CANFIELD Trustee: Gibson Rd. project is flawed

The right of way isn't wide enough to make proper improvements, an engineer says.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- The proposed Gibson Road improvement project is fundamentally flawed and not worthy of support in its present form, according to Judy Bayus, township trustee.
Bayus, who has been the sole dissenter among the three trustees concerning the project, outlined several objections in a one-hour press conference Thursday with the assistance of attorney Frank Bodor of Warren and civil engineer J. Robert Lyden of Canfield.
In a long, prepared statement read by Bodor, Bayus listed several reasons for not supporting the $400,000 project, which calls for the road to be widened to 20 feet and repaved:
UThe project has been ordered halted by visiting Judge Mary Cacioppo and the case is pending in the 7th District Court of Appeals.
UThe failure to date of Mahoning County to install a sanitary sewer line means the newly improved road would have to be dug up for a future sewer installation. (A developer has already installed a water supply line.)
UA majority of Gibson Road residents have signed petitions against the widening.
UThe road right of way isn't wide enough to accommodate the improvements. County specifications call for 60 feet and township specifications call for 50 feet.
Right of way
Lyden said the right of way, as narrow as 30 feet in some places, isn't wide enough to allow for proper road construction and storm water drainage, and more right of way would be needed to avoid trespassing on private property.
"In 35 years in design and construction of dozens of subdivision projects, I have never seen a project where the right of way was as narrow as this,'' Lyden wrote in a letter to Bodor.
"There's nothing wrong with making this road 20 feet wide, but I very firmly feel you must do the job right," Lyden said.
Trustees Paul Morocco and William Reese, who favor the project, sat through the presentation without comment. Morocco declined comment afterward. Reese would only say many township roads have only a 30-foot right of way and function satisfactorily.
School and fire officials have said the improvement is needed for safety reasons.
"They're not doing it properly," said Nancy Tewell, a Gibson Road resident.
"Since that road is primarily being improved for that development at the end of the road, I think the developer should be made to pay for it," her husband, Scott, said.