Volume 51, No. 21
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CHESTERLAND NEWS Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Your Community Newspaper Since 1967
Chester Woman Wants Her Trees Back Sperry Road Homeowner Claims Township Overstepped Authority By Diane Ryder editor@geaugamapleleaf.com Lisa Smith was sitting at her desk in her home office on the morning of Feb. 15 admiring the view of her heavily wooded land out her large picture window when she suddenly spotted something odd — someone was cutting down her prized beech tree. As a homeowner on Sperry Road just south of Wilson Mills, Smith had received a letter from Chester Township weeks earlier informing her the township road department planned to trim vegetation prior to ditching work. The letter read, in part, “The department will be doing tree trimming and brush removal in preparation for ditching. Trees will be
trimmed and brush removed only as needed to facilitate ditching, snow removal and clear passage for school buses and snowplows. In certain circumstances, trees in the right-of-way may be removed as per Ohio Revised Code Section 5543:14 … as is necessary in the (Geauga County Engineer Office) or (Chester Township Trustees’) judgment to facilitate the right of the public to improvement and maintenance of, and uninterrupted travel on, county and township roads.” “I thought that meant the township would be doing some trimming, but the letter was misleading,” Smith said. “All along, they planned to remove every tree in the right-of-way, but for some reason, they didn’t want the residents to know.”
Smith said she saw stakes being put up and trees marked with spray paint, but, based on the letter, she thought they were marked for trimming, not removal. Out of caution, she contacted the township and learned the marked trees were scheduled to be removed by VanCuren Tree Services in February and March. Smith met with Chester Township Road Superintendent Mike Farrell in January to find out why the trees would be removed instead of trimmed. She said Farrell gave her five reasons for cutting the trees, but none of them satisfied her. “I wasn’t confident with the reasons he gave me,” she said. “One was that shade causes the road See Trees • Page 12
DIANE RYDER/KMG
Lisa Smith mourns the loss of her prized beech tree, ordered cut down by the Chester Township Road Department.
Abused Horses Rescued from Local Property Owner Sentenced to Probation, Restitution By Ann Wishart ann@geaugamapleleaf.com Bianca Marcellino, of Chester Township, was sentenced March 5 to five years of probation and ordered to pay restitution of $14,373 to the Geauga Humane Society’s Rescue Village for neglecting two Thoroughbred geldings to the point of starvation. Chardon Municipal Court Judge Terri Stupica also ordered her to forfeit the two former racehorses and prohibited Marcellino from owning, caring for or living on the
same property with horses. The Rescue Village humane officer can make random visits to inspect the condition of any other animals Marcellino may have on her property, Stupica said. A jury found Marcellino guilty on two counts of animal cruelty Feb. 21. Marcellino could have been sentenced to 90 days in jail for each of the two offenses, but Stupica suspended incarceration, saying the defendant did not have a criminal record. See Horses • Page 4
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Two Thoroughbred geldings were close to death by starvation when the Geauga Humane Society seized them from Bianca Marcellino’s property in Chester Township in June 2018.
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