It's Raining, It's Pouring. The Mayor for Life is Snoring

The City of Massillon has closed Reservoir and South Sippo parks until further notice because of flooding.

And what is holding back the flood waters of Reservoir Park?

Why the Reservoir Dam is.

The very same Reservoir Dam that was given a First Class Hazard rating by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) because it poses a risk of "probable loss of human life."

Probable loss of human life.

Hey, we shouldn't blame the city, they have only known about this problem for the last ten years or so;

"in 2000, the city submitted repair plans and a hydrologic and hydraulic study to the ODNR, but it (the city) never resubmitted it to ODNR after the agency made comments to the plans" (The Independent, February 17, 2011).

Of course, who could blame our beloved Mayor for Life, King Francis the Eternal, and his Lackey Extraordinaire, Parks Czar Kenn Kaminski.

These dams must be extremely complicated with all the "hydrologic and hydraulic" technical stuff involved.

What could the city possibly do?

Well, the ODNR had some suggestions. Due to the technical nature of these recommendations, we understand that they may be hard to follow.

Remove brush from the upstream slope shoreline and around the spillway sidewalls. Seed all disturbed areas to provide proper grass cover.

Repair erosion gullies on the downstream slope.

Repair the rodent burrows on the upstream slope.

Remove or grind down the tree stubs on the embankment.

Remove planters on the downstream slope .

It took a report from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to tell Kenn Kaminski to remove brush, plant grass, remove tree stumps, and fill in rodent burrows.

Wow. Look at Massillon.

Lackey Extraordinaire Kaminski finally put forth a proposal that the "independent" parks board approved for a comprehensive engineering study of the dam. The study will provide plans on how to replace, or repair the dam.

The study will cost $40,700 dollars.

According to Kaminski, "The funding for this project with our current budget is going to be difficult..." (The Independent, February 17, 2011).

Difficult.

Probable loss of human life.

Difficult.

It wasn't "difficult" to find the last $50,000 dollar payment for the Club Legends restaurant at the golf course in this year's budget, was it?

It wasn't difficult to use parks dollars to pay on the debt at the Legends of Massillon golf course this year, was it?

Let us all hope the dam holds up just a little longer so that we don't have to worry about "probable loss of human life."

And let's hope finding the necessary dollars to fix the dam, and avoid "probable loss of human life" won't be "difficult" either.