A challenge to overrated Mill Creek Park director

Opinion: June 12, 2016 at 12:00a.m.

As an avid lover of Mill Creek MetroParks, I have been following the employment fiasco that we all have heard of since the media started covering the layoffs – or “restructuring” as Executive Director Aaron Young affectionately calls it.

We live in a community where many of us have experienced layoffs either first hand or perhaps through an immediate family member. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the community has been standing behind beloved employees who they may or may not even know personally, and as a result, Mr. Young’s public reputation is tarnished for, at minimum, the foreseeable future.

I read an article the other day about how Mr. Young’s performance evaluations were released to the public. I pretty much assumed the board, which is responsible for conducting his evaluation, would give him high ratings. Even expecting those high ratings, I was appalled at Mr. Young receiving all 9’s – the highest rating possible. There is always room for improvement no matter how perfect someone may appear to be.

Further, I think it is embarrassing and insulting of board member Bob Durick to compare Mr. Young to Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Young is simply a director of a park; he is not a former president and savior of the Union.

Mr. Durick noted that he feels that Mr. Young has earned the respect of all of his employees and went as far as to say that “some were not motivated at first based on past history but those who have stayed are now ‘on board’ with his plan”.

This got me thinking: Why doesn’t Mr. Young have his full and part-time staff complete a “Boss Evaluation” on him?

I challenge Mr. Young to give his employees a chance to express their thoughts on his performance, behavior, professionalism, team building, availability, quality of interaction with employees, level of confidence in him and so on. I would love to see this evaluation designed so it is 100 percent anonymous and cannot be traced back to any employee so they do not have to fear losing their job if they don’t think he’s doing a good job.

Jason Walker, Youngstown

Despite pacts, Mill Creek levy should be removed

I see from articles in The Vindicator that Mill Creek MetroParks has reached a severance agreement with most of the Mill Creek 13.

For me, this changes nothing. I still think the voters of Mahoning County were led down the Yellow Brick Road in the last election, and I still support the movement to recall the levy.

This matter has left a poor image of Mill Creek administration in my mind, and I would be hard pressed to support another levy.

Jim Eidel, Beaver Township

Cellphone use & driving are toxic mix of stupidity

Cellphones on the road. People think that they can use them and drive, too, how stupid. There are so many people who can’t drive regular without something distracting them; then you put a cellphone in their hands, and caution goes out the window. I saw a woman almost run into the back of a car stopped at a red light and she had two kids in the back in car seats, while talking on the phone. If she had enough sense to place the kids in seats, why didn’t she have enough sense to keep off the phone?

Columbus was getting so many complaints about people on phones that the Legislature passed the law about cellphone use while driving, but they made it a secondary offense.

The Ohio Highway Patrol is one of the best law enforcement agencies on the road in the country. They don’t play. The politicians know that. If they wanted to keep people safe driving, they would have made it a first offense. OHP does its job very well. Like I said, they’re the best in the country.

No favorites ever. When they stop their own, they’re getting a ticket. Columbus knows that. So let us change that law and make it a first offense.

Bruce Fanton, Southington

Unlike the Holocaust, evolution is not real

The vindicator arti- cle, “City schools’ creationism video raises questions” has truth about the producer, but then says some things which are not true at all. We know that the Holocaust is real and anyone who denies it doesn’t want to believe the truth of history. But the statement that, “Evolution is based on science” is absolutely untrue and there is no proof of evolution at all. Macro-evolution is a lie and micro-evolution is just how species adapt to the changing environment. One species never changes into another species and no one has ever found any species in transition to another species.

The other statement that, “Creation is pseudoscience at best” is also a lie. The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the works of His hands (Psalm 19:1). Only the fool says in his heart there is no God (Psalm 14:1, 53:1) and the reason it is repeated twice in the Scriptures is to show that God is real and that only an ignorant, immoral person denies that there is a God. This doesn’t mean a stupid person because most people who don’t believe in a creator are intelligent, educated people who think that human beings came by chance and not by creation by an Almighty God, who created everything after its own kind.

The saying, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water” applies here. Just because the producer is wrong in many things he says and believes doesn’t mean that there is no creator and that everything came by change through the pseudoscience of evolution.

I challenge everyone to ask God if He is real and I know He will answer anyone who sincerely wants to know the truth about life and creation. I was an unbeliever for 30 years and then prayed and told God that I didn’t know if He was real and if He would answer me. The next day, two believers told me about Jesus and two years later I was converted to Christ.

Leo Feher, Youngstown