Tag: ditch petition

I protested. I filed a remonstrance. Check out my many posts about the ditch petition going back to May 2021 reflecting my efforts. Taxpayers affected by this need a fair hearing, and not by commissioners who live in the counties, because they are biased. They should have to recuse themselves, as does the county that brings it, as explained in this blog post following my Letter to the Editor of August 2, 2021.

Sunshine and the watershed

Section 6130.04 of the Ohio Revised Code on ditch petitions states that if a petition for ditch improvement is brought by the county, that instead of the board of county commissioners deciding it, that hearings and decisions would be made through the Court of Common Pleas.

And here’s why: for fairness to everyone involved.

Lucas County cannot deny that the county engineer, Mike Pniewski wrote the Ten-mile Creek Watershed and Swan Creek Watershed ditch petitions, then shopped them around in person to find a puppet sponsor for each one of them. (Mike Pniewski pitched it to Sylvania Township, who turned him down, and he went to Spencer Township.)  Then the county commissioners themselves approved the petitions, being their own judge and jury. Not exactly fair to the hundreds of thousands of residents who will be forever affected by their action (increased tax assessments and blanket rights to go onto their private property.)

At the last minute, right before the hearings, addendums were added to each of the petitions, more than doubling the number of ditches of each petition, and adding road ditches, which are already paid for with county money! Ten-mile Creek Watershed petition originally had 21 waterways listed, but on Oct 27, 2021, added 22 more waterways. The Swan Creek petition originally had 34 waterways, but then added 46 to the list. 90 ditches! The petitions also removed the initial limits on certain ditches and rivers covered by the original petition, to cover the entire lengths, not just certain sections, as was in the original petition.

With 25 feet of land taken from the banks of the waterways and access to that waterway, that’s quite the land grab of private property taken by the county government.

Notably, the plans and budget for cleaning the ditches remains the same – doubling the number of ditches and taking ten years to perform. Whereas without the petition, landowners would continue to maintain their own parts of the river, as it is now and how it has worked, forever, without any problems at all.

The Metroparks

I wonder how our beautiful Metroparks will be looking in a few years, waiting in line for their turn for county ditch maintenance, if ever. But I suppose the park system will appreciate not having to do their own maintenance on their rivers anymore with tax dollars they already get. Since the eminent attorney Fritz Byers, who is on the board of the Metroparks, is litigating for Lucas County on the Lake Erie-EPA lawsuit, and also serves as legal counsel for the Toledo Blade, I’m sure the Metroparks knows what’s going on and they seem to have no objection to it. Hopefully the Metroparks have a contingency plan for keeping the Metropark rivers and streams maintained in the interim, until it’s their turn to get cleaned by the county, like maybe in 2066. Or maybe the Metroparks will get the first cleaning, in that they have so much clout, making the other 132 waterways listed in the petitions have to wait until 2066, at least some of them.

The Hearings

In spite of the numerous private property owners braving the Covid-19 Pandemic to be present at the hearings in order to make their voices be heard, as well as the many remonstrances and public comments filed with the county before the hearings, the petitions were discussed, voted on and approved, in only one hour flat.

The Engineer’s own Final Report dated November 4, 2021 for the Ten-mile, same date as the Ten-mile Creek watershed ditch petition hearing, acknowledged a few obvious drawbacks of the ditch petition —

potential disruption for adjacent property owners, potential tree removal in areas of larger log jams to obtain access, disruption of habitat…  and if they remove “excess sedimentation,” they will need to find a “location for spoil, depending on quantity and nature of property.”

Then the engineer slipped us a fast one, as if he can see what will happen in the future if the county does not get their way with the petition, as if the actual property owners (like the Metroparks, Boy Scouts of America, Franciscan Sisters, the Cities of Sylvania and Toledo, University of Toledo, the Village of Ottawa Hills, and those few lucky rich people who have the river on their property) will become totally irresponsible and will all of a sudden stop caring for their own property. If the county doesn’t clean the waterways, then it will all fall into ruin!

After the report, the commissioners quickly voted affirmative on the petition and adjourned the hearing, all within 63 minutes of the start of the hearing.

Similarly, with barely a quorum present of the three-county joint board of commissioners attending the Swan Creek Hearing on December 2, 2021 (not one commissioner came from Henry County and only two commissioners came from Fulton County), the five out of nine commissioners on the joint board who bothered to come to the hearing rushed through the hearing and voted yes, in all within 47 minutes from the start of the meeting to the adjournment.

