Trumbull County MetroParks gets funding for rest of the year

Trumbull County MetroParks will continue to be funded with taxpayer money at least until the end of 2025. 

The County Commissioners unanimously approved the money that the parks will use to manage their eight outdoor and recreational areas at a meeting Friday. 

“It's summer time, people are using the parks and we just need to make sure that they’re up to standard,” Commissioner Tony Bernard said. 

In April, the commissioners only granted funding to the park for half the year as they slashed from many departments because the county didn’t have enough money. Now, the $65,000 for the park will come from contingency money or sales tax money. 

All three commissioners told 21 News the Leavittsburg dam removal lawsuits had no influence on their vote.

“It was just that during that time all departments had got cut in their budgets and we wanted to see where we would end up with the metro parks and it just so happens that this is the time that they needed the money,” Commissioner Rick Hernandez said. 

Commissioner Denny Malloy previously expressed some reservations about the amount the park was asking for.

“We asked every department to come back and they did. They went down to a four day work week so they should’ve had some money left over from the first half of the year and to ask for the whole remaining amount to get to the end of the year makes the whole and I just wanted to make sure that money that they saved was being put to the good use,” Malloy said. 

Malloy said now that they were granted the funds he hopes to see more work being put in.

“We’re not happy that not all of the park services aren’t open,” Malloy said. “Canoe City’s not open, we’ve got a lot of complaints about people not being able to launch their boats…some of the areas need more grass mowing. They need a little bit more love. With this extra money we hope that they can put that towards hiring some part time help to be able to clean the areas up, bring them back to tip top shape.”

The park board has a special meeting scheduled for Tuesday, July 1 to discuss their budget for the rest of the year.