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Geauga Park District

Slow to Respond to 911 Call

No One Available When Needed 

The Geauga Park District proudly promotes the use of alcohol in the park pavilions, but does not protect citizens from park guests who are violating park rules and creating potentially dangerous situations.

On a recent MONDAY evening, the Geauga Park District took a long time to respond to a call for help at Sunnybrook Preserve. An evening of loud and vulgar language, shouting, and music persisted until very near their closing time of 11:00 PM. When the noise didn’t stop, a second call was made to the Sheriff’s dispatch at which time we were told it was taking some time because only ONE park ranger is on duty in the evening. ONE ranger to cover 16 parks in this vast county! Help us all!!

It’s bad enough that these incidents occur on weekends, but it’s 11:30 pm (ON WEEKNIGHT) by the time they clear out which is much too late for working residents!

Let this serve as a warning to residents - use the Geauga Park District at your own risk. The GPD, appointing authority, Judge Charles Henry and the Park Commissioners, Robert McCullough, John Leech, and Mark Rzeszotarksi are not concerned about behavior in the park or your safety. They obviously could care less or they would do something about the alcohol and late hours.

Remember this at the next election and the next time they try to pass another park levy.

Perhaps if the Commissioners were ELECTED instead of appointed, they would be more responsible for their actions. 



Marilou Strathern

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Thanks for the letter Marilou.

You would think with the yearly multi-million dollar budget (I think, 14 million) the park district has, that it would be able to afford adequate protection in the parks and not have a response time like the city of Cleveland.

After all, the park affords plenty of seclusion and cover. IT'S PERFECT!  A big attraction for the criminal mind. Rape, robbery, and murder made easy. A criminal can come in and easily hide, do his worst, and get away in plenty of time....but no so easy or perfect if there were enough Rangers patrolling. It's also an attraction for kids to raise hell, drink, and smoke dope.

Apparently safety is not a major concern of Judge "Chip" Henry or the maniacal park commissioners who are uncontrollably obcessed with buying up more and more land which is removed from the tax rolls and creates more continual overhead to pay for....WITH YOUR TAX MONEY!

How in the hell many parks do we need anyway? 

"The Three Amigos" (park commissioners)

are spending YOUR money  like crazy, buying up all this land, building pavillions, maintaining all of this (with the exception of adequate security), giving out raises, while Geauga County is approaching a one million dollar budget deficit and the economy and jobs are in the dump truck. This money could be much better spent on NECESSARY, more critical services such as the Sheriff's Dept., the school system, etc.

Judge Henry, who appoints "The Three Amigos", seems satisfied with this kind of performance and obcessiveness....maybe because the bigger the park district grows, the more employees they hire, and the more land they buy up, the more power Judge Henry wields and the bigger his voting base gets....although, from my observation, his voting base seems to be declining.