In this unfair environment with no chance of a discerning, unbiased deliberation and unbiased decision from the judges, Lucas County thus took control of a large swath of private property of over 127,000 homeowners and their families, mostly Toledoans, and forced a tax on them. And Lucas County already got the city of Toledo to say that they would go along with them, so that the city of Toledo would not enforce their “home rule” in spite of their responsibility to the citizens of the Toledo to do so, where nearly every living soul is affected by the county ditch petitions.

Shedding light on the subject

We are masked and we are vulnerable, we are quarantined and we are isolated from each other by the Covid-19 Pandemic that is raging through its third year now in 2022. Those of us over 65 are particularly at risk for serious illness and death. And that is what it is like when I tried to get a public forum going to discuss the ditch petitions and share information.

Lucas County, rather than being a disinterested party in the ditch petition process, has been difficult to communicate with, as if they are an adversary. They will not have a dialog. They don’t answer questions. They are not listening. They are defending their position as the powerful, biased party that they are, forcing this tax and this perversion of law on their defenseless, masked, and isolated.

Ohio’s Sunshine Laws are in place to shine a public light on the workings of our democratic government. But here in Lucas County, the county’s bulb is burned out and needs to be changed.

Six days after the December 2, 2021 Swan Creek Hearing, I asked to see public records, including the minutes of the Hearing. On December 21 after I still did not get the records, I emailed the clerk, but my email was “bounced,” returned to me with a notice indicating that the recipient had blocked my email. Outrageous! I had to contact the county prosecutor’s office when I couldn’t get a response from my email sent from a different email address.

The county prosecutor’s office had already been in touch with me before that, though, having been contacted by the commissioners’ office to handle my earlier request. The email from the prosecutor’s office was quite a jolt, and no doubt a nasty way for the commissioners’ office to intimidate and silence me. I had requested to see historic ditch petitions because I wanted to find out about a similar ditch petition that failed in the past. I asked the clerk about that ditch petition. She referred me to the county engineer’s office, but all the county engineer’s office was willing to tell me was that it occurred in the 1980’s. There is no list of ditch petitions in the commissioner’s records that I can quickly peruse to find hints. So I asked to see the actual historic ditch petition records. I first asked to see indexes to the records but was told that indexes do not exist. Nothing is digitized before 1997, I was told. I’m still trying to find out, as it seems very relevant to the current petitions.

Inaccurate records and obfuscating historic ditch petition records

 Does the Clerk of the Lucas County Commissioners know what she is doing? Only she and the county commissioners know for sure. As for my request for the minutes to the Swan Creek meeting, I also asked to see the remonstrances and public comments on the petition. The clerk sent me comments submitted by seven people, but did not include my own comments that I submitted on December 1, 2021 through the Lucas County portal for Swan Creek ditch petition comments. How many other comments did she omit that were submitted to the public record on the Swan Creek ditch petition?

Then in regard to the hearing minutes, which took her 25 days to finish because she had to get them “approved,” she listed only two of those seven people, along with the Home Builders Association of Greater Toledo (who gave Lucas County their undying support and kudos for doing the petition! And no wonder – since the petitions are such a gravy train for construction workers.)

Perhaps to make it perfectly clear that she keeps inaccurate records for the commissioners, the clerk voluntarily sent me a completely different set of comments made to the Ten-mile Creek petition. The new set culled, not added to, the set of comments I had already received in November. The updated collection did not include several comments from people opposing the ditch petition. In fact, 107 pages had been cut out! I admit that 99 culled pages were my detailed remonstrance and comments that I had worked on for all of these months. But, I was cut out? I thoroughly expected my remonstrance that I hand-delivered to the Lucas County Board of Commissioners at One Government Center on November 3, the day before the Ten-mile Creek hearing, to be in the public record!

But such corruption of the public trust is just that easy do. You have to wonder, when public records are requested by the public, what “set of books” do they get?

