YOUNGSTOWN — A local legislator has taken aim at the Mill Creek MetroParks’ efforts to acquire rights of way from landowners to complete the third section of the MetroParks bikeway.

State Rep. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, inserted language into the House version of the state budget bill that would prohibit a park district in a county the size of Mahoning from using emiment domain to establish a recreational trail.

Among the types of trails that would be affected are trails used for hiking, bicycling, horseback riding, ski touring, canoeing or other nonmotorized forms of recreational travel.

The language prohibits such use in a county of 220,000 to 240,000 people as reported in the most recent available federal decennial census, the language states. Mahoning County’s population was 238,787 during the 2010 census and was estimated at 228,683 in 2019, according to the Census Bureau.

Cutrona said he included the provision in the budget “to do something to help my district and help my constituents. A lot of them are facing a lot of issues with bike trails.”

The amendment is good for five years.

“It gives us more time to work out the challenges with bike trails and hopefully come up with a solution,” Cutrona said.

He added: “This is a big help for people. My constituents have been fighting this for a considerable amount of time.”

Aaron Young, executive director of the Mill Creek MetroParks, said of Cutrona’s proposal, “We are certainly disappointed Representative Cutrona would use the state budget process to try to bring the Great Ohio Lake to River Greenway to a halt.”

Young said it is “readily apparent” that the language was crafted to harm the attempt to build the third phase of the bikeway.

He said the third section of the bikeway involves property owned by 13 individuals, five of whom have settled with the MetroParks, including one last week.

The MetroParks attempts to acquire the rights of way have met with resistance from property owners along the path the MetroParks is proposing.

Among them is Diane M. Less, of South Range Road in Salem, best known for her association with Angels for Animals.

Less and the MetroParks have been in litigation since early 2019 when the MetroParks filed legal action in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court seeking to acquire a right of way for the bikeway on her property.

Less and the MetroParks were unable to agree on the terms during negotiations for the right of way. Less then sought to have the the legal proceedings dismissed on the grounds that the MetroParks lacked the authority to acquire the right of way.

Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court disagreed, saying the MetroParks are authorized to acquire property in order to expand the existing bikeway and create a recreational trail along its preferred path, the former railroad corridor.

State. Rep. Don Manning, R-New Middletown, testified in February 2020 before the State and Local Government Committee on legislation he introduced, House Bill 476, which also was aimed at restricting the use of eminent domain by nonelected government entities for recreational trails.

Manning, who died at age 54 of a heart attack in March 2020, proposed the legislation because of the concerns of people such as Less.

The litigation involving Less and the MetroParks is currently awaiting a ruling by the 7th District Court of Appeals.

About three-quarters of the MetroParks bikeway was finished in the project’s first two phases. The third phase would span 6.4 miles through Mahoning County from West Western Reserve Road to Washingtonville Village.

The bikeway is part of the 100-mile Great Ohio Lake to River Greenway, which will connect Lake Erie to the Ohio River through four counties, beginning at the lake in Ashtabula County, spanning Trumbull and Mahoning counties then ending at the Ohio River in East Liverpool in Columbiana County.