Club's fate rests with court, owner says

The park owner contends a sheriff's sale of the property was improper.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- The fate of a private swim club in Green Township is in court, says the park's owner.
Len McGarvey, who owns Yellow Duck Park on state Route 46 south of Canfield, said Wednesday that the park is not going to open in May or June.
Whether it opens again at all depends on the outcome of a hearing before a magistrate in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, he said.
McGarvey filed a lawsuit in February challenging the Nov. 8, 2005, sheriff's sale of his 40-acre park, which has a current membership of between 50 and 100 families. Named as defendants in the suit are Mahoning County, Dave Sugar, who is trying to buy the property but has not had the sale confirmed, and mortgage company RC Equities Inc.
McGarvey's lawsuit says the sale was not valid because his Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing on the property should have stayed the sale.
He said he gave the county documents Nov. 7, 2005, pertaining to the bankruptcy filing. He said he was told the property was recalled from the sale list.
He and his attorney, Dave Gerchak, said they found out four months later that the sheriff's department put the property back on the list.
He said he has been struggling to regain the property.
A hearing on McGarvey's suit will be before a magistrate. A date has not been set.
The magistrate "will see evidence that the property shouldn't have been on the list," he said.
Another development
McGarvey said that while he was trying to settle a 3 million lawsuit filed in 2002 over a drowning at the park in 2001, he was "in and out of bankruptcy" to prevent foreclosure on the property.
During that time, a Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing was converted to a Chapter 7. It was the Chapter 7 that the county was notified of the day before the sale, he and his lawyer said. Gerchak said it is their contention that the conversion automatically meant a new stay against sale of the property.
Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said it is the county's contention that there was no court-ordered stay on the property.
McGarvey said the 2002 lawsuit that "held the park down" was settled out of court 10 days after the sheriff's sale. He would not disclose the settlement amount. A search of court records produced no information on the lawsuit.
The August 2001 drowning of a 10-year-old boy who slipped off his inner tube in the park's lake is only part of a troubled history at Yellow Duck.
Gerchak said McGarvey started to see business drop after the World Trade Center attacks in 2001.
He's planned to build more attractions and expand the park, which he says he'll do if the court rules in his favor.
Meanwhile, he acknowledged 32 former employees are still waiting to be paid back wages. He said those employees will be paid no matter what the court rules.
He said that if the court rules against him, he will refund all summer reservations and season-pass fees.