Perhaps the clerk is incompetent, or perhaps she might say that she’s just doing her job. But as a disinterested keeper of public records for the public trust, she fails miserably. I requested the corrected minutes of the Ten-mile Creek Hearing. In the corrected minutes, citizen comments are still labeled as “public question” and “in favor” when they clearly are opposed to the ditch petition. She corrected only one such label. Also, at the top of pages 2 and 3 of these officially signed minutes is the text, Minutes of the Hearing for Schmitz Ditch instead of Ten-mile Creek, and it’s there quite obviously – you can’t miss it! – it’s printed in a bold 12-point font! Mistakes on purpose, perhaps. What a muddy mess that makes for these ditch petitions!

The county’s behavior all makes sense when you see that it’s in the county’s best interest to suppress the voice of the opposition. The county itself is the interested party bringing the petitions, and not Spencer Township who signed the petition. The Spencer Township trustees are simply puppets in Lucas County’s plan. Not one of them even showed up to a View or a Hearing of the sweeping ditch petition on which they signed their name.

Ditch petition of yore

I’m a very patient person. I’m as business-like as can be, having been in business all of my adult life, most of my years as a successful and well-known photographer in New York City. In New York City, there’s no time for bullshit. People are professional and considerate. But with Lucas County, trying to negotiate my rights to see public records is like being in a Kafka-esque nightmare!

I can’t even describe how painful and anxiety-ridden it was to have received an email from the actual Lucas County prosecutors’ office, which misrepresented my public records request; and then to have had my email address get literally blocked by the clerk of the county commissioners; and then to have been shown “two sets of books.” It seems like they are putting their thumbs up to their ears and wiggling their fingers at me!

But I soldiered on, knowing I have every right to see public records on ditch petitions. As for trying to find the historical ditch petition that Lucas County had tried but failed, I will find it. But the clerk is telling me that it will take considerable time for me to go through the records. Apparently because there are no finding aids for any of the pages of records they have on film and microfiche. Apparently, the Lucas County Commissioners Office didn’t digitize records until 1998, and apparently the previous clerks did not keep a database of Resolutions before that, either. At least nothing that’s handy that they are willing to share with me. Am I to believe that the clerks and commissioners that came before her left everything in a big mess, as if it’s all thrown in a giant shoe box with no way to navigate anything?

I trust that the clerks of yore were organized and professional, and that Sandy Isenberg, the President of the Board of Lucas County Commissioners in the 1990’s, was a diligent and forthright public official, and that those in the past who worked in the Engineer’s Office took their jobs seriously. I wonder what our public officials of the past would think of our present Lucas County commissioners and engineers playing fast and loose with their reputations? I wonder how the memory of today’s commissioners will fare, and what legacy they will be leaving.

Why don’t they just outright tell me what I’ve been asking — what about that similar ditch petition that failed?

I am starting to think that the county must have something to hide to go to this much trouble to hide it. I’m learning that the proper venue for these two ditch petitions should have been the court of common pleas, because the petitions were clearly invented by the county. The county commissioners should have recused itself from judging its own petition since it can’t be objective —  follow the intentions of the law. Respect the people! Maybe that old ditch petition that I am looking for was correctly heard by the court of common pleas….

…on account of fairness for everyone involved.

Ohio Revised Code Section 6131.04 Petition for construction of ditch improvement.  If the petitioner is a public corporation or the state, the petition shall be signed by its authorized representative. If the petitioner is the county, the petition shall be filed with the clerk of the court of common pleas, the matters in the petition shall be heard by the common pleas court as if the petition had come to the court on appeal, and the clerk and the court shall do all things that sections 6131.01 to 6131.64 of the Revised Code provide that the county commissioners shall do. The court of common pleas may appoint a board of arbitrators to assume the duties of the judge. The board shall be comprised of three disinterested persons chosen by the judge, who shall designate one of the persons to be chairman.

Rich or poor – few escape the power of the Lucas County Board of Commissioners, but the City of Toledo certainly can and should!

City folks should not be taxed for rural ditches.

On November 4, Lucas County Board of Commissioners voted to pursue the controversial Ten-Mile Creek Watershed ditch petition affecting 73,236 homeowners and their families. Two of our three Lucas County commissioners, along with three Fulton County commissioners, voted for it, with the President of the Lucas County Board of Commissioners, Tina Skeldon Wozniak, notably absent from her duty to officiate the hearing of this important issue and vote on it.

