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Directors could lead Conneaut Lake Park

GoErie.com

Original Article »

June 07, 2007

CONNEAUT LAKE -- A Crawford County judge faces a lot of choices in choosing new leaders for Conneaut Lake Park.

The choices will become clearer on Friday, when Crawford County Judge Anthony Vardaro will hold a 1:30 p.m. hearing to act on park custodian H. LeRoy Stearns's request to be relieved of his duties.

Stearns has been the day-to-day overseer of the 115-year-old amusement park and resort since July 2004, when he was appointed to replace retiring custodian Herb Brill. But he decided to leave his post after ordering the park closed on May 22. The facility did not have enough money to open this year.

Stearns has said that he does not want to be in charge of liquidating the park's assets, and believes that doing so might be the only way to pay off the park's roughly $2.5 million in debts.

Some of those debts are pressing, including a $150,000 electric bill that Penelec officials wanted paid Wednesday. The amount represents half of the park's $300,000 outstanding electric bill, with the balance due within 30 days, Stearns said.

The park did not have the money to pay half of the bill, however, so Penelec crews started turning off power to all but Camperland and the park's water system on Wednesday morning, park General Manager George Deshner said.

"Plus we have worker's comp due, and a lot of other bills due, and we don't have the money," Stearns said.

The money to pay the bills won't come from ongoing fundraising campaigns designed to get portions of the park open this year. Park officials are not involved in those efforts, which include a private donation campaign by Conneaut Lake developer Greg Sutterlin and a benefit concert scheduled at the nearby Fairway 12 Hotel on Saturday, Stearns said.

In his court petition to be relieved of his duties, Stearns requested that Vardaro appoint a board of directors to oversee park matters in the future. Such a board would have more time and more leeway in making decisions than a one-man custodianship, he said.

Stearns said he knows of some individuals who would be interested in serving on the park board. He also said he believes that Crawford County Planning Director Jack Lynch has a list of names for consideration on the board.

Lynch and other county officials had been talking with Stearns about developing a new master plan for the park, overseen by a specially appointed committee and with the assistance of a consultant who specializes in amusement parks, before the May 22 closing.

It's unclear at this point if those plans will continue.

A call for forming a board of directors to oversee the park also has come from local attorney and former Conneaut Lake Park board member Thomas Dana Watson, who filed a petition in court on Monday afternoon.

Watson asked Vardaro to continue the court custodianship by appointing a temporary custodian and a board of directors. The petition includes the names of 11 people to be considered as candidates for the board.

Watson argued in his petition that it is "entirely premature" to end the court custodianship, as the original purposes of the position have not yet been achieved.

Stearns has said that the role of the custodian is to protect the assets of the park, which sits in public trust, while paying down the park's debt.

Watson wrote in his petition that the custodianship must continue for a limited time to assure the trustees of Conneaut Lake Park are put "in sound financial basis," creditors are provided for and operations are "in conformity with the law of public trust."

Watson further asked that work advance on a master plan for Conneaut Lake Park that the Economic Progress Alliance of Crawford County drafted in 2006 and released in February. That plan calls for creating new park leadership and a new business plan for the entire facility, and also proposes such things as residential development and greater lakefront access in the park.

Watson declined to comment on his petition until after Friday's court hearing.

Mark Turner, the executive director of the Economic Progress Alliance, said his agency supports the petition and likes the notion of getting on with the master plan.

"We're just convinced we can be successful in doing it. We think the potential is there for revitalizing Conneaut Lake Park," he said.

Yet another option for Vardaro to consider in appointing park leadership comes from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The agency filed a court petition on June 1, asking Vardaro to keep Stearns in place as park custodian until work is completed on an upgrade to the park-owned water system.

The DEP mandated that the park make improvements to the water-treatment system, which serves park property as well as some private residences on the grounds, after testing in 2006 found higher-than-acceptable arsenic levels in the water.

The improvement project, to be paid for with state grants, has been bid out but has not yet reached the construction phase, Deshner said.


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