Township wants fix to hole in parking lot

The hole is on private property and is not the township's responsibility.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- It's an abysmal situation: A gaping hole has opened at the edge of the parking lot in the Tippecanoe Square strip plaza.
The plaza is off Lockwood Boulevard near Tippecanoe Road. The hole measures about 10 feet long by 8 feet wide.
There's a 10- to 12-foot drop into the now-exposed Indian Run Creek for anyone who would be unlucky enough to stumble into it.
Even though it was caused by a culvert collapse on private property and is technically not Boardman's responsibility, the township wants something to be done about it.
At first, orange and white cones circled the hole, which opened March 19. Orange net fencing now blocks it from the curious, at least in the lot itself. The hole juts out of the parking lot into the grass at the side of Lockwood, however, and Friday morning it was still approachable from that end.
Boardman was working on getting its road department to put up some type of a barricade there Friday afternoon, said Pete Ross, the township's assistant zoning inspector. "Even though it's not our road," he said.
Lockwood is actually state Route 625. Paula Putnam of the Ohio Department of Transportation's District 4 office said, however, that the state does not own the grass. She said the state wants to buy five feet of it for a right-of-way for an upcoming project there, but has not done so yet.
She said the hole is entirely on private property.
Letter sent to owners
The township zoning department has sent Patrick and Barbara Angelilli, owners of the plaza, a letter that notes the hole is a Home Rule violation under exterior property maintenance, and is requesting that it be repaired.
Marilyn Kenner, chief deputy engineer for Mahoning County, said the culvert joined a state drainage system at the point of the collapse. The state plans a widening project in the system at that site, Putnam said.
The state, however, cannot use tax dollars to fix a hole that is on private property, she said.
The widening project is not set to begin until spring 2008. She also said that the state's pipe under the road is in excellent condition, which should help direct the water.
Kenner said the property owners had the culvert built along with the plaza in the mid-1980s. She said it collapsed because the structure, a concrete box, caved in.
The Angelillis could not be reached to comment.