Girard mayor on right track with leather works property

With negotiations between Girard government officials and the owners of the former Ohio Leather Works property at a standstill, Mayor James J. Melfi isn't willing to take a wait-and-see attitude with the $200,000 federal grant meant to pay for testing for pollutants on the land. He wants to funnel the money to other brownfield sites that could be cleaned up in a comparatively short time.
And, the mayor wants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate the 27-acre Leather Works site to determine if it can be placed on a national priority list. Melfi is right: The federal government has a responsibility to assist a community that is under state mandated fiscal watch and that would benefit greatly from having prime land available for future development
There are two reasons the mayor doesn't want to wait until the city and Leatherworks Partnership reach agreement. First, he doesn't want to risk losing the $200,000 federal grant. Second, after years of failing to make substantial progress in the negotiations, Melfi has correctly concluded that the involvement of the U.S. EPA is essential.
After fire destroyed the former tannery plant in 1995, the city attempted to foreclose on the land to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in zoning violation fines, payment for work the city did as a result of the blaze and legal fees. Last December, the 11th District Court of Appeals dismissed an appeal filed by the company. It meant the company had the option of appealing the 11th District's decision to the state Supreme Court or return to Trumbull County Common Pleas Court and resume negotiations with the city.
Cleanup order
In 1997, a magistrate and judge in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court ruled that the company would perform additional cleanup at the property site within a prescribed period of time. The common pleas court ruling, however, failed to contain state civil rule language stating that there was "no just reason for delay," according to the 11th District court. Without those words, the ruling is not a final order, the 2-1 appellate majority concluded.
The city and Leatherworks Partnership resumed negotiations, but last week the mayor declared that talks had broken off. Melfi thus has decided to take another approach, namely, to have the federal government make a determination as to the condition of the land.
If the U.S. EPA placed the former Ohio Leather Works site on the national list, federal dollars would be available to test for pollutants. The owners would have to pay for any cleanup. That's how it should be.
By virtue of its Superfund program, the federal government has acknowledged that it has an obligation to help communities that were stuck with former industrial sites contaminated over the years and left uncleaned when, in most cases, companies filed for bankruptcy. These companies walked away from their responsibilities to the communities that had been such good hosts.
The Valley is littered with the relics of its manufacturing past.
Girard's mayor isn't being unreasonable in asking the federal agency to step in. Former Youngstown Mayor Patrick J. Ungaro succeeded in getting the state and federal governments to participate in the city's brownfields program, which has resulted in the establishment of several industrial parks on property that once boasted steel mills.
The brownfield sites Melfi wants to focus on include the 15-acre former Mid-Continental Coal Co., which once supplied coal to steam engines, and the 18-acre former Demsey Steel Co. that closed about 10 years ago.
The Ohio Leather Works closed in 1971 after 80 years in business. It's time to put this story behind us.