Staff file photo / Ed Runyan Attorney Marc Dann is seen during the Sept. 28 hearing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court where a magistrate heard testimony on a request to stop the Mill Creek MetroParks deer reduction plan. The magistrate and Judge Anthony Donofrio refused to stop the plan.

YOUNGSTOWN — Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court has affirmed the Sept. 29 decision of his magistrate denying four opponents of the Mill Creek MetroParks deer reduction plan a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the park system from carrying out the plan.

The latest information from the MetroParks is that the plan has resulted in 133 deer being killed by hunters in various parks since Oct. 1. Another 30 deer were removed by sharpshooters employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture one night in mid-October at the Mill Creek Park Golf Course just north of U.S. Route 224 in Boardman.

Magistrate Nicole Alexander denied a preliminary injunction to four people who live near the park who filed suit in common pleas court. The lawsuit is still pending with the plaintiffs filing a motion for summary judgment earlier this month. A summary judgment would be a ruling in the property owners’ favor without the need for a trial. The court has not yet ruled on that issue.

Judge Donofrio’s decision on the preliminary injunction states that he independently reviewed Alexander’s ruling and the facts of the case and found “no error of law or other defect” that would justify overturning her ruling.

Alexander held a daylong hearing Sept. 28 during which attorneys Marc Dann and Jeffrey Crossman presented several witnesses, including Dennis Malloy, a Trumbull County commissioner and a regional director of Whitetails Unlimited.

Malloy testified to his belief that the MetroParks’ deer reduction plan is based on a flawed study of the number of deer in the park system. He urged the park system to delay any deer reduction until a more scientific study can be done or the park’s deer population could be “decimated.”

Among the witnesses for the park system was Nick Derico, MetroParks natural resources manager, who said there is “pretty clear evidence” that the deer in the park system have caused damage to the park’s plant life because of the “browse lines” he has observed.

A browse line is a line about five to six feet off the ground where vegegation is present. Below that line the vegegation is gone because of deer eating it. Derico gave a lot of detail on how the reduction plan would work.

Most of Judge Donofrio’s ruling was a restatement of the magistrate’s ruling, which included her conclusion that the four property owners had not “shown by clear and convincing evidence that the public interest would be served by the injunction.”

She concluded, “While the court respects the thoughtfulness and concerns of the plaintiffs, we are compelled to defer to the experts with respect to the proper management of the deer population.”

SUMMARY JUDGMENT

The separate summary judgment filing by the plaintiffs argues that the judge and magistrate should find that the MetroParks “lacks the explicit legal authority” to carry out its deer reduction plan and “does not possess any legal authority to invite others into the public park … to eradicate deer either.”

The filing states that one section of Oho law governs the authority of park districts, and that section of law “does not grant authority to kill, hunt, eradicate or exterminate the natural life in the park. Instead, (the park district) is directed to ‘preserve’ the (park system’s) natural life.”

The case has no current hearing dates scheduled.

erunyan@vindy.com