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Meeting on MetroParks draws crowd of 100
YOUNGSTOWN
About 100 people packed the pews at First Presbyterian Church to push forward with an opposition movement against Mill Creek MetroParks leadership.
It was the second public meeting of Concerned Citizens for Mill Creek MetroParks, a group that formed in the wake of staff cuts at the park system that were implemented, park officials say, to save $13.2 million over the next 15 years for capital improvements.
Community members who attended Monday’s meeting voiced frustration on a number of issues, and vowed to push forward with efforts to oust park leaders and make them more responsive to public input.
Among those who spoke were former park commissioners Virginia Dailey and Rick Shale. Also in attendance was former commissioner Dan DeSalvo.
Dailey, who served on the board from 1997 until 2010, many of those years as board president, expressed indignation at the way staff cuts were handled (Vindicator reporting revealed that several park employees were dismissed from their jobs on-the-spot, under police supervision). She said anyone in a leadership role will face challenges such as budget shortfalls, but, “There are always better ways.”
“Had I still been on the board, had Rick still been on the board, I can tell you that what happened would not have happened,” she said. “My personal opinion is [Mill Creek MetroParks Executive Director] Aaron Young is not the man for the job. He humiliated his employees in public. He embarrassed the board, and he embarrassed the judge. That is not the mark of a true leader.”
“It was so demeaning, so humiliating. I think that circles back to someone who does not have the leadership skills we want to see in that position,” she said.
Shale, while calling the handling of the dismissals “an outrage,” defended the intentions of current park commissioners, for whom some community members have called for their resignation or removal.
Shale also voiced opposition to a recent proposal by state Rep. John Boccieri of Poland, D-59th, to transfer board-appointment authority from the county probate judge to county commissioners.
“I think it would be a disaster to bring the county commissioners into this,” he said. “It would politicize the appointments far more than they are now.”
He defended county Probate Judge Robert N. Rusu Jr., who recently announced he will convene a selection committee composed of community members to help him select a new park commissioner after a resignation.
“Our problem is not the probate judge,” Shale said. “He doesn’t have to create a selection committee. He has offered to do so.”
He suggested that politicians instead consider legislation that would require the county probate judge to use an open-application process when appointing park commissioners.
Another point raised by several people was a perceived lack of public decision-making by park leaders.
Jeff Harvey, president of the Audubon Society of Mahoning Valley and leader of the meeting, said he has noticed while regularly attending park board meetings over the past several years that meetings often last only 30 minutes and that few substantive discussions take place before what are, in some people’s views, perfunctory votes.
“They don’t do a whole lot in open session,” he said.
The group agreed to draft a letter to the Ohio Attorney General’s office detailing what they believe are violations of Ohio’s Open Meetings Law, which stipulates that public bodies must deliberate on official business in public unless the topic is specifically exempted by law.
They also decried what some characterized as a lack of responsiveness by the board.
“These are not politicians who live in Washington, D.C. These are our neighbors,” Harvey said. “There’s been basically no response. ... I don’t get it.”
Group leaders urged community members to show up at the next MetroParks board meeting, which is at 6 p.m. next Monday at the MetroParks Farm in Canfield.