PAINESVILLE, Ohio — A tussle between two cities is again in the hands of a Lake County Court of Common Pleas judge.
Attorneys for Painesville and Mentor sparred for more than four hours Thursday regarding Mentor’s intention to close part of Diamond Center Drive, which cuts through a major shopping center near the boundary of the two cities.
The decade long spat stems from an early 2000s agreement with a local developer which stipulates the developer would finance a future widening project of the congested roadway.
On Tuesday, the Mentor City Council unanimously approved an ordinance authorizing and instructing the city manager, Ken Filipiak, to close Diamond Center Drive near the Mentor-Painesville municipal boundary.
The road is a main access point to a bustling shopping district, featuring big box retailers like Home Depot, Sam’s Club and Menards, which is slated to open in May or June. Although the ordinance that the council passed did not include language related to it, Filipiak testified that it is the city’s intention to construct a gate over the roadway, which would only allow keyed access to emergency personnel.
The on-again, off-again disagreement between Mentor and Painesville dates back to a 2002 agreement, later amended in 2008, with local developer, Shamrock Business Center Ltd. The developer has reportedly failed to honor commitments to widen the westbound lanes of Diamond Center Drive in order to accommodate more traffic resulting from further development.
Despite the order to make improvements, which are estimated to cost more than $800,000, the developer recently sold property on the Painesville side of the border to make way for a skilled nursing facility.
Additionally, with Menard’s planning to open in a matter of weeks, Mentor city officials are concerned the additional traffic will result in gridlock.
“Now we are out the proverbial 11th hour because we are facing a complete breakdown in that traffic pattern,” Mentor Law Director Joseph Szeman said. “The purpose of the road closure is to further health and safety in that area.”
Immediately after Mentor City Council approved the closure of the road, the City of Painesville sought a court-ordered injunction to stop it. Painesville attorneys contend the closure of the road will cause immediate and irreparable harm to residents of both cities as well as the numerous businesses located in the shopping complex.
Although she did not testify at Thursday’s hearing, April Luca, the co-owner of Guilio Bonazza’s Pizzeria, said she would be undoubtedly impacted by a potential road closure.
“I think it’s going to be tragic if they close the street. It’s going to affect all the local businesses, including ours,” Luca said. “It would be awful. It is kind of upsetting and insulting that they are not taking more consideration to not be black and white on this situation and see the grey area that they are going to affect a lot of people if they do that.”
In fact, a number of Mentor businesses or businesses patronized by both Painesville and Mentor residents, could be negatively impacted by Diamond Center Drive being turned into a cul-de-sac. As many as 380 residents of a nearby apartment complex, which sits on the Painesville side of the border, work at Mentor businesses, according to Eric Bell, a principal of Goldberg Companies.
“It would absolutely do irreparable harm to our economic interest there and based on my discussions with our management team, it would do dramatic harm to a vast number of our residents,” Bell said.
During Thursday’s lengthy hearing on the preliminary injunction, Szeman, the law director for Mentor, cited a 2016 traffic study which apparently determined the road was nearing its capacity. Diamond Center was built to accommodate up to 15,000 vehicles per day but, instead, averages more than 20,000.
Szeman and Painesville attorneys James Lyons and Joseph Gurley had several contentious tussles throughout the hearing with Judge John O’Donnell repeatedly having to step in to referee.
Lyons grilled city manager Ken Filipiak for more than an hour on how the ordinance to close the road came to pass and whether it actually qualified as an emergency ordinance. Lyons also questioned Filipiak on why language pertaining to the construction of a gate wasn’t included in the ordinance and why the City Council made no mention to the gate at its March 5th and April 2nd meetings.
Both Lyons and Gurley scoffed at Mentor’s notion that the gate would not create a public safety concern. Gurley was quite critical of it during his closing statement.
“Let’s talk about the gate. In their benevolence, [Mentor is] saying, ‘we believe we can put in a swinging gate and so the emergency people can go in and go out — in and out.' Oh! How very noble of them!” Gurley said in a sarcastic tone. “But they don’t have that authority.”
Mentor Fire Chief Bob Searles insisted that the gate was not a concern to him from a public safety standpoint.
“In my opinion, and I’ve been doing this a long time, there are no concerns. There should be no significant impact on public safety because the gate would allow access when needed,” Chief Searles said. “My concern was the delay in response time due to traffic congestion and also pedestrian safety.”
Earlier in the day, an administrator for Grand River Health & Rehab testified that the closure of the road would negatively impact private ambulance service providers as well as the families of the clients living at the facility.
“104 family members that visit our facility are related to people. I’ve spoken to several of them over the past couple of days about their concerns,” said Ross Wilkoff. “It does impact it. People are visiting around their work schedules so they will have to either leave work early or come later at times when their loved one may not be awake for a visit. It discourages visits because it’s just a challenge to visit in a timely manner.”
Don Ashba Sr., the owner of Easy Stop Mini Mart, gave particularly succinct yet powerful testimony. As a small business owner who sank his entire life savings into his upscale mini-mart, the closure of the road could derail his entire operation, he said. Ashba estimated that at least half of his business comes from people living in the nearby apartment complex on the Painesville side of the border. If the road is blockaded, Ashba said there’s a strong possibility he will lose many if not most of those customers.
“Oh it’s my believe that I will be out of business in two or three months,” Ashba said. “With that barrier up it will bankrupt me. It will ruin me… It’s not an opinion. It’s a fact.
Judge O’Donnell is expected to rule on the preliminary injunction by Monday, April 8th. If the restraining order isn’t granted, Mentor has five days to implement the barrier.
