Chester to Terminate Contract With Park Board

August 26, 2016 by Gwen Cooper

Chester Township Trustees voted 2-1 to terminate its contract with the Chester Park District at the Aug. 18 township meeting.

Trustee Bud Kinney voted against the resolution, while Trustees Ken Radtke and Mike Petruziello voted to end the contract. The termination is effective Dec. 31.

“This has nothing to do with our park board members,” Trustee Ken Radtke pointed out Friday. “They have done a great job on our parks and have attracted thousands of people to use them. I hope they all consider resigning and forming a new park committee so we can move forward to regain control of the parks, which are owned by our residents.”

The vote to terminate the agreement with the parks was taken after the trustees voted 2-1 against executing a new agreement that Radtke said would, in practice, give 100 acres of township-owned parkland to the probate court.

Kinney was the lone vote in favor of executing that agreement.

“The first vote was to approve the signature of the revised contract with the park board. That vote, I voted yes,” Kinney said. “The background to that is, our board took the initiative to write a revised contract proposal that was intended to address some of the elements in the order from Judge Grendell and we also knew there was some opportunity to improve the scope of responsibility of the park board and give them more autonomy to manage that … while relieving our board of some of our burden of managing properties.

“We wrote that revised contract and we gave our prosecutor instructions to take it to the park board and ask them to sign it with full faith and confidence that we would sign the contract if they signed it.”

Kinney said in his point of view, trustees reneged their obligation to sign.

“I am an officer of a corporation. I manage probably several hundred contracts a year,” Kinney said. “I’m very comfortable working with contract language and more importantly, I know the responsibility that’s associate with presenting a document with full faith and expection of both parties.

“I think that action was unconscionable,” he added. “If they didn’t want to sign it, they should have said that after we drafted the document. It was embarrassing.”

As for the vote to terminate the township’s contract with the park board, Kinney said he knew nothing about that motion prior to it happening at the meeting.

“That was strictly between those two trustees,” Kinney said, referring to Radtke and Petruziello. “I have no idea how that came about. That would have been in conflict with the recommendations we received from our counsel.”

The aforementioned 100-acres of township-owned parkland include the active park at the corner of Chillicothe and Mayfield roads, the passive park at Chillicothe and Mulberry roads and the passive 80-acres at the township’s border with Kirtland.

“We need to protect our residents as well as the park district from this judicial over-reach,” Radtke said, referring to Geauga County Probate Court Judge Tim Grendell. “He appears to have adversarial relationships with our residents and other public officials.”

In a letter Radtke emailed to park board members the next day, he said, “The majority of the board members based their decision because of the probate judge.

“It is my personal and sincere hope that whatever structure is established, (your input is welcome and) that you would be willing to become a part of that organization and continue to volunteer and support the residents of Chester Township and continue the great work you have been doing.”

Radtke further told the current members he does not intend to micromanage the next organization of park board members.

“I am hopeful for a better relationship without interference from others and am interested in developing further park opportunities for our residents and will work hard to provide you the funding necessary to accomplish the goals that hopefully you all will be a part of establishing,” he wrote.

Chester’s park board members include Joe Weiss, Lance Yandell, Clay Lawrence, Al Parker and Ruth Philbrick.

Weiss, vice chairman, did not return a phone call seeking comment before press time.

When asked if the next step will be to form a new 511 park district, as Russell Township is exploring to regain control of its parks from Grendell, Radtke indicated he was hopeful that concerned citizens and perhaps some park board members would look into it.

“We didn’t need it to get to this point,” Radtke said. “I’m sure the discussion on different approaches will be going on in future meetings.”

Kinney said he is “not a lemming” and the vote to terminate the contract was a “huge disappointment.”

“If you think about what they’re doing, they don’t like the judge. But they’re not taking action on the judge, they’re taking action on another political subdivision who has done an absolutely fantastic job managing that park. They’re easy to work with, good people, they’re our community neighbors. These are Chester residents, taxpayers. They just kicked taxpayers off their own park board. It is unconscionable. Two wrongs do not make a right.”

Judge Grendell Weighs In

Geauga County Probate Court Judge Tim Grendell said Chester Township Trustees vote to terminate its contract with the current township park district in the hopes of creating a new one without probate-court oversight is akin to having two boards of trustees.

“It is simply a waste of Chester Township taxpayers’ money and will only lead to extra cost, confusion and mismanagement of the township park,” he said Tuesday. “None of the Chester trustees and no Chester residents have approached me about changing the Chester park district to a township-controlled park district like Russell. In fact, from our last scheduled hearing, the township trustees and park board stated they had agreed or were agreeing to a new operating agreement over the parks. What changed? If a majority of Chester residents want the trustees to name the park board members, I would not object.”

Law Clerk Anthony Hurst said the issue appears to be “solely driven by two trustees — Mr. Radtke and Mr. Petruziello — for political purposes.”

“This finger-pointing is not only factually wrong, but undermines the judicial integrity of the probate court. The trustees claim interference by the probate court, however, the Ohio Supreme Court, in a 7-0 decision, held that the probate court has ‘the ability to issue orders … that impose duties on those interfering with the park district’s purposes,'”?Hurst said.

As an example, he noted in 2002, the township trustees voted to eliminate the inside millage for the park district’s 2003 budget and the probate court found that conduct to conflict with the park’s originally stated purpose.

“Why didn’t the township trustees allow for public input before taking the Aug. 18 vote?” Hurst continued. “Does terminating the agreement with the volunteer park board serve the best interests of Chester Township?

“In her report, Master Commissioner Mary Jane Trapp viewed the Chester Park as “‘a vastly improved public park overseen by a dedicated group of volunteers,'” Hurst added. “I hope that the positive culture created by the volunteers in recent years will not be in vain. Apparently, Mr. Radtke and Mr. Petruziello do not agree.”