Visiting Judge John Campbell looks at attorney Marc Dann during a hearing in the Mahoning County Courthouse over a request that the Mill Creek MetroPark Board’s five commissioners be removed from their positions.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is No. 6 of the Top 10 stories of the year as voted on by newsroom staff.

YOUNGSTOWN — Litigation over the 2023 Mill Creek MetroParks’ decision to reduce the number of deer in its parks continued into 2024 even after more than 400 deer were culled through hunting and sharpshooting over the past 16 months.

In August, visiting Judge John Campbell heard testimony and oral arguments from deer supporters and the Mill Creek MetroParks in a Mahoning County Probate Court case in which the deer supporters asked for the probate court to remove members of the MetroParks board of directors over the deer reduction plan and other grievances.

At the hearing, several of the deer supporters, who are members of the group called Save the Deer of Mill Creek Park, said the park board members “rubber stamp” the wishes of the board’s executive director, Aaron Young. Deer supporter Chris Flak said she has “never seen a board member actually vote against Aaron Young” over the course of 15 months of her attending MetroParks board meetings.

Another deer supporter, Mickey Drabison, testified to his relationship with the park’s deer, calling them “my friends.” To prove it, he told the judge the names of three deer in a photo projected onto a screen, saying “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.

Lee Frey, president of the MetroParks Board of commissioners and three other commissioners also testified regarding their professional accomplishments. A MetroParks attorney asked Frey to talk about the response the board gave when the Save the Deer group asked in a petition for the board to fire Young, and the board refused.

“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,” he said. The deer group’s attorney, Marc Dann told Judge Campbell, a retired judge from Carroll County, the park board “simply refused to hear the community’s concerns about that issue.”

The judge took everyone’s testimony under advisement and said he would rule later. As of Dec. 18, more than four months later, no ruling has been issued.

Also, the litigation the deer group filed in 2023 in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court hoping to stop the deer reductions continues. Judge Anthony Donofrio ruled against the deer group, and that was appealed to the 7th District Court of Appeals, which also refused to stop the deer reduction plan.

Their attorney, Marc Dann, recently filed a request with the Ohio Supreme Court, asking that it review the matter. That court can accept the matter for review or decline. No decision on whether they will hear the appeal had been issued as of Dec. 18.

Dann’s Dec. 6 filing states that the issue of whether the Mill Creek MetroParks has authority under Ohio law to reduce deer on their properties is a matter of “significant public and great general interest, as it raises crucial questions regarding the scope of authority granted to political subdivisions (such as the Mill Creek MetroParks) under Ohio law.”

Dann argued that the 7th District court’s affirmation of Judge Donofrio’s ruling “suggested that political subdivisions have broad ‘implied powers’ and relied on these ‘implied powers’ to uphold the actions of the Mill Creek Metropolitan Park District.”

He stated that the appeals court’s ruling “conflicts with well-established principles related to powers delegated to political subdivisions by the Ohio General Assembly. The court’s review is necessary to ensure consistency and clarification in the application of the law.”