By Jane Smith
5/23/07 — CONNEAUT LAKE — For all but a few hours, 115-year-old Conneaut Lake Park apparently will lie silent this summer, perhaps forever.
The amusement park will not open, officials announced Tuesday, and almost every event for 2007, including this weekend’s DoWopp Festival, has been canceled.
The only exceptions to the canceled events are at Camperland, which will be open to honor reservations through Monday; and a wedding booked at Hotel Conneaut for June 2, according to court-appointed overseer LeRoy Stearns.
Stearns said the wedding will be catered, and the hotel has been cleaned and is ready for the 100 guests who have made reservations. “We will honor that wedding,” he said.
The closure affects all aspects of the park’s operation, including public and privately-booked events at Hotel Conneaut, the Beach Club, picnics and all other activities.
Faced with three days until opening day, but with no money, Stearns announced the closing at 11 a.m. Tuesday — one day after park officials were told that a local businessman wanted to make an offer to help keep the park open.
Stearns reported Monday at 1:30 p.m. that he had planned to announce the closing that day, but he received a last-minute telephone call from Crawford County Planner Jack Lynch about the potential offer. Thus, the announcement was delayed until Tuesday to allow officials to hear details of the proposal.
However, Stearns said Tuesday the offer was for a loan, not a gift, and he couldn’t approve a loan or provide collateral for the $30,000 offered — the amount needed to open the park this weekend. The money already collected through a recent token sale (a little more than $25,000) was used to pay bills and a deposit for the DoWopp entertainers in preparation for the opening.
He said he received two such proposals on Monday, but both wanted collateral agreements. Stearns and the court have both said for the past year they would approve no new borrowing. The park currently has a debt of between $2.3 and $2.5 million.
Stearns was quick to point out both offers were from men who care deeply about the park but couldn’t make a gift of that amount.
“We have shut the finances down, put the phone on an answering machine,” Stearns said Tuesday as he opened a news conference to announce the immediate closing. All 15 employees who had been working were laid off immediately as well.
Stearns said he will petition the Crawford County Court of Common Pleas within the next 48 hours to “remove the custodianship,” meaning he would no longer be in charge of the park’s operation.
“I am not a liquidating custodian,” he said, referring to a person who sells property to pay off bills. “I will not be a liquidating custodian. I don’t believe in liquidating Conneaut Lake Park,” he said, but added that the court may choose to do that to pay the creditors.
He said security personnel will be put in place to protect the park’s assets. However, because there are residents who live within the gated area, the park gates can’t be locked.
“It will be up to the court from that point on,” he said, referring to the future of the park and the petition for ending his position.
Although announcement was made Monday that a “farewell concert” could be held this weekend in place of the DoWopp festival, that too has been canceled. The park had booked entertainers, believing funding would be available to pay those costs.
Stearns said that wouldn’t happen.
All the entertainment was canceled immediately as well as all orders for supplies for the park’s opening.
Stearns said the park has had financial problems for the past 10 years and he tried to address the problems with his proposal to sell 3.3 acres of land for $1.9 million to help pay down debt and give the park money to open this year.
“It was denied (by the court),” he said. The court rejected the sale after objections were raised by attorney Dana Watson. “My plan had failed,” said Stearns, referring to the proposed sale, noting “possibly a board of directors” could be successful.
Any additional funds received from the sale of tokens, or from token money not yet turned in, will be used to help pay bills and other debts, according to Stearns.
In the meantime, Greg Sutterlin, who had made an offer to purchase the 3.3 acres of land, said Tuesday he will petition the court today to approve a new proposal to sell the land to him.
One of the original stipulations in his proposal was that the park had to open. He said Tuesday that obviously won’t be the case now. He also has removed a stipulation about other development at the park. That stipulation was that no other condominiums could be built on the lakefront for five years.
However, his original petition was denied by the judge after Watson objected to the sale, citing the need for a master plan and that such a sale was in violation of deed restrictions.
