OLG Meetings Across Lake Erie

OLG President Tony Yankel

Meetings were held in Westlake, Port Clinton, and Geneva-on-the-Lake September 8th through 10th. OLG Chairman Greg Baeppler presided and made introductions at the meetings.

Tom Lundrum of Huron spoke first at the Westlake meeting. He was the first State Representative to sponsor OLG legislation in the House of Representatives. While the bill passed with a large margin in the full House vote, the Senate never got it out of committee, which doomed the bill to die at the end of the General Assembly’ term. Representative Lundrum lost in his rebid for election as a result of

Tony Yankel presented a history of the lawsuit from before filing, through the Court of Common Pleas, Federal Court, and the Appellate Court.  In summary, OLG won all of its points between Judge Lucci’s Court of Common Pleas and the 11th District Court of Appeals. The Federal Court remanded the case back to the State Court with strong language to the State A.G. that this case should have never been brought into Federal Court.

OLG also feels that since our case was not “Stayed” by the Courts that lakeshore owners are not subject to paying leasing fees on their own land. We are still subject to paying leases on land on which we have structures beyond the limits of our deeds. We are also subject to regulation by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protective Agency, and ODNR. However, Tony noted that it is still taking up to a year and a half to get a structure permit, whereby a home permit takes weeks. The ODNR continues to drag out the permit process at the expense of the property owner. Further the new Administrative Rules that were promised almost 2 years ago have still not been adopted.

OLG feels it is certain that the National Wildlife Federation and the Ohio Economic Council will appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court. To date, the Attorney General’s office has not made a decision about appealing their lack of standing in the case.

The Appeals Court ruled that the A.G. has no client since both Governor Strickland and ODNR withdrew from the case and took outside attorney representation. The A.G. is charged with representing agencies and officials of the State. He could represent all the people of the State, from past case law, on issues affecting ALL people of the State.

The past A.G. felt that he could represent part of the people of Ohio, non-lakeshore owners, and neglect lakeshore owners as part of the people of Ohio.  We must remember that the past State A.G. filed all motions prior to Attorney General Cordray’s taking office and that he has not actually been personally involved in the suit.

A Supreme Court appeal will take at least another year for a final decision. We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will uphold our wins in the lower Courts. However, we must remember the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that while the private property deeds were valid, the Court allowed that the Public Trust to the OHWM allowed the public to use the dry beaches between the OHWM and the waters edge. We certainly would not like that ruling from the Ohio Supreme Court.

In attendance were State officials including Senator Tom Patton, Senator Tim Grendell, Representative Lorraine Fende, and Representative Nan Baker and past Representative Tom Lundrum.

These are more pictures from the meetings.

OLG Chairman Greg Baeppler

Past Ohio Representative Tom Lundrum

Lead Attorney James Lang

Representative Lorraine Fende with OLG Member

James Lang, Representative Nan Baker, Senator Tom Patton

Senator Tim Grendell

Membership crowd at Geneva Meeting