On December 2, Lucas County will vote for the matching Swan Creek Watershed ditch petition, nailing a total of 117,554 Lucas County property owners and their families to suffer these two ditch petitions, with an extra 6,095 Fulton County property owners added into it, which earn them the three votes from the Fulton County Commissioners too.*

No proof has ever been shown at any of the “views” to justify the sweeping petition. In the final report submitted on November 4 by the Lucas County Engineer, Mike Pniewski, only a single exhibit is in the record as an example of cleanup and maintenance that needs to be done to justify this overreaching, outrageous petition — it is an image of an out-of-date Google Earth overhead image captioned “a significant log jam in Sylvania Township.”

I traced Google Earth up the 10-mile creek and found the exact location, behind the homes of rich and prominent people, off Corey Road in Sylvania Township, on Riverhills Lane. That’s all the county has to show us. It is the same example that the county engineer gave to the Channel 13 news team on August 19 for their news story on the ditch petition. They filmed a tree down on the floodplain and a few logs in the river, behind these million dollar mansions.

One of the residents within a few hundred feet of this example is the grandson of Norman Nitschke, the famous safety glass industrialist who donated millions to the University of Toledo for three new engineering buildings with his name on it. Strangely, Lucas County Engineer Mike Pniewski, in his near-full-time moonlighting job that was revealed to us in the September 10 edition of the Blade in regard to his teaching five freshman classes at the university, teaches a class in Nitschke Hall. Norman Nitschke died in January 2021 of Covid-19. It’s so peculiar that our Lucas County engineer would use an example from the neighborhood of this great man’s grandson with the same name – Nitschke. We should expect at least a modicum of respect and discretion from our elected officials when dealing with our citizens — renown or otherwise. It begs the question, did Mike Pniewski ever contact the property owners of the log jam example, or is he really so crass that he would drag them through the mud with no consideration, just to push this ditch petition through?

The owners of the property used in Pniewski’s only example are also quite distinguished. In the 1970’s, Malcolm Keith Weikel served in Washington, DC as the Commissioner of Medical Services Administration responsible for Medicaid. He later became the COO of HCR ManorCare, then the largest nursing home company in the United States. However Mr. Weikel also died in 2021, in March, just as Mike Pniewski was shopping around for a sponsor for his opportunistic ditch petitions.

It is worth noting here that even though a log jam was spotted in Sylvania Township, that the Sylvania Township trustees refused to sponsor this ditch petition. Did Pniewski tell them about their log jam? Pniewski then went to Spencer Township trustees for their sponsorship (even though they are technically in the Swan Creek watershed.)  It is unknown if Pniewski ever contacted the Weikels about their log jam that he found on Google Earth, or whether he just used the image to justify this ditch petition. I venture to say that if he had contacted the owner about their log jam and explained to them that someday it might have an impact on flooding and drainage problems, the problem would have been solved right away, without Pniewski getting to use it as an opportunity to drag in the entire county, and Fulton County too. Furthermore, it is unproven that the log jam has ever caused any flooding or drainage issues. Mr. Nitschke told me emphatically that he had no such problems, when I reached out to ask him if he or his neighbors were experiencing flooding or drainage problems from the river.

Contrast that picture, of the wealth and advantage of these famous Sylvania Township homeowners and their splendid river views, to the image of Toledo’s disadvantaged city population being forced to pay for the clean-up of those rich people’s log jams through this overreaching ditch petition. They use the rich to steal from the poor.

Look at these arbitrary maps drawn for those who are going to have to pay. For example, look at the Junction neighborhood behind the art museum in the city of Toledo. Every homeowner in that neighborhood is either named in the Ten-mile Creek or Swan Creek ditch petition. They will all be taxed. For what?

Is the City of Toledo really going to give Lucas County the right to force their disadvantaged population to pay for the clean-up of the river behind the homes of the richest people in Sylvania Township? Beyond that outrageous inequity, do we really want the county government to usurp our municipal powers and private property rights as well?

There is such a thing as Home Rule. Why is the City of Toledo letting Lucas County do this to us?

It is preposterous!  The City of Toledo should take care of their many problems, and let the wealthy people of Sylvania Township take care of their problems. The same goes for ditches out in the country. Ohio ditch petition laws were written for unincorporated, rural parts of the state, not cities! City folks should not be taxed for rural ditches.

