~By Sandy Buckles
At the last meeting of the Geauga County Commissioners, Mr. Claypool and Mr. Spidaleri decided to submit the name of John Oros, Executive Director of the GPD, to NOACA as the Conservation rep for Geauga County. I am sending this letter personally to NOACA objecting to this nomination.
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At the last meeting of the Geauga County Commissioners, Mr. Skip Claypool recommended Mr. John Oros to be the Conservation representative from Geauga County to the NOACA Rural Advisory Council. As a biologist and as an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist, and a Cleveland Museum of Natural History Naturalist Certificate recipient, I strongly object to this appointment. Mr. Oros has shown no evidence of a conservation ethic in his tenure as interim director of the Geauga Park District, nor in his current position of Executive Director (an appointment made without interviewing 25 other applicants.)
He has repeatedly violated park rules and regulations and even ODNR restrictions. He placed recreation equipment at Bass Lake that was removed under orders of the EPA. He permitted illegal hunting on our state nature preserve, Burton Wetlands. He violated our parks NRM recommendations on trapping of nuisance animals allowing trapping in areas where no problems were reported. He permitted firing of primitive black powder weapons at a children’s program without adhering to the park rules and regulations regarding firearms in the park. Most recently, he bypassed the Board of the Geauga Park District to issue snowmobiling permits at Observatory Park, another violation of park rules and regulations. It was heartbreaking to see the mowing of a field at Swine Creek where monarch butterfly tagging had been held for years. It is now a muddy “baseball field” that has never been used.
In my professional opinion, Mr. John Oros would be one of the most unqualified individuals to represent the conservation issues facing Geauga County or any other area of Northeastern Ohio.
Sandy Buckles, B.S. Zoology, M.S. Biology
Retired Biology Instructor – John Carroll University
Former Education Chair – Audubon Society of Greater Cleveland
Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist
Naturalist Certificate – Cleveland Museum of Natural History
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