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Poland Twp. residents seek end to ditch dispute
By Robert Connelly
POLAND
Longtime residents of two streets in Poland Township are seeking a final answer for who is to fix a ditch that has continually grown in width and depth over decades.
Township Trustee Eric Ungaro submitted township and residents’ documents to the attorney at the Mahoning County Engineer’s Office to decide whether residents or the township will pay for fixing a ditch in the backyards of several residents of Cliffview and Camella drives.
Ungaro heard back from the attorney this week and will talk with him to see if he can release the opinion to the public at the next township meeting, June 12.
Ungaro’s issue is the fact that the ditch is private property. “[The township’s] not going on private property,” he said.
The matter was discussed at length at the township meeting May 14 attended by several residents. Many of the residents spoke as parents, worried that their kids could fall in during a heavy rain. Others wanted to know how the township let the ditch grow in width and depth since residents began voicing concerns over it in the early 1990s.
The ditch can be seen veering through backyards, with the flow of water from storms helping to shape it. At some points, it is 4 feet deep with tree roots exposed, while at other points it is wider but only about 2 feet deep. It grows wider with every rainfall as more ground erodes.
Most residents wanted to know why piping was put in only two backyards several years ago. They have asked the township why the whole ditch wasn’t done.
Steve Stanislav of Cliffview Drive spoke and submitted many documents as part of the evidence package turned into the engineer’s office by Ungaro. “My frustration is from 1992,” Stanislav said. He walked through some of his evidence, including township trustee meeting minutes and opinions from engineers who had visited his property, among other things.
“It’s a problem. I just want the thing resolved,” Stanislav said. He asked for the minimum of rock to be put down — limestone rock about the size of a hand that would slow the speed of water and ease the erosion.
Many residents questioned the township on why some plans and depictions of the area show an easement and some do not. “Your easement, your responsibility,” Stanislav said in an exchange with Ungaro.
Whether an easement exists in the backyards is one of the biggest, and hotly debated, issues of the ditch. An easement, which would be township property and result in the township’s having to fix the ditch, is a right of way for utilities such as water and electricity. Residents — including Trustee Joanne Wollet, who stepped down to speak as a resident May 14 — talked about drawings for projects surrounding the ditch that included an easement and some that did not.
Wollet, who spoke as a resident after reading a section from the Ohio Ethics Commission explaining that she was talking as a property owner, blasted the township’s handling of the situation, specifically in the early 1990s.
She pointed to an MS Consultants plan where piping was run through only two backyards, not the entire street. “There’s no plan, no detail, no water flow — just pipe installed,” Wollet said, holding the MS study’s final explanation of the original project.
That project saw 270 feet of pipe, worth $9,000, aiding only two backyards.
Resident Robert Buckner of Camella Drive said he bought his property in the 1970s and questioned why there was a 1-foot-by-2-feet ditch then. Now, the ditch is 12 feet by 4 feet. “The erosion just continues on and on,” he said.
Wollet submitted her documents like some other residents did at the May 14 trustee meeting, including pictures from her backyard. “My yard is falling into a creek because of the action of Poland Township,” she said.
Ungaro ended the meeting’s section related to the two roads by telling the residents, “There’s going to come closure to this ... it’s just the right thing to do.”