As for the river in the metropolitan area of Toledo, it is already taken care by its major owners, because the rest of the river, beyond the neighborhood of those prestigious and wealthy citizens mentioned above, is owned by the City of Sylvania, the Sylvania Country Club, the Franciscan Sisters, the Boy Scouts of America, the Metroparks, the Village of Ottawa Hills, the University of Toledo, the City of Toledo, and then a few miles of industrial ownership until it flows out of Point Place. All of these areas have had clean-ups and restorations, mostly funded by grants in programs that were initiated by Tina Skeldon Wozniak’s own father, Ned Skeldon, as is shown on this web page, Ned Skeldon, Betty Mauk, and their river legacy.

*The three Fulton County commissioners are all white men, I might add — and purportedly, they go along with how the two Lucas County white men vote. Those three votes from Fulton County represent 5% of the affected population, but they increase the ditch petition voting percentage in Lucas County’s favor by more than double! Who knows how the one woman (also white) of Lucas County would have voted on the Ten-mile Creek petition, or might be voting, for or against the Swan Creek petition – because she evaded the issue altogether – she was absent during the Ten-mile Creek hearing and vote. As the president of the board, and as a woman, she’s the closest thing to “diversity” that we have to represent us – but her vote wouldn’t count anyway, with that majority of male commissioners sticking together as they do – all due respect given to our white commissioners for their “service” to our community – but I strongly feel that they are not representative of me, nor of our diverse city population whatsoever, nor do they listen to us, and they are certainly not looking after our best interests. I live in the City of Toledo. Toledo City Council, will you please look after us? After all, the concept of “Home Rule” is the major reason why the City of Toledo exists, and that’s how you got elected!

my 10th great grandfather, an immigrant ancestor landing in New Amsterdam, supported the Great Remonstrance of 1649 which led to a better life for Americans. I try to do what I can.

Filed with the Clerk of the Board of the Lucas County Commissioners, with a copy sent to the Fulton County Board of County Commissioners on November 3, 2021.

The following 99 pages, consisting of this list, web pages and Facebook posts made between May 26 and November 2, is our legal remonstrance consisting of our comments and protests in opposition to the 10-Mile Creek Watershed ditch petition.

We will not benefit from this petition. It is a hostile government takeover of private property rights, which is not an improvement. The petition has no value to us, it is unbeneficial. We, and our property, would not benefit for the following reasons.

1. We haven’t been shown any proof as to why this petition is necessary. Nothing was shown at the “View,” And pdf’s that I downloaded in June, made by Amanda Kovach of ditch photos shot in May, but strangely dated in August and September, don’t show anything wrong with the rivers and creeks, such as log jams and fallen trees that Mike Pniewski told the Blade was such a problem, as reported after the Swan Creek watershed View on September 16.  See pages 26, 27, 60, 61and 93

2. There is a worldwide pandemic that has been going on for about 20 months, and these two county governments are being cruel to their residents. A 1.7 trillion dollar federal infrastructure grant is coming. The county wants to tax us for ditch cleaning even under these conditions. See pages 60, 70, 83, 90

3. Landowners were not noticed properly. See pages 5, 51, 58, 77, 92

4. The circumstances of the execution of this ditch petition suggest that it is fishy. See pages 5,13-16, 26-33, 49, 62, 67-68, 76, 79, 83, 90, 97, 98, 99

5. No public discussion of this earth-shattering life-changing petition has been allowed, even after I personally tried to initiate it with the county commissioners and other interested parties. See pages 49, 55, 56, 64, 67-68, 69,  96, 76, 77, 98

6. It’s taking a law meant for rural Ohio and using it on a large population of Toledo city, and Sylvania City and the Village of Ottawa Hills. See pages 5, 6-16, 17- 25, 45-46, 53, 59, 71-73, 74, 77, 82, 83, 97

7. Property rights would be taken from us and taxes would be assessed to us but clean-up work of any adjacent river/ditch near to us would be few and far between, considering that ditch projects cost on average $500,000 each for the clean-up and/or restoration of a just a couple of miles, when there are perhaps 200 miles of rivers/ditches and the county plans on collecting only two million dollars each year. See pages 75, 78

