MAHONING COUNTY Poland aims to annex woods

Officials hope the process is completed within a month.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
POLAND -- Village officials are making another attempt at annexing a large portion of the Poland Woods from Boardman Township.
Damian DeGenova, village solicitor, said no lost papers will hold up the process this time.
The village owns the 250 acres of park area, but most of it has always actually been in Boardman.
Sometime in the mid- to late '90s, the issue of ownership came up when there was confusion over which police department -- Boardman or Poland village -- is responsible for patrolling the area. Poland village police patrol the woods with occasional check-ins by Boardman police.
The annexation process was originally started at that time when council passed a resolution to petition Mahoning County commissioners to annex the land.
Mahoning County commissioners accepted a petition in December 2000 from village residents. Village council voted unanimously in January 2001 to accept annexation of the more than 200 acres of property, but that is where the process stopped.
DeGenova said the papers were never recorded with the county recorder's office. DeGenova was not village solicitor at that time.
"When this was originally done for some reason the parchment was never recorded," he said.
Different process
Village officials are looking to complete the process, but this time it will be done in a slightly different order, DeGenova said. Workers in the county commissioners office, he said, have asked that village officials sign an acceptance section of the actual parchment before commissioners approve the agreement.
DeGenova said village officials are awaiting the signature of Mayor Ruth Wilkes before the process can go forward. The mayor has been out of town and unable to sign the parchment.
DeGenova said once the mayor has signed the parchment and it has been approved by county commissioners, it will be hand delivered to the county recorders office. He said the parchment will not be misplaced this time.
"As solicitor I am going to personally walk it over there," he said. "It will not get lost."
Jurisdictional issues over the woods have arisen twice in the past -- once in the 1990s when it was unclear which police department would patrol the area, and again this year as council was weighing a measure that would allow dog owners to let their pets roam freely in the section of the woods still in Boardman Township.
DeGenova said he is hopeful that the annexation process will be completed within a month.
jgoodwin@vindy.com