YOUNGSTOWN — The legal action filed by Mill Creek MetroParks to acquire a right-of-way on the farm of Michael and Barbara Cameron of Green Township was placed on hold Tuesday while the Camerons appeal the latest ruling in their Mahoning County Common Pleas Court case.

Judge Anthony D’Apolito and his magistrate, Jim Melone, granted a stay Tuesday in the 2018 lawsuit until the Youngstown-based 7th District Court of Appeals rules on whether Melone erred in refusing to dismiss the lawsuit.

The MetroParks lawsuit is one of about 10 the MetroParks filed to acquire the rights-of-way needed to extend its MetroParks Bikeway an additional 6.4 miles south — from Western Reserve Road near Canfield to the Columbiana County line at Washingtonville in southern Mahoning County.

The extension would complete the Mahoning County portion of the Great Ohio Lake-to-River Greenway by following a former railroad bed owned by the Camerons and the other affected property owners. When the trail is complete, it will span 110 miles from Lake Erie in Ashtabula to the Ohio River in East Liverpool.

The ruling the Camerons are appealing was one Melone issued Nov. 8 in response to the Camerons asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed on the grounds that the state budget bill Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law June 30 bans use of eminent domain in Mahoning County to acquire rights of way to build recreational trails.

Melone ruled new laws such as the one in the state budget bill can be applied starting only on or after the date the new law was enacted — and not retroactively “unless they are expressly made retroactive.”

The MetroParks filed the Cameron lawsuit in November 2018, and that is the date the case “arose,” Melone ruled. The new legislation can only apply to cases that “arose” after the effective date of the new law, his ruling states.

The “General Assembly’s failure to clearly enunciate retroactivity ends the analysis, and (new law) may be applied only prospectively,” Melone ruled.

The change in the state budget bill was championed by state Rep. Al Cutrona, a Republican from Canfield. The new law affects only Ohio counties with a population of 220,000 to 240,000 people. Mahoning County’s population in the latest census was 228,683. Another Ohio county with a population in that range is Lake, east of Cleveland. The new law is in effect five years.

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

A purpose of an eminent domain case is to determine the fair market value for property a public entity wants to acquire.

The Cameron property is a 65-foot-wide, 3,400-foot-long piece of land that passes through the 158-acre farm just east of Salem.

The Camerons and their lawyer have argued that the new Ohio law prevents the MetroParks from acquiring a right of way on their property for a recreational trail.

The MetroParks, however, has argued that the new law is unconstitutional because it is not applied evenly throughout the state.

Melone’s ruling did not address the constitutionality of the new law, only whether the new law applies to the Cameron case.

Trumbull County officials also are working to build the final phase of its Western Reserve Greenway through Trumbull County. That phase would extend the trail south from Burton Street on the south end of Warren to downtown Niles.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Scott Krichbaum and his magistrate, Tim Welsh, similarly ruled in August in the case of Green Township property owner Thomas Hough that the new state law is not applicable to the Hough case because it cannot be applied retroactively.

Hough has an appeal pending in the 7th District Court of Appeals also. He appealed Krichbaum and Welsh’s rulings approving the verdict a jury issued that determined the amount of money the MetroParks must pay to acquire the right of way on Hough’s former railroad bed.

Observers say it could take several months for the appeals court to rule on the appeals. The Ohio Supreme Court appointed judges from the 4th District Court of Appeals in Chillicothe to preside over the Hough case.

erunyan@vindy.com