GALION—David Keller, Trustee of the Doyle Keller Trust, spoke to Galion city council Tuesday night about a bike path the Mayor ordered that goes through property belonging to the trust.
Keller told counsel he was approached by mayor O’Leary two years ago interested in acquiring a strip of land along the south side of Biddle Road to use for the public bike trail.
“I’ve proposed an easement. I proposed to do a swap. One and a half acres on the south line for one and a half acres of city land back there that runs alongside the bike trail,” Keller said.
Keller said the city did the survey work. But he never got a proposal or got anything in writing.
“I contacted Mr. Echelberry. He does a fine job. I have no issues with him. He responds kindly, and I can communicate with him, unlike others who don’t respond at all. I end up not getting any kind of agreement. The Mayor at last indication, so they may not go through there because they can go through the sewer treatment plant, which was the original plan, but that he didn’t like to go through that because of the curves and the hills coming out onto the road. He said he preferred to go through my property, “Keller said.
Still, there was no agreement. Keller said he emailed Echelberry. Matt suggested maybe he draft the agreement.
“I’m going in for a heart Cath but OK. I come out of the heart Cath and the next day I drafted an agreement. I emailed it to your illustrious Law Director, Thomas Palmer, and got no response. Not even an indication that it was received or to be reviewed. Now this is late January 2022. Next thing I know I’m driving down Biddle Road, which I rarely do, I look in my field and there’s a pile of logs! Who’s cutting my trees? It’s either the city or their contractors. They cleared a strip of timber and hauled the dirt across the street. They put in a bike path. No one told me that was happening or ask for my permission for that to happen. I come in to see the Mayor and ask what’s up?”
O’Leary told Keller that Thomas Palmer couldn’t figure it out. O’Leary said they intended to draft an agreement but didn’t know how.
After further discussions, Keller gave them a deadline of December. In January, Keller called the Mayor again.
Frustrated, he told Echelberry: “I’m done With this. All former deals are off. Forget it. Get off my property. Have the Mayor call me. I am still waiting on that with this. This is in my family’s trust. I’m the trustee. My mother is the beneficiary. She is going to be 94 years old this year.
This is beyond aggravating. This is incompetent. This is sheer and total incompetence and disrespect, and whatever else you can label it. How would you like it?
Who would do something like that? Who would just take over your property? It’s going to get resolved, but the one thing I didn’t want to do, but I’m going to have to do, is go out there and shut it down because it’s a liability issue. I own the property. I’m going to have to shut it down, and I hate to. The city of Galion, the people of this community deserve better. They absolutely deserve better than what they have here. This is going to end up costing the city, and it wouldn’t of had to.” Keller said.
Council members thanked Keller for putting the issue on the radar. They indicated they believed the Mayor and Law Director would work quickly to resolve it.
Keller told the council that he had put Palmer on notice he was coming to speak to the council. Palmer discouraged it, saying it would create more delays.
Mayor O’Leary interrupted questions from the council and said:
“There’s five minutes for comments. I don’t think your rule provides for questions, but let’s not get procedural about it. What I would like to about this is, it surprises me that someone who is so procedurally particular that you would come to this venue, to an organization, to a group of people that has no Control over this to make such a public point out of it. It really surprises me. It strikes me as out of character but we’ll resolve it. We’ll make an offer for one and a quarter acres. The way it will be resolved is if we transact the public property. It really just strikes me as way out of character for you to come here and make a big deal out of it. But hey, as an Ashley citizen who owns property in Galion, and is a trustee for the property since you want to make a personal to start with, this administration has really been proud to have worked with your family in the past. And so this notion that somehow we are slothful is pretty unfair,” O’Leary said.
“I just want to say this isn’t the right venue for relief you can get relief. If you want sort of relief, there’s a way to do it; this isn’t the way so that’s all. I wanted to say,” O’Leary said.
When Keller tried to reply, he was interrupted by O’Leary, who said: “I didn’t ask you anything. I made a statement. I didn’t ask you to make a comment.”
As the gavel cracked to bring order to the meeting, councilwoman Paula Durbin said: “The Mayor’s attack on a citizen is totally uncalled for. He comes here as a last resort. That’s what it looks like and I don’t think the Mayor had any business saying what he did,” Durbin said.
City Law Director Thomas Palmer saved his remarks for the end of the meeting. He told the council:
“Anytime, anyone make strong allegations, no matter who, or what, my personal first inclination is to gather information before responding in any way. This situation is much more complex than what was presented to you here. We work in the same office downstairs for a reason. Some law directors work in their own office outside of the city building. I was invited to and chose to work here in the city building. And what we do is that we communicate and collaborate that way all the time,” Palmer said. Palmer indicated that he often responds through Echelberry; “The answers may not come from me personally, but that does not mean they don’t get done. The bottom line is I need 24 hours to continue to research and ask questions,” Palmer concluded.
Crawford County Now contacted David Keller for a response without a reply.
Mayor Tom O’Leary issued the following comment: “We expect to resolve the situation in the near future. Next steps are being identified,” O’Leary said.
Crawford County Now will continue to cover this developing story.