Letters to the Editor
Save Shaw Road
When my husband and I moved to Shaw Road 17 years ago, he was drawn to the 5.5 acres of our property, the Akron land behind us and the 3-acre residential zoning in the farm field across the street. To him it meant elbow room, rural landscapes and a respite from urban sprawl and development.
I was attracted to the farmhouse with a large kitchen where I would cook many meals for my family. Our girls played in the big backyard, I ran on Shaw Road pushing them in the baby jogger where a few years later they rode their bicycles.
We embraced the rural lifestyle and we invested in the community. This is where we settled down, established roots and raised our family. We are here to stay.
Now there is a developer proposing to have the farm field across the street rezoned to a manufactured home park. We purchased property on Shaw Road with the knowledge that the farm field was zoned for three acre residential use, and we also expected it to remain zoned that way. The developer also purchased the property with knowledge of such zoning, yet it now seeks to overturn that zoning solely for their private commercial benefit and to the detriment of the rest of us.
Serving the economic benefit of one person/developer completely disregards the values and rural landscape that defines Geauga County.
Please join me, my family and the residents of Shaw Road to voice your opposition to the rezoning proposal. Remind Troy Township Trustees, Troy Township Zoning Commission members, Geauga County Commissioners, Geauga County Planning Commission members and Auburn Township Trustees what is important to you.
Keep the rural lifestyle of Geauga County, defend the rural landscape of Troy Township, protect the 3-acre residential zoning of the farm field. Save Shaw Road.
Jeanne Engle
Auburn Township
Say No to Proposed Zoning Change
Serious action must be taken to stop a troubling situation that is threatening the solitude of dedicated Troy Township residents.
Sixty-three acres of farmfield, which is currently zoned as 3-acre residential, is being pursued by Troy Oaks Manufactured Homes for rezoning. If rezoning is allowed, all 63 acres will be zoned for a manufactured home park, making it possible for 84 homes to be built. This unfortunate change will drastically alter the beautiful rural landscape enjoyed by our community.
My husband and I confidently purchased our house on Shaw Road with hopes and plans for our future. We bought our home knowing the surrounding 63 acres is zoned 3-acre residential. We trusted in this zoning and invested not just in a house, but a rural lifestyle. We desired a place to raise our four children, with privacy, quiet and simple living. After many renovations and improvements, this house has become our home.
Now, all we built our future on is being threatened by this proposed rezoning. This change would bring devastating consequences to our family.
While this issue affects us directly it also affects the surrounding area and community. People, like me and my family, who also invested in more than a house.
Rezoning this acreage would lower home values, increase traffic, lower water tables, and take rural living away. As a community, it is imperative to support each other.
While the current proposition to rezone may not directly affect you, it could set a precedent for future changes in zoning. I would never want anyone else to have to face this same situation!
Shelby Hauenstein
Troy Township
Another Last Minute Addition to State Budget Bill
Protect Geauga Parks opposes lines 21239 through 21245 in Ohio House Bill 49 (the State Budget Bill) and asks you to take action to see that it is removed when the bill goes to the Ohio Senate.
This last minute addition to the State Budget Bill is a rehash of Ohio House Bill 8 that was rejected in the past. If allowed to become law, it would streamline the process for aggregating properties for the purpose of drilling for oil and gas.
This means drillers or property owners who want to drill on their property but don’t have enough land could force county and other local park districts to allow drilling in and under their parks.
Protect Geauga Parks opposes this legislation. It is our mission to promote, support and actively campaign for Conservation, Preservation and Protection of nature in Geauga County parks.
As taxpaying citizens, we own our public park lands and pay for the environmental value that parks provide to us through the tax levies that we, as voters, have passed. This addition to the Budget bill will take control of our county and local parks away from the citizens and give it to Oil and Gas Companies.
It is our right, as citizens, to determine the use of our park lands and to protect the natural resources within the parks. These rights should not be usurped by the oil and gas industry or by the desires of neighboring property owners.
We urge Ohio legislators to treat all park lands equally whether state or local, to fulfill their obligation to taxpayers who have voted to preserve, conserve and protect park lands, and to keep all parks safe for the public who depend upon them.
Kathryn Hanratty
President, Protect Geauga Parks
Clueless Cardinal Voters
To the 300-plus painfully-clueless voters living in the Cardinal School district:
Thank you for rendering my husband’s most recent raise null and void. Your “yes” vote on the district’s latest money-grubbing appeal means that he is now going to spend the same amount on this absolutely-useless tax as he received from his cost-of-living raise.
You must really believe those who tell you the tax is “for the children.” It is not for the children. It is for squandering on administrators’ hefty pensions and extravagant medical coverage, increasing the number of administrators in the already-bloated Cardinal school system (can never have enough administrators, can we?) and remodeling administrators’ offices. (It is very sad that the children I’m speaking of are left to suffer under the avarice of those who are supposed to care about and support them.)
Open your eyes, for once. Consider where your money is REALLY going. Ask yourself if dipping into your wallet for a bunch of greedy, self-serving fraudsters is worth it.
And thanks again for being so generous with my and my husband’s hard-earned money. We appreciate it more than words can say.
Karen Norling
Middlefield
Newbury Schools a ‘Perfect Storm’
Newbury deserves a school board with a realistic outlook to the future and the ability to perceive the daunting demands before them. A board is obligated to offer our children a challenging and dignified educational opportunity from kindergarten through their senior year, and realize the stark difference between thriving and just merely surviving for the sake of a blind allegiance to nostalgia and Black Knight pride.
Simultaneously, we need a board with enough business sense committed to delivering a great product at a fair and competitive price. Our group has always been committed to this mission. Currently, Newbury taxpayers are stuck paying a shiny Cadillac price for an old run down, high mileage Chevy with a rusted out body. If this was our only option available then we would stick with it and try to keep the district viable.
However, on March 13 of this year, our school board made a hasty and quick retreat from the merger negotiations with West Geauga Schools and when asked why Newbury pulled out of the talks the claim was WG board member’s lack of support for a merger and the minimal financial savings to Newbury. We talked to several WG board members and their superintendent and received a much more upbeat observation. Although they were not ready to make a commitment, much optimism abounded about the financial savings to both school districts and they were ready to schedule public meetings.
Despite Newbury’s withdrawal from the talks WG continued their financial investigation, and on March 31 we received a statement that Newbury taxpayers would have benefitted with 14.7 mill reduction in their real estate taxes which is equivalent to approximately a $450.00 savings for every $100,000 in estimated market value. Hence, a house valued at $200,000 would save $900.00 on a yearly basis. The overall savings to the Newbury community would have been almost 2.6 million dollars yearly, or 26 million dollars over the next decade. This would have been a huge financial stimulus to our local economy.
The Newbury school board’s theme of “Small but Mighty” sounds uplifting but ignores the true direction of the district which is being hammered by a “perfect storm” of a quickly shrinking student body jumping ship for other educational venues; a state legislature continually cutting back funding and implementing policies designed to hasten the demise of districts like Newbury and financially rewarding them for merging with stronger districts; and a building recently rated by that state as poor in safety, security, structural and mechanical features and environmental and educational adequacy. Even the football bleachers were condemned last year.
A merger with WG would have slashed our real estate taxes, offer a far greater educational and extra-curricular opportunity and house our kids in a modern, safe and secure facility.
The longer this board continues to manage by crisis and fails to acknowledge our district’s decline and eventual demise, the more diminished our influence becomes over our future.
For more information regarding Newbury Schools, search for our Facebook group at “ITS TIME”.
Chris Yaecker
Newbury Township
