Two people have resigned from the Poland Forest Municipal Board within the past two months and people in the community are raising questions about why.

During a board meeting Tuesday evening, resident Lauren Schroeder claimed board members Frank Krygowski and most recently Beth Queen left for reasons that deal with the process and how this board makes decisions.

"It's a sad loss and it's a signal that this board should turn for some introspective, to reconsider what's going on here and the processes by which you make your decisions," said Schroeder. 

"Two, I feel very effective, members on your board have resigned that you're not looking internally and saying why did we lose two important people on our board?" questioned Poland resident Missy McCormick, who is part of the group Friends of the Poland Municipal Forest.

She also claimed that both members did not feel that they were heard.

The chair of the board, Elinor Zedaker, said both members will be missed. Zedaker believes that they treat people with respect and thanked the public for being there.

McCormick and others also allege a lack of public input so far on what should be done at Mauthe Bridge.

Councilwoman Martha Morgan brought up that the board has not called a public input meeting on the future of the bridge and urged the board to call one. Zedaker said that it is something they will pursue.

"As many times as I have been to these meetings or been to council meetings, there has really been a lack of discussion, there has really been a lack of interchange and exchange of ideas or the possibility of how things might be done or how a compromise might be reached on what could be done with this bridge," Morgan stated.

Board member Mark Thompson pointed out the need to first find out whether or not the towers and anchorage are salvageable on Mauthe Bridge in order to know the options.

One resident of the township spoke up in support of the board saying there can never be 100 percent consensus

"I'd like to thank you all for listening until it hurts. I thank the remaining board members and I just want to say that the public needs to understand that we can give our opinions we can ask for information but at some point we have to trust the elected officials on council who appointed these members to start making tough decisions and take that leadership role and being heard is not the same as us being in control at the helm," commented Allison Dunham, who is also a member of the Friends of the Poland Municipal Forest and lives in Poland Township.

The board members are appointed by the mayor and then approved by the council.

Zedaker said during the meeting "We care what you have to say and obviously it hasn't been organized the way councilwoman Morgan suggested that we have a public meeting, it has been reinforced by other comments."

She later added "I feel like no matter what we do, we hit another opposition, another criticism, another crucifixion in some cases but I believe all of us really care. We want to make this right and we want to keep that beautiful iconic historic bridge so this was my opinion from me."

The text of Frank Krygowski's resignation letter may be seen below

To: Mayor Timothy Sicafuse. June 18, 2018

cc. Linda Srnec, Anthony Lattanzio, Samuel Moffie, Martha Morgan, Christine Yash, Nicholas Srnec

Regarding my position on the Poland Forest Board:

First, please note that I have served on the Forest Board since 1991, under chairs Jack Shipsky, Jim Swager, Bob Zedaker and now Elinor Zedaker. I believe I have been a valuable Board member during all those years. A very few of my many accomplishments include the following:

I recruited and supervised dozens of volunteers over the years in multiple efforts to clear trails of fallen trees after windstorms, to repair and replace boardwalks after floods, to recover a trail lost for decades due to obstruction, to construct one footbridge and repair another, and to dissuade unauthorized mountain bike trails.

I worked hard to protect the boundaries of the Forest from encroachment. I walked boundaries with Jim Swager and wrote letters notifying offending homeowners. I surveyed to find lost survey pins and, with Streets workers and others, marked their locations with permanent visible poles to save the Village money it had been wasting on repeated border surveys.

I worked with my contacts at Eastgate and YSU to produce the first truly accurate maps of the Forest and its footpaths. Through my efforts, Eastgate produced the first digital maps of the Forest, easing the task of future editing.

I recruited two Professional Engineer friends to work with me to examine the failing Zedaker Pavilion chimney and determine strategy. One engineer donated his professional time to design a replacement chimney of appropriate rustic appearance but modern construction. (This design was not used, for reasons that remain unexplained, and other deficiencies he noted remain uncorrected.)

Over the decades, I was known for bringing factual information and research results to the problems at hand, such as deer overpopulation, loose dogs, fracking, invasive plants, flooding, Ash Borer strategy, wood harvest, injury hazards, etc. Contrary to what may be claimed, my positions on those matters did not always match those of a strict environmental protectionist. My positions were rational, as determined and defended by the best data I could find.

And over those decades, I believe I earned the respect of all Forest Board members. Despite occasional disagreements, policies were decided through cooperation, compromise and thorough discussion.

That has changed.

For the past several years, policies have apparently been decided outside Board meetings, then brought before the Board for rushed rubber stamp approvals. Examples are the hired forester’s report, the policy greatly hindering free and beneficial volunteer work, the list of expensive cosmetic changes to the parking lots, the design of the new entrance signs, the textual information on the new Forest maps, and most recently, the purported need for tearing down the Mauthe Bridge. None of these received the level of detailed discussion they deserved.

And over the past months, I’ve been subject to personal abuse and direct insults. I was told that the new Forest Ordinance’s very unusual “removal of a board member” clause was written with me in mind. Then at Christmas, I suffered a clumsy effort to remove me based on the false claim that my term was ended.

Next, despite previous praise for my minutes, I was removed as secretary pro tem, without a vote as required by the ordinance. I was removed without the courtesy of a personal discussion, either before the fact or in the three weeks after, which is a serious breach of protocol. Initial justification was a false claim that “I didn’t want the job.” (This by a Board Chair who promised to resign “a few months” after her initial appointment, over four years ago.) When others asked why I was being replaced, the response was a slanderous claim that I had falsified minutes, despite approval of each set of minutes in immediately subsequent meetings, and despite recorded transcripts corroborating minutes.

Most recently, I was told I would be removed “for cause” due to non-attendance. Again, this effort commenced without any prior personal contact. Yet in 27 years, I believe I have had precisely two unexcused absences from Forest Board meetings.

It seems likely that the real motivations in calling for my removal are these:

I expect that Forest Board decisions should be made in public, based on factual evidence, after thorough discussion of benefits and detriments. I believe that measures entailing significant cost should be decided only after due consideration of reasonable alternatives. They should be decided with great care, after being given time for public input.

I believe individual Board members should not claim to represent the entire Board, unless specifically given that authority by discussion and vote of the Board.

I believe detailed information regarding Forest issues should be presented to the Board as a whole, not held in secret or transmitted second-hand by one or two individuals. These should include detailed engineering reports, lists of project elements, estimated costs, etc. And I believe documents related to such decisions should be treated as public records, and made reasonably available to the public in accordance with Ohio’s Sunshine Laws. Concise summaries should also be part of Board minutes, which should be available online.

I believe that meeting minutes should be disseminated promptly and should conform to Sunshine Laws. The Ohio Sunshine Law manual states that minutes “must include enough facts and information to permit the public to understand and appreciate the rationale behind the public body’s decisions.” (I invite members of Council to compare the recent Forest Board minutes with the Council’s own minutes and judge whether Board minutes meet the same standard.)

I believe that Board decisions should be respected and promises to the Board should be kept. When promises are made to involve the entire Board in project decisions, the entire Board should actually be asked for input, and receive in-progress reports, not just after-the-fact summaries. When the Board asks that the chair deliver messages to Council, those messages should actually be delivered. And since the Board rushed to impose strict permit requirements for any volunteer work, Board members should not exempt themselves from those same permit requirements.

Above all, I believe that the entire Forest should be managed in accord with Grace Butler’s wishes: that it be “used for park purposes only, and kept and preserved in its natural state in so far as possible.”

Sadly, I see no way I can influence the Forest Board in these matters. I must reluctantly submit my resignation from the Forest Board, and ask that this letter be included in official Board minutes.

Frank Krygowski