple use, multiple abuse.
Will things change? Not likely as long as Judge Grendell is probate judge and continues to appoint commissioners whose primary qualification seems to be that they are friends of the judge. I don’t believe any of them have evidenced any past involvement in protecting natural areas and biodiversity. Commissioners who have in the past have been eliminated by the judge.
In the words of the Donald, so sad!
John G. Augustine
Parkman Township
