Letters to Editor
Let’s Find Out
As a resident of Russell Township, I look forward to the Geauga Park District’s upcoming survey of county residents.
The arguing about our parks has included conflicting claims about whose vision for the parks represents the majority. I hope that the upcoming survey will be designed to give us a better understanding of what the people want for our county parks.
A survey conducted in 2008 found that a high percentage of those surveyed were satisfied with the Park District as it existed then. Walking and hiking were by far the most popular activities, and only 21 percent of park users suggested other services or amenities that they wished the Park District would offer.
I hope that the new survey’s questions will be formulated in a way that will tell us how county residents feel about conservation and ecological preservation in our parks, especially in relation to recreational uses that would negatively affect the environment.
I also hope that the new survey attempts to reach more of us than the 400 person sampling surveyed in 2008.
I urge the Park District to make an effort to design a neutral survey that will reach a large number of Geauga County residents. Let’s find out how the people really feel about protecting our parks and the environment. Let’s find out what the people’s priorities are, so we can stop fighting and move forward together.
Shelley Chernin
Russell Township
Grendell Guilty of Hit & Run?
Relax your honor! I’m not accusing you of turning one of our hapless good citizens into “turnpike pizza.”
However, your letter read at the last regular Park Commissioners’ meeting in December could well be considered a hit and run.
It started off with your usual name calling … liars, etc. But you were not specific. Exactly who were the lying individuals? It would have been nice if you were there to look us in the eye when you were expounding and allow us to counter your statements one by one.
But you were nowhere to be seen. I know you mentioned your busy schedule. Are Tuesdays tango lesson nights?
Frankly, it was obvious from your letter, read by Anna M. at the meeting, that you just don’t get it. Let’s look at two of your Park District donations that you’ve previously proudly mentioned.
First, I recall your sponsoring an ice cream social. Your honor, the Geauga Parks were not created for ice cream socials. Folks can have them anywhere. Government entities such as park districts were not established because of a shortage of ice cream socials. I also don’t feel that what our children need is to be hooked on more fat and sugar, but that’s another topic best left for another time.
What you apparently don’t get is that parks were created to protect special natural areas that were and have been quickly disappearing from our county, areas that are home to rare and endangered plants and animals like spotted turtles and brook trout. Areas that all county residents derive benefit from either directly or indirectly. Quiet places for folks to get away from the noise and bustle of modern life.
Another of your donations that I recall is your sponsorship of the “family fishing exposition.” Let see .. my recollection is that hundreds, or is it thousands, of fish were purchased from a fish hatchery and dumped in a park aquatic ecosystem so as to amuse folks fishing for them. It’s there really a shortage of fishing lakes in Northeast Ohio? Should our park district really be promoting more extraction from nature? Should we be treating park aquatic areas in this way rather than protecting and restoring them?
What comes next? Maybe buying deer and dumping them in the parks so hunters have more animals to shoot. How about an animal trapping exposition sponsored by his honor. It could be started off by folks amusing themselves watching films of hapless animals struggling in leg-hold traps and then going out for some “hands on enjoyment” setting and catching.
Maybe you’d like to sponsor a fathers and sons Paul Bunyon Day in which teams compete to see who can cut down the most old growth forest in a fixed time period. Land management 19th century style? The lumber barons would be proud.
So much for two of your donations indicating your ideas of what the park district should be doing.
How about lost opportunities during your tenure. First, the park district had an opportunity to purchase 195 acres in the Bass lake area that scientists at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History consider critical habitat for what may be the only native population of brook trout in Ohio.
The museum inventory of the parcel also found a number of other rare or endangered species worthy of protection. Because of the uniqueness of this parcel, the State Wetland Resources Restoration program was willing to supply all or most funds for the purchase by the park district, but I’ve been told Judge Grendell’s appointee as commissioner at the time stated, “We do not want it.”
Had Judge Grendell shown some leadership at the time, the park could likely have acquired the property for little or no cost. A private organization stepped in at the very last moment to temporarily protect the property, but indeed their action is just a temporary measure.
Many thoughtful and aware county residents know that invasive alien plants and animals are a serious threat to our natural areas and need to be controlled. Apparently, our park administration is not among them. The park district seems unwilling to allocate sufficient funds for that purpose, as is indicated by the nonprofit, financially-strapped Cleveland Museum giving the park district $6,000 for that purpose.
How is it that Judge Grendell and his acting park executive director can be at the forefront in offering to voluntarily suspend a park levy, but yet are apparently unwilling to allocate sufficient funds to protect our special places from alien species invasions?
At the same time, they seem to be perfectly willing to plan on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for inappropriate park facilities like little used sports facilities and amusing playground equipment.
Our present park district is the result of over 50 years of hard work by untold dedicated people who really knew the purpose for which park districts were authorized by our General Assembly early in the 20th century. We can’t let our parks be taken over by those with little knowledge and concern about conservation and who obviously have other agendas.
It’s time to get back to conserve, preserve and protect, and that may well mean changing the way park commissioners are chosen and questioning the wisdom of giving too much power to probate judges.
If we do not, future generation will, indeed, look back with deep regret at a dark time in our county’s history.
John G. Augustine
Parkman Township
