Muzzy Lake Right Of Way Improvements Raises Concerns

Several ordinances were passed at the Ravenna City Council meeting on Monday, December 5. Ordinance number 2016-172, which appropriates $10,000 from the capital improvement fund (65-74) to pay one-half of permanent improvements at the Muzzy Lake right of way, brought up some questions by a Ravenna resident.

Retiree Cliff Soudil is not against the ordinance to pave the road with blacktop. His main concern is the precedent it will set.

“We’re doing a piece of property that’s not inside the city limits,” Soudil said. “I understand that it’s our easement, but we are going past the point of what is necessary to do.”

According to Soudil, this decision was a change from the council’s previous stance that gravel would suffice for use on the access road to the lake’s pump system house.

Council president Joe Bica said he thinks they are not setting a precedent.

“I think what we’re doing is, we have to evaluate the value of what that easement is worth to the city versus the amount of money that we continue to put into it year after year,” he said.

Since the late 1800s, Ravenna has had an easement with the Muzzy Lake area. The city also owns 75 percent of the land surrounding it. According to council member Sharon Spencer, it is the city’s responsibility to provide a minimum of care and maintenance to the access road.

“The way I feel about it is that it makes more sense, since the Muzzy Lake area was going to go half and half on it, to get a good solid foundation now instead of having to go out, keep replacing gravel, keep having the same people go out there because our street department has deflated quite a bit,” Spencer said.

However, Soudil disagrees with the council about the improvements being permanent.

“I don’t care what they say, blacktop is not permanent. They’ll come back for more money eventually, and I’m against that. Especially when I live in the city and I live on a street that’s concrete and it isn’t fixed yet. I get woken at 3 o’clock in the morning when the snow removal trucks come by as they’re breaking off chunks of concrete because everything is uneven,” he said.

Council member Fred Berry agrees that approving this ordinance will pay off in the long-run. He says the city has had to deal with the costs, time and labor over the last few years to go out and add gravel and grate the Muzzy Lake right of way.

“By doing this on a permanent basis we’re not going to be out there every year. We’ll do this and we don’t know how long it’s going to last, but it definitely should last more than a year. It’s going to save the city time and money and labor by doing it this way,” he said.

Since the city’s street department’s labor force has shrunk, the council is trying to keep the department working inside of the city limit, instead of continuously sending them out to the Muzzy Lake area. The part of the road Ravenna has is on a hill and with the torrential rain the city gets, the road constantly loses gravel and “is a perpetual problem.”

The council voted to adopt the ordinance, as well as all other ordinances raised at the meeting.

Muzzy Lake Ordinance Raises Concernshttps://t.co/1zjhtdkphT

— Daniel Hale (@Doc_Oddfellow) December 8, 2016