MILL CREEK METROPARKS Commissioners move forward with hike-bike trail connector

'It's not a nature preserve. This is a park,' a commissioner said.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- Despite protests, Mill Creek MetroParks commissioners affirmed the hike and bike trail connector between East and West Newport drives will be built just north of Shields Road as planned.
"The board's decision to do what we planned to do is done," Harry Meshel, board president, said Monday as the three-member board adjourned to executive session at the end of a two-hour meeting. "It's going forward as planned -- no change contemplated," he added.
The park administration advertised Friday for bids to build the 850-foot-long, 10-foot wide asphalt pedestrian and bicycle path and bridge over Mill Creek, with bids to be opened in the park office immediately after the noon May 23 deadline. Trees were cut down earlier this spring.
Safety enhancement
Park officials have said the connector, to be paid for by a $164,000 federal grant, will be a safety enhancement because it will keep hikers, joggers and bicyclists out of the heavy traffic on Shields Road and Sheban Drive.
"In the summertime, we have as many as 175 people run in that area and it's really a safety hazard running on Sheban and Shields Road," said Dan Shields, president of the Youngstown Road Runners Club.
"I feel it's very necessary to keep me off of Sheban Drive and Shields Road. If you're on those streets, it's very dangerous," said Bruce McMurray of Boardman, who said he's in the Lake Newport area of the park almost every day.
But Lucky Kaiser, Sheban Drive resident, and three Youngstown State University biology professors have urged the park to abandon the project because of their concerns about its impact on the environment.
Kaiser called for park commissioners to consider redesigning Sheban Drive as an alternative .
Opposition's view
As she spoke Monday, Kaiser renewed her call for the commissioners to abandon the project and let vegetation grow back in the swath where the trees have been cut down.
"It's not a nature preserve. This is a park. We must preserve the park, but we must allow the people to use it, and foremost in my mind is the safety of the people who use the park," park commissioner Carl Nunziato said.
"We are to preserve and protect the park while at the same time expanding public uses. This is a public institution owned by the people. If Volney Rogers [Mill Creek Park's founder] wanted it to be primitive, he would have said no roads, no walks,'' Meshel said.
"Thirty to 50 feet of trees have been cut for a 10-foot path. This does not constitute minimal impact,'' Courtenay Willis, YSU assistant professor of biology, told the board.
It wasn't necessary to destroy that much of the natural habitat, she said.