Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Possible sale of Girard Lake
saddens environmentalist
EDITOR:
As an environmentalist, my interest in the Girard Lakes area dates back to my seeing a Web site the city created about the area after purchasing it from Ohio Water Service in 1995.
“Visit the Girard Lakes and enjoy the natural beauty that is so close to home,” the Web site invited, after describing the widely diverse flora and fauna found in the area.
Flash forward a few years, and we sadly learn that Girard is planning to sell 425 acres of this same northeast quadrant for commercial, entertainment and residential development. (This after having already had much of the area timbered.)
In following this Girard Lakes situation, I have noticed a marked absence of any debate about saving for posterity such a large relatively pristine wooded area located within a heavily urbanized region. Unfortunately, Youngstown’s Mill Creek Park isn’t that handy to Trumbull County residents.
Marc Dann, the state attorney general, when a state senator, did remark to me that Trumbull County was sadly deficient in park land, and agreed that saving the Girard Lakes area for park purposes did make sense.
But not apparently to leaders in Girard, who are advancing the sale of the 425 acres for development. Councilman Tom Siedler has gone so far as to say that a buyer should be obligated to use the property for commercial ventures as well as residential ones. (I guess he doesn’t think that there are already enough such ventures along nearby Route 422.)
As a retiree and seasonal resident of Northwestern Pennsylvania, I regularly hike around the former Irvine Estate, an area about three-quarters the size of the plot that Girard plans to sell for development. The walk around the perimeter of this 300-acre area along the Allegheny River (where archeologists can trace human settlement back 12,000 years) takes me about an hour and 40 minutes.
Thus a hike on a trail around the northwest quadrant at the Girard Lakes would take two hours or more and would be a fine outing for joggers, cross country runners and skiers as well as for hikers. Certainly Boy Scout troops and bird watchers would find the area appealing as well. There could have been a boat launching site on the upper lake, which is half again as large as Mill Creek Park’s Lake Newport.
The Irvine area was acquired by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy following the death of the last of the Irvines to live in the estate’s elegant old river bank mansion. The Conservancy then sold it for $360,000 in 1991 to the U.S. Forest Service, which added it to the adjacent Allegheny National Forest.
It’s too bad that the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which has acted in so many instances to safeguard the region’s heritage has no parallel just across the border in eastern Ohio.
ROBERT R. STANGER
Boardman
About that militia
EDITOR:
In response to the Nov. 21 article by Robert A. Levy regarding the right to bear arms, the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution states: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Obviously the need for a state militia has been replaced by the National Guard and Coast Guard whereby trained military personnel are entrusted with the defense of this country against domestic enemies. Their weapons are tightly controlled and safeguarded.
The only two reasons for a citizen to own a firearm is for hunting and/or defense of the household from intruders. In either case, ownership of a handgun, shotgun or rifle is more than adequate to satisfy these purposes. There is absolutely no need for any United States civilian to own any weapon more powerful or sophisticated than these. Accordingly, all handguns, shotguns and rifles must be licensed and registered to the degree necessary to match weapon to owner at the click of a computer key.
JOE BIALEK
Cleveland