HISTORY IS WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS
The park has squeezed the township almost to nothing. We’re still a revenue stream for them, cleaning up after a million or so visitors, providing police and EMS for free. But now they’ve reduced the township to 707 people, the village to 565, the park is writing our history. They just want the rest of the nuisance gone.
They didn’t know what to do with the property they started buying up in 1975. In the beginning the purchases were to be minimal and minimally disruptive. But Summit County depressed township land values in the ‘80’s, never reappraising and the park snapped up more and more undervalued property. Those life estates just went away, in time for the current census. Millions and millions of dollars are off the tax rolls since 1975; the area’s population is down by half. Our future seems to remain at the mercy of park officials who had no clear plan then or now. One park official said, “The experience of a park visitor will not be enhanced by knowing 400 people lost their homes”, so the park publishes their own history: farming returning to the valley, for instance. No mention, no recognition of the two hundred years of farm families, farm land, farm buildings, fences, stock gone, lost, totally ignored in a news release that farming is returning to the valley. And this is just a fraction of the new history.
There is no question the valley today would not be the valley of the 1940’s and 1950’s if left to its own growth patterns. Perhaps it would have been strangled by modern highways, shopping malls, housing developments. Perhaps it would have remained as rural as Bath, Richfield. That would depend on the vision of the people and their elected officials. It certainly would have the financial ability to sustain itself. The park’s strangle -hold would not be writing our history to accommodate their shifting vision.
Have they won? Are we done? Wondering who will be the last taxpayer standing and paying for the park? The park has recognized and amended the lost real estate revenue only when forced. With no real estate tax dollars to repair the local roads worn out by hundreds of thousands of visitors, local officials moved to close roads they could not maintain. The park responded with limited road assistance for roads affecting their facilities. There is not enough local tax revenue for residential roads, but that’s not the park’s problem. The park does not have an EMS staff and sends its police force home at 10 PM, leaving the cost of services to be paid by the township and village. They know what a revenue stream they have in the remaining taxpayers!
The Township Trustees have remedial projects afoot, and one directly involves the park and other tax exempted properties. That is a proposed JEDD with Peninsula, zoning the park lands as Business/Recreation, similar to the Village/Residential zoning currently in place for the crossroad villages of Everett and Boston. With the zoning in place, and a JEDD agreement in place, some of the park’s upkeep being paid by our citizens can be paid by the payroll taxes of those who work at the park facilities and live in the park houses valued at millions and millions of dollars long gone from the tax rolls.
The unbounded acquisition of park property in the 1980’s has given local park authorities a vast amount of property to care for and resulted in a huge Association simply to support the vast park. The payroll of this and other tax exempt organizations, such as the railroad, is in the millions of dollars. But because this payroll is earned in the township, it is not subject to any payroll taxes. The Township Trustees have a JEDD in place in the Akron Cleveland Road area and are pursuing improvements with those payroll tax dollars. A JEDD with Peninsula will give both communities revenue. Most importantly, this is money we are currently leaving on the table! Most or all of the employees who would be affected by a JEDD already pay residential tax on this income, in communities that offer reciprocity.
Their payroll taxes will never replace the lost real estate revenue that supported roads, police, EMS, but it will lessen our share. Zielinski Court is gone; the park will invent a history. We can’t stop them; we can’t retrieve those lost real estate dollars. But when the road department mows the ditches in summer and plows the roads in winter, the people who benefit can be paying a share. The tax paying residents who live here will still have a voice in their history.
| Joanne Noragon, Boston Township Fiscal Officer |