DEAR EDITOR:

Owning a piece of land that we can call our own is the dream of most of us. Be it small or large, land ownership is a source of pride.

In early morning or at the end of the day, you might relax on your porch with a cup of coffee. It’s a time to enjoy the serenity, a time to reflect on the day and to savor the work that you’ve put into it.

Children are playing hide and seek in the shadows of the trees, the sheep are grazing in the meadow, and several deer are ambling along the creek bed.

Life is good! As you survey your land, you know that it has all been worth it.

Imagine this …

Unknown to you, Mill Creek MetroParks and their tax-paid lawyers have also been surveying your land. They knock on your door and tell you their plan to take your land for a bike trail. You tell them, “It’s not for sale,” thinking that’s the end of it. After all, you did say, “It’s not for sale.”

MCMP’s lawyers are hard at work and come back with a plan to use eminent domain to take your land anyway. The taxes you have paid into are now working against you and are paying the lawyers who are planning to take your land.

Meanwhile, you have to hire and pay the fees of lawyers to help you fight MCMP to keep your land.

If this is allowed to happen, complete strangers will be permitted to be on your land 24 / 7. Who will stop them? Children will not be safe to play on and around your property — it is now open to the public.

You need only to look at the daily news. This is not a safe world.

Recently, a young girl was abducted and held captive within a small campground at which everyone felt safe. People harm animals for no reason — and what about those deer you enjoy watching?

Will the MCMP board decide that the deer’s hooves are marking up the pavement and send sharpshooters to kill them?

This could happen to you! This could happen to me! Imagine!

GINNY TARKA

New Springfield