Mill Creek land grab for bike trail opposed

Opinion: June 30, 2019 at 12:00a.m.

Mill Creek Metro- Parks’ commissioners believe they have the right to take land from private owners who are fighting to keep it. A planned bike trail will cut through their property as a recreational area for complete strangers – not only leaving them without easy access to some of their property, but also passing within feet of some homes.

It sounds like the park board’s estimate of upward of 176,000 people a year using the trail is greatly inflated to justify the land grab. Strangers will be traveling this trail at all times of the day.

They also state that economic development will follow and that this route “was identified as the safest route.” Really? For whom? Certainly not the landowners!

Steve Avery [MetroParks’ planning and operations director] and Aaron Young [Metroparks’ executive director] believe that the majority of people want this to happen.

I did my own “unofficial” survey (no taxpayer money involved) among friends and rural residents. Not one of them felt it was necessary for the park board to bully these landowners, and take their land. Private-trail supporters do not speak for me or my rural friends.

Now we learn that taxpayer money is being used for studies and surveys for the stealing of private land. These landowners have paid their taxes and worked hard to maintain their property. They should not have to fight for land they already own.

Here is the irony. Their tax money that they have paid, is being used to pay the park board’s lawyers in trying to take their land. The landowners have to pay their own lawyer’s fees to fight back.

Mr. Avery points out that Volney Rogers used eminent domain to take land when he first created the park. I wish those original victims of eminent domain were alive today to voice their view on this recent land grab.

It is mentioned that three-fourths of the group in a recent meeting were “for the trail.” How many of those in attendance would want this on their property?

When it’s time for a levy renewal my vote will be “no.”

Ginny Tarka, New Springfield

Coulter’s racist rants are unbecoming of Vindicator

Why does The Vindi- cator keep printing the same racist, bigoted rants of Ann Coulter? Wasn’t the June 17 commentary calling the Netflix story of the Central Park Five’s innocence, “The African folktale version” enough?

Did we really need last week’s poison, “Central Park Five’; who do you believe, Netflix or the evidence”?

I have to go with the DNA evidence and confession from a serial rapist and killer: “In 2001, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and serial rapist who was serving life in prison, confessed to officials that he had raped the female jogger. His DNA matched the two samples found on and near the rape victim, and there was other confirmatory evidence. He said he committed the rape alone. Reyes was not prosecuted for raping Meili, because the statute of limitations had passed.”

Doesn’t The Peoples Paper have more important issues to print from columnists who don’t have a bigoted racist ax to grind?

Dan Novak, Hubbard

President projects his own treason on others

When President Donald Trump accuses someone of something, it usually is something he is guilty of. When he asked Russia for help in the 2016 election, he thought it was OK because he did it out loud.

He takes Vladimir Putin’s side against his own FBI and CIA. He has secret meetings with Putin with no notes and no witnesses.

We can’t blame our counter terrorism people for not telling him everything they are doing for fear he would tip Putin off in their secret meetings. He must have a good reason to defend Russia against his own country.

Accusing others of treason is projection in my mind.

Fred Day, Boardman

Do not force Red Cross to beg for blood donors

Almost 50 years ago, a note was placed on my college bulletin board that blood was needed for a young person facing surgery. So began what for me became a regular habit to give blood.

Then when 9/11 occurred, a blood drive at my church had so many people show up that many of us were turned away.

Now there are severe shortages that the Red Cross urges people to donate. What if you needed blood and found the hospital had none available for you? Would you ask yourself why you thought it was someone else’s responsibility?

The Red Cross says only 3 percent of adults ever give blood. Giving blood takes about an hour every couple of months if you donate regularly. It is a way of giving back for all of the blessings of life and health you have received.

You only give when you choose a blood drive. The Red Cross even tells you where your blood went and a general description of whom you helped.

Most people can donate, and the pain is minimal. The Red Cross shouldn’t have to beg to get the donors it needs. Nor am I connected to the Red Cross.

Jack Banks, Poland

Panel on climate change needs to form in Valley

We are in the midst of the most severe environmental crisis since the Yucatan asteroid killed the dinosaurs, and 75 percent of the then-living plants and animals, 66 million years ago. This crisis, unlike the asteroid from outer space, is of our own doing – it is climate warming.

For more than 70 years scientists have sounded a warning that emission of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, is warming the earth’s atmosphere. Since the late 1980s, the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change periodically has issued a scientific consensus report on the status of our changing climate and its consequences to life on Earth.

With each report the global temperatures are greater and the consequences more severe: glacial melt, arctic and Antarctic ice cap reduction, ocean rise, increased frequency and severity of storms, greater fluctuations of rainfall, increased wild fires, extinction of thousands of species of plants and animals, insect outbreaks previously controlled by cold temperature and the list goes on.

The consequences of global warming are so severe that it is now imperative that we at all levels of society and government develop rules and behaviors that reduce atmospheric carbon. It is time for business/government and universities to take a leadership role in combating climate warming.

A start would be to form a joint Mahoning Valley committee on climate warming, consisting of business/government/university leaders. The committee would be charged with (1) public education on cause, effects and remedies to global warming (2) identify and promote changes in local societal behavior that reduce atmospheric carbon loading and (3) develop local rules that reduce regional carbon loading and require carbon neutral development.

Universities, business and government must become part of the solution to global warming, not part of the problem.

Lauren Schroeder, Poland