Worst chapters ahead for Mill Creek?

The KISS concert to take place Aug. 26 at Covelli Centre is just about sold out.

The next night’s concert with Lionel Richie already is.

But the best seat of the summer that you might want to get is Monday’s trolley tour of Mill Creek MetroParks. That event will happen at 5 p.m. in a specially designed board meeting.

Parks, trolleys and tours usually conjure up pastoral and peaceful images such as “The Sound of Music” or “Barney.”

But this trolley tour, coming on the heels of Friday’s very public email firestorm among park leaders, might be less Julie Andrews and more George Foreman; less Barney, more Bam-Bam.

The testy, no-backing-down five-email exchange shared among 15 people yields but one feeling:

The worst for park operations might be yet to come.

For several reasons, the emails are among the sorriest public exchanges seen in some time.

To clarify, though the email exchange involved 15 people, it really was just three people slugging it out – park executive director Aaron Young, veteran board member Bob Durick and new board member Tom Shipka.

Twelve of us – consisting of board members, park overseer Judge Robert Rusu, top park staff and, for some reason, me – were just somewhat bystanders in the barrage.

I would suggest they were all aghast bystanders. I certainly was. No one else dared to jump into the fray.

It was sorry for several reasons.

A harsh tone launched by Shipka and continued by the others, and all with an email audience.

Tone of this sort from the board position Shipka now occupies is, if even necessary, then at least not best for an email as opposed to eye-to-eye talk.

His “Do it NOW, dammit” line is perfect – for maybe a sweatshop.

Even volatile basketball coach Bobby Knight would likely confess it doesn’t work these days.

And that tone just kept coming from all of them in their emails.

Young:

“Mr. Shipka – you lack common courtesy or professionalism.”

Durick:

“Dr. Shipka, you need to step up and apologize.”

“Your ‘visited four black men’ is not a very sensitive comment racially.”

“Being a bully is not necessary.”

“Cool your blazing guns.”

Shipka:

“Dr. Durick, if you think things are fine, you should resign.”

“Don’t tell a new board member to sit quietly.”

Emails to such an audience, repeatedly, by three leaders is unseemly.

First off, email fights rarely end well; prolonged ones especially.

Shipka emailed at 8:42 p.m. Thursday to just the board members.

At 10:42 p.m., Young replied to a larger audience. It was his only email in the mix, but it fanned the flames.

At 6:42 a.m. Friday, Durick emailed Young’s entire group. I think that was as unwise as Young’s email.

In the email fights I’ve been exposed to, it’s common for late-joiners, such as Durick, to strip out some of the audience; to rein in the battle.

It was quiet until 2:57 p.m. Friday, when Shipka found his “send” button again, and was unrepentant.

At 4:21 p.m. Friday, Durick fired back.

(It’s now 3 p.m. Saturday as I wrap this up. No emails since that last one. It looks like somebody finally doused the fire.)

Any one of the five emails is crazy and hazardous. But in totality, they are, well, sad and sorry for bosses to act that way toward each other before an audience.

All three men and their respective emails actually had vital, necessary and impactful positions. That’s a positive. They are all smart and wise about the park.

What happens next – both Monday and beyond – is a coin flip depending on how they adjust from this.

Shipka’s six-week run shows he has a unique filter for what he says and when he says it – in a very Donald Trump-like way.

It’d be a healthy addition if he was perfect. Nobody is. He noted Saturday that in hindsight, he should not have emailed when he was upset, and that he should have calmed down first.

His issue with the tennis and basketball courts needed to be measured twice and cut once. He failed at that. Friends have said there could be more of that.

He complained later Friday he had to learn about the repair plans from Vindy reporter Jordyn Grzelewski.

She only learned about it because she (a) asked for Young’s plan, and (b) read the plan.

Further concerning of this episode is that when presented the repairs calendar, Shipka diminished it by tagging them “alleged plans.” That’s a pivot for a protester, not a board member.

When a boss finds a problem, they ask about it. When informed it is on the next calendar year, you can’t toss that administrative action under the bus – unless you find it was on the 2016 plan, and the 2015 plan, and the 2014 plan, etc.

Young said both board members immediately were presented the 2015 and 2016 plans that Grzelewski has read and that have been used as reasons for Young’s unpopular park changes.

Were they read by the new board members?

Better yet for all three, why not sit down and read through each page together? In light of this embarrassment, the three of them should now. Or Judge Rusu, the board’s appointing authority, should court-order it.

If you are a new boss or you have a new boss, such steps seem logical.

Heck, when Jim Tressel became the new boss at Youngstown State, Shipka researched extensively for him in that transition process – because new bosses want such detail. This episode shows Shipka needs more detail like he gathered for a new president.

Both Young and Shipka have a history of immense conviction, and sometimes displaying it to the brink of recklessness.

Shipka’s emotional email (by his own admission) was likely not his first. It was just the first one shared publicly.

That I got the email was not a mistake on Young’s part.

If such ambition and conviction of two men could get on the same page, the accomplishments would be monumental.

Several weeks back, The Vindicator celebrated in a story what the collaboration of Herman Maass and Al Alli did for the Lordstown GM plant. They had sat in historically opposing places as plant manager and union boss. But faced with plant closure and devastation for all, the two forged an alliance that saved a generation or two.

Such awkward alliances can work elsewhere, too.

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes emails about stories and our newspaper. Email him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on vindy.com. Tweet him, too, at @tfranko.