Grat, petition

1. Thank you to God and all who help me get through a day
2. Thanks that people care about a clean environment and preserving nature
3. John Grisham's new book is about a company that polluted drinking water and caused a cancer cell in the nearby city

In November, 2007, residents on Hawthorne and Kennelwood learned that Bass Energy of Akron, Ohio intended within the week to begin clear cutting the wooded area behind Hawthorne, to install one of two gas wells in the park.

The other well was to be placed behind Kennelwood, adjacent to the new parking lot.

Half of the proposed well field for the Kennelwood site was on “ODNR” (Ohio Dept. Natural Resources) land that was purchased with state money and that is constitutionally prohibited from being used for anything other than undeveloped green space. That well site is also in a wetlands areas.

The city required Bass Energy to appear at a planning and zoning commission meeting to complete the final details of their planned drilling efforts. At that meeting, a Bass representative stated that Bass believed that it did not have to deal with the city or obey any city regulations because they had received drilling permits from the state, and as far as they were concerned, the state had completely preempted any local control or local law.

At the next city council meeting, several residents spoke and Frank Skala presented a petition, signed by 100 residents, asking council to slow down the process.

LOGs members engaged in a letter writing campaign to the Sun Messenger and attended council meetings. Council’s first decision was to create a committee to examine the placement of the gas wells, but ultimately council directed the law director to rescind the lease with Bass energy and also rescinded the resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into the lease.

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charter ammendment deadlines

We are aiming for early/mid July.

Council has a maximum of 120 days to put it on the ballot, and the law requires them to call a special election (which costs $$), if there is no regularly scheduled election set within that 120 day time period.

We don't want to put taxpayers to the expense of a special election, so we're planning to time our formal presentation of the petitions to coincide with the regularly scheduled November election. On the other hand, we don't want them to have a reason that they didn't have enough time to check the signatures.

120 days from the November election puts us at about mid July.