GIRARD LAKES People express interest in property

A councilman said Girard Lakes is of no value to the city.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GIRARD -- There is interest in buying at least part of the city-owned Girard Lakes property.
Mayor James J. Melfi said about six people from the area have inquired. He didn't identify them.
The topic of the lakes surfaced during city council's meeting Monday.
Councilman Joseph Christopher, D-at-large, asked how council could decide on what to do with the lakes when the city administration doesn't know.
Christopher said he thinks the lakes are of no value to the city.
The city purchased the lakes in 1995 for about $2.5 million as a possible source of drinking water.
The plan never developed because the cost of a water filtration plant is too high, as is the cost of repairing the dam at the lower lake.
Melfi pointed out the city generates little revenue from the lakes, but pays about $234,000 annually toward the debt.
The cost of rehabilitating the dam is $10 million to $10.5 million. A plan to breach the dam as an alternative to rehabilitation has been approved by the Army Corps of Engineers but not the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the mayor said.
Councilman Joseph Lambert, D-at-large, said the council's property research committee should be meeting with the administration to discuss the fate of the lakes.
Other business: In other business in the financially troubled city, council moved to a third reading approval of Melfi's five-year fiscal recovery plan.
Melfi, who wanted the plan to be approved before today's fiscal planning and supervision commission meeting, could not muster enough council votes to suspend the final reading of the legislation.
Melfi said the oversight committee will be disappointed that the plan has not been adopted by council.
Although Councilwoman Kathleen O'Connell Sauline, D-2nd, chairwoman of council's finance committee, voted to suspend the last reading, she said her committee has several questions about the plan.
In other business, Melfi said Patrolman John Graver, who has been laid off, and dispatcher Nicholas Carney have accepted jobs in Warren.
Patrolman Scott Seigel, who has been laid off, will return to duty. This leaves one patrol officer on furlough status.
In addition, law director Mark M. Standohar will prepare a resolution of support for naming the future intersection of the state Route 7/11 connector at Gypsy Lane in Liberty after former Councilman Charles Lamancusa.
Lamancusa was killed in 2000 during a robbery at his grocery store.
yovich@vindy.com