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County to sell part of donated land in Bazetta
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Trumbull County commissioners will be selling four parcels in Bazetta Township at a public auction Nov. 25. A neighbor believes this will allow him to make better use of neighboring land he owns.
Jim Misocky, projects administrator for the commissioners, said the county owns a 60-foot-wide strip between the two parts of Johnson Plank Road near Lakeview Elementary School on Bazetta Road.
The county acquired it when Robert Niemi’s grandfather donated it to the county in 1947 to facilitate the building of a road to serve a proposed school.
That school never materialized, and the nearly mile-long piece of property was never used for a public road.
However, homes were built adjacent to the county land near Warren Meadville Road, and a dirt road was created to serve those homes.
In the past few decades, county officials have tried to help the residents who live on that part of Johnson Plank Road by improving the road. Today, a portion of it is paved, even though the county never formally dedicated it as a county road.
Through use and practice, however, part of the road has become a county road, Misocky said. Other parts of the land are either gravel or unimproved so that vehicles cannot use it.
But Niemi, who owns land adjacent to the county-owned property, has been asking for about 20 years to be allowed to buy some of the donated land back to help him develop his real estate, Misocky said. The commissioners are trying to make that happen.
The access Niemi wants would be from the end of Johnson Plank near Warren-Meadville Road, not the primitive part next to Bazetta Road, Misocky said. That land would remain primitive and owned by the county.