8. Our urban rivers (that Lucas County Engineer Mike Pniewski calls ditches) are mostly owned and maintained by the Franciscan Sisters, Metroparks, University of Toledo, the City of Sylvania, Village of Ottawa Hills, and City of Toledo, and we already pay tax that goes to the maintenance and restoration of the river. Grants pay for it, and it’s done with care for the delicate ecology of our rivers and Lake Erie. See pages 5, 17-25, 34-43, 61, 71-3, 74, 93, 96

9. The example given by Engineer Pniewski to the Channel 13 news team on August 19, the day of the Toledo View at Jermain Park, was of a fallen tree or log jam in the backyard of the neighborhood of million-dollar homes off of Corey Road in Sylvania. Since I know exactly whose house they went to, to film the river in their backyard, I asked a neighbor a few homes upstream if they have any flooding or drainage problems from any backup caused by the fallen tree or log jam. The neighbor answered emphatically, NO. That neighbor happens to be the grandson of Norman Nitschke, the famous and wealthy industrialist-inventor of safety glass who donated millions of dollars to the University of Toledo and thus has three engineering buildings named after him, one in which the county engineer teaches a university class. The University of Toledo gave Norman Nitschke a special Memorial on August 17, just two days before Pniewski used Nitschke’s grandson’s downstream 10-mile creek location to show as an example of maintenance that was needed for the river that 117,000 county residents should have to pay for. One wonders, knowing that that Pniewski teaches five university classes in the engineering department, which btw is apparently fine with the Lucas County government, and that the Memorial program was that very week, did Pniewski use that part of the river on purpose, knowing about Nitschke’s land-ownership? Or was he just that thoughtless and dumb that he would use Nitchke’s grandson’s river area, perhaps because there is nowhere else on the metro-area 10-mile creek that isn’t owned by the parks, universities, cities, villages, nuns, or the Boy Scouts of America, who all do a very good job maintaining their portions of the river in the Toledo area?  See pages 17-25, 46-54.

10. That the county engineer, Mike Pniewski, teaches a near-full time schedule at the University of Toledo, who is minding the Lucas County engineering department, and why should the county engineering department be taking on the supervision and maintenance of our 10-mile creek watershed, especially in light of rational thinking that such an undertaking needs the full-time supervision of the county engineering department head, to whom we pay an annual salary of about $150K — second highest only to the county coroner. Not to mention thoughtfulness and a green thumb in regard to our waterways and Lake Erie, as engineers are not the same as scientists, and why should they take ownership of our rivers? Local is better.  See pages 83, 85-89, 92

11. What is the relationship between Lucas County and the University of Toledo, including as to why the county engineer teaches university Freshman-level classes nearly full-time, and also uses Nitschke’s backyard river as an example for a broadcasting on Channel 13 to show why taxpayers in Toledo need to fund a ditch and river cleanup requiring the taking of property rights and unlimited tax assessments, forever?  See pages 83, 85-89, 92

12. That the county engineer has time to take off of his already shortened schedule, since he teaches so many university classes, to speak up at a gerrymandering hearing in the middle of his work day shows us that he is number one a politician looking out for his own political interests, not a county engineer, and he’s not looking after our best interests. We don’t need a watershed boss. We don’t trust him with our delicate ecology. And he has not shown proof of such a need for the county to be a boss of our waterways. See pages 44-54, 80, 81, 83, 88

Thus, for the foregoing reasons and for points made in all of the articles and comments in the following webpages and Facebook posts with pages numbered 5 to 99, the 10-Mile Creek Watershed Ditch Petition does not benefit us; in fact it is detrimental. It’s an outrageous land-rights grab, and doesn’t seem constitutional. We are not sold on the so-called improvements. We think that landowners are responsible for cleaning up their own ditches, and that they have been doing an excellent job of it. We think that river clean-up projects should be small, localized and any radical changes should be overseen by the EPA, because the ecology of our rivers and Lake Erie is delicate. The water clean-up projects funded by grants inspired by Ned Skeldon have been successful and should continue.

See additional pages 5-99:

Remonstrance pages 5 to 99  (pdf 32 mb)

Table of Contents for the pdf:

• Page 5 postcard
• 6-16  – 10-mile creek ripoff
• 17-25 –  Who owns Ten-Mile Creek?
• 26-33 –  A blank check
• 34-43 –  Ned Skeldon, Betty Mauk, and their river legacy
• 44-54 –  A river is not a ditch
• 55-99 –  Toledo Now Facebook posts June 6 – October 19