Staff photos / Ed Runyan
Chris Flak, left, the first speaker Wednesday for the group asking a visiting probate judge to remove the members of the Mill Creek MetroParks board at a table with attorney Marc Dann, while MetroParks Executive Director Aaron Young is at a table in the foreground.

YOUNGSTOWN — After two hours of testimony from four members of the Save the Deer of Mill Creek Park group and one hour of testimony from four of the members of the Mill Creek MetroParks board and its executive director, Visiting Judge John Campbell of Carroll County said he would take the issue of whether he will remove members of the board under advisement and decide later.

The deer group asked for the MetroParks board members to be removed in a petition submitted to Mahoning County Probate Judge Robert Rusu Jr., who recused himself, and Campbell was appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court.

At the end of the hearing, Campbell said he chose not to have the attorneys cross examine the other side because he hoped the hearing would help the parties “listen to the other guy.”

“You’re all going to go home and feel better about yourself, I hope, because you were able to listen without getting angry first, because once you get angry, nobody listens, not you, not me, not anybody else in the room,” he said.

He asked the attorneys to present a written closing argument within 10 days.

The hearing was unusual in that it did not follow many of the procedures of a criminal or civil hearing, but MetroParks attorney, Andrea Ziarko, said Ohio law gives Campbell “full discretion” to remove park board members.

Attorney Marc Dann, who represents the deer group, started the hearing by saying the big concern of the group is a petition they presented to the park board asking the board to remove Aaron Young, the board’s executive director.

He said the board “simply refused to hear the community’s concerns about that issue,” saying one of the most important jobs of a park board is to “hire and fire a director, and so their failure to be in any way responsive to concerns that were raised in a constructive and thoughtful way by the signatures of 2,500 Mahoning County residents was simply brushed off as nothing important.”

Then he introduced deer group member Chris Flak, who said the deer group was formed as a result of the MetroPark board’s announcement in early 2023 that it was going to carry out a deer reduction program.

She said a petition was delivered to the MetroParks board Dec. 11, 2023, the same day as a board meeting, asking for Young to be removed. “There was nothing done with this. We never got a response at that meeting,” she said. Also no response in January or February, so Flak stood up at the March meeting and asked about it.

According to minutes of the meeting Flak read, MetroParks board president Lee Frey said at the March meeting, “The board feels Mr. Young is doing a good job and will not be acting on those petitions.That’s all we got. 2,500 signatures, and that’s all we got.” The second petition, asking for removal of the board, was delivered to the probate court Feb. 5, 2024.

She said one of the deer group’s concerns is “rubber stamping,” saying “During board meetings, all of the board members vote unanimously. I’ve reviewed many months of board minutes and personally attended every board meeting in the last 15 months, and I’ve never seen a board member actually vote against Aaron Young.”

Later, a video filmed by someone in the audience of the April 10, 2023, MetroParks board meeting where the board approved the deer reduction plan was played.

It shows an angry confrontation between Frey and members of the deer group.

Mickey Drabison, another deer group organizer, spoke about the close relationship he has formed with the deer in the park.

“They’re my friends,” he said.

With a photo of several deer projected on the screen, Drabison said, “That’s Minnie, Queen and Bebe. I can see those deer from 20 feet away. I can tell you exactly who they are,” he said.

“Minnie, I watched within 10 feet of her, sitting on a log watching her deliver babies. This white one, Queenie, when she was born, right behind the maintenance building, two white ones and a brown one were born that day. I sat there with my daughter watching those babies come out. That deer couldn’t care less I was there. She would come up, smell me, lick my head, and go back and deliver again.”

METROPARKS

Ziarko asked the judge to dismiss the petition and not remove the board members, saying “the petitioners have not set forth any evidence that would support removal in this case. The commissioners are all qualified to serve. Quite simply the petitioners disagree with some of the decisions of the board.”

The first witness was Frey.

When Ziarko asked Frey if it is his job to “bend to the demands of certain people,” Frey said, “I am there to do research necessary to make the best possible decision based on research and facts, and if somebody doesn’t like it, it’s part of the job.”

When she asked about the deer management plan, Frey said Nick Derico, the park system’s naturalist “is in charge of that type of thing, along with” the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

When asked about the petition to remove Young, Frey said he thought about the petition for about a month after he received it. “I was asked the question, are you going to comply with the petition, and I said no, the board is not going to comply with the petition.”

Three other park board members, Tom Frost, Paul Olivier and Jeff Harvey, also testified.

The fifth board member Germaine Bennett could not attend because of a prearranged trip, Young testified during his testimony.

Young also said he has worked under 13 park board commissioners during his nine years as executive director, but the “consistency” of the park board in recent years has been a key to improving the operations of the MetroParks.

He said the current board does not “rubber stamp” his recommendation.

“I can’t say I’ve ever had a board rubber stamp anything. There’s always been an inquiry. They have inquisitive minds. They are the ones up there running the meeting. What they provided was consistency in terms of how we function,” Young said.