Some of the folks opposed to the Barberton City Council’s leasing of the Tuscora Park ball field to Summa Barberton Hospital for use as a paved parking lot want the question to be put before voters.
This week, a petition with 668 signatures was submitted to Finance Director Ray Flickinger, who is stipulated by Ohio law to receive the petitions and submit them to the Summit County Board of Elections.
The election board will need to determine if at least 489 signatures are valid (equal to 10 percent of the Barberton ballots cast in the last gubernatorial election.)
Resident Ken Masich said he has served on two Charter Review Commission efforts and believes in rules. He said the city charter says voters get the last say in cases where park property is “vacated.”
But city officials have argued a ballot issue is not required because they are “leasing” and not selling the five acres.
Masich said “fancy lease language” was a way to circumvent the law, and created a “slippery slope” that could set a precedent for going over voters for other park uses, such as putting up cellphone towers, drilling for oil or gas or fracking.
“If you’re going to give up this land, it needs to go to the people,” Masich said.
Barberton City Council President Fred Maurer said in a representative democracy, residents depend on the council to research and understand the issues and take action in their best interest.
The hospital is the city’s largest private employer with 1,100 employees.
Maurer said he fears if the hospital meets continued resistance, it “will see the city as hostile and eventually leave.” He acknowledged the hospital has never threatened to leave.
If the issue makes it to the ballot, it will take two-thirds of voters to uphold the lease that was approved by the council last month. That’s because the last time a part of the park was sold to the hospital, voters also approved a charter amendment that required a super majority vote on future park issues.
Maurer did not support that charter amendment, saying, “Why should parks have any special right?”
But if the lease is destined for the ballot, he said he is confident city leaders will convince residents that giving the hospital what it needs is critical to the local economy.
Masich, who lives near the park, said enough is enough. With the new lease, nearly half of the east side of Tuscora Park will have been turned over to the hospital, including the loss of the only city ball field on the east side.
As it stands, the hospital’s new parking plans will put roughly 10 acres of green space under pavement. The hospital also wants to raze its aging parking deck, which it says has cost $1 million in maintenance over the past four years.
A new deck would cost upwards of $17 million, hospital officials said. Replacing the deck with a surface parking lot of 1,200 parking spaces would cost about $4 million.
The hospital noted it has already invested “$50 million in capital improvements for initiatives such as implementation of an electronic medical records system, state-of-the-art cardiac catheterization labs, hyperbaric chambers for wound care and the development of the Summa Health Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Department,” Summa spokesman Mike Bernstein said.
Without leasing the ball field land, the hospital would still have about five acres of former park land it now owns. The city also agreed to vacate a block of Paige Avenue, which separates the current parking deck from the hospital, so it can also be used for parking.
In arguing to preserve the ball field, Masich said, “Once you lose park land, you can never get it back.”
Bernstein said hospital officials are looking forward “to continuing to work with the mayor’s office to finalize the lease as authorized by City Council.
“While the petition is between the city and its citizens, we are confident the community values the investment Summa is proposing to preserve and grow high quality health care for the people of Barberton,” he said.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.