Humane Options
I recently read a letter from Michael Masterino about the pair of mute swans being killed by ODNR because they were “invasive.” I, too, was shocked and upset these two swans, just doing what swans do, were considered unworthy of living in our lovely county, and so they were summarily disposed of. I drove by them twice a few weeks ago and was thrilled to see two beautiful white swans floating in the swamp on a glorious sunny early spring afternoon.
The article mentioned that, if their wings were clipped, they couldn’t fly, so why weren’t they caught and given to someone who would have been thrilled to have them living on their private property — with clipped wings.
Their eggs could also have been collected so no young would have hatched.
As Mr. Masterino said, the usual answer to animal problems seems to be to “kill them.” Why? Are there no other solutions?
There were other options, maybe less convenient, but definitely more humane.
Rosemary Balazs
Chester Township
What a Revelation!
Wow! If you attended the May 10 West Geauga school board meeting or read the article published in another local newspaper about the “Best Use Study” by Newmark Real Estate on the Newbury Schools property disposition, you learned . . . absolutely nothing you didn’t already know. What a revelation.
In the article, they laid out their findings and concluded that if a zoning variance is given, or zoning is changed, cluster housing would be a best use of the property. In addition, as the title of the article suggests, the “Study shows Newbury center may require taxpayer funding.”
Really? Again, what a revelation.
The title misleads us in one way. It says, “may” require taxpayer funding versus “will” require taxpayer funding. What did you think the outcome would be?
We were told repeatedly by former Newbury school board members (Kimya Mathews, Maggie Zock and Dave Lair) that Newbury taxpayers “can’t afford the upkeep of the property” and “the K-12 building is in such disrepair that we can’t afford to fix it,” so we must do a territory transfer, i.e., give it all away.
These people are now members of a “task force” saying, “we can afford to take all of the property and rent out the K-12 building, and build a community center.”
How is this possible? Simple. Just lie to the population to get the school closed and then try to reverse it by getting the property back after you realize what it did to your community.
As the study shows, sports complexes are a bad idea and too risky. There aren’t enough residents here to support retail. Standard housing would only allow 8-12 houses to be built under the current zoning requirements. Big business would be too far away from the interstate (transportation costs are too high). So what does that leave us? I am not sure. Who wants to move to Newbury when there’s no school nearby and no place to shop?
The West Geauga school board members don’t live in Newbury. They really don’t care what happens to the property as long as it doesn’t tick everyone off enough to vote against their upcoming levy. If you watch the recording of the meeting, listen at the 37:55 mark when a board member says, “when we see those demo costs, we’ll be begging Newbury (Township) you can use this.” It is said with a laugh, which I suppose, is par for the course. I think they are waiting it out until one of the task force members runs for trustee and can dump it on them.
In the end, what will become of the property? I don’t know. It is difficult to listen to the “Sounds of Silence” echoing in the halls of the vacant Newbury school buildings where kids once laughed and played together.
It is still disheartening to know that happiness was replaced by a few tax dollars and that all of this is brought to you by the former Newbury school board members who couldn’t leave well-enough alone.
Phil Paradise Jr.
Newbury Township
Public Money for Personal Publicity
As regular readers of this newspaper are probably aware, there is currently a case pending in the Ohio Supreme Court between the Geauga County auditor and the Geauga County Probate/Juvenile Court judge.
As I understand that case, based on the news reporting, it is at least in part related to the judge’s use of public funds for promotional materials during the primary election last year.
Perhaps public records that I have obtained can shed some light on this lawsuit between public officials. I have created a spreadsheet, which I am happy to share, that shows nearly 50 court expenditures in 2019 and the early part of 2020 for various promotional items bought with public money, usually categorized by the court as “Community Outreach.”
Although some of these expenditures included disclaimers stating that they were not paid for with “tax dollars,” all were paid for with our public money, which, if it did not come from taxes, came from fines and fees paid to the court by the taxpayers like us who use the court.
What kinds of expenditures were made for “Community Outreach” during the election season? Did you receive a glossy “Geauga Court News” in the mail in 2019 or 2020? This quarterly newsletter, which contained news only about the probate/juvenile court and no other Geauga County courts, cost us about $70,000 for the five newsletters sent out before the 2020 primary.
And then, the newsletters suddenly stopped for a year until February 2021, when one more was published, at a time when there were negative stories about the court, its employees and the judge in the newspapers, and another $14,000 of our money seems to have been used for damage control.
Another example of the court’s use of public money for promotional purposes in the primary election season was the expenditure of over $15,000 on signs, robocalls, church bulletin ads, restaurant placemat ads and newspaper ads for the Good Deeds program. Good Deeds is an excellent program, but why did those ads for a program that was started many years ago by the Geauga County Recorder’s Office need to feature the judge’s name and photograph so prominently? Why did paid promotion of the Good Deeds program stop after the primary election?
These are just two examples of ways in which the probate/juvenile court judge seemingly used our public money to fund a personal publicity campaign designed to be an integral, shadow companion to his official election campaign.
In my opinion, this publicly funded shadow campaign was able to flout numerous campaign finance and timing rules by slyly calling itself “Community Outreach,” violating campaign rules and destroying public confidence in the judge’s integrity, temperament and fitness to be a judge.
Shelley Chernin
Russell Township
