BUTLER TWP — It all started with soil testing in June.

David Rice, a resident of Butler Township, noticed that crews were working at Preston Park, which he said is right by his house on South Eberhart Road. He said in talking to the workers, he learned that they were testing the soil on the land because the township may add more parking spaces in the public park.

The ensuing meetings of the Butler Township commissioners and township planning commission saw dozens of people express their opposition to any development at Preston Park. Soon, those individuals would begin more regularly attending township meetings, and signs went up in yards around the region all emblazoned with the message “Conserve Preston Park.”

Although the commissioners and township officials have repeatedly said that no plans have come before the board to develop a parking lot at the park, people continue to discuss their opposition to it, and have met several times to plan measures against it.

The continued strife over the theoretical parking lot has brought the commissioners to voice frustration to the group for prolonging the rumor on social media, with Sam Zurzolo, vice president of the commissioners, saying he doesn’t understand their outrage.

Members of Conserve Preston Park met Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022, at the Lyndora American Legion to talk about the information they have so far about the alleged parking lot.

“It started out as upset neighbors, but this is a bigger deal than that,” Rice said. “We’re not out to throw anybody under the bus, we just want transparency in our local government.”

According to Rice, many people who attended the meeting Tuesday were just residents of Butler Township who don’t want to see Preston Park further developed. He said another member of the collective has applied to make it a 501c3 nonprofit, but that is still pending.

The group has raised money to print the shirts and signs, but also to pay a legal team to submit right to know requests to Butler Township on behalf of the residents, Rice said.

Rice said it is all a group effort to make sure a parking lot isn’t added to Preston Park.

“We’re not saying we don’t believe them; we just want maybe an official statement about it,” Rice said of the township commissioners. “If we were ever told officially that they’re not doing a parking lot, we would take the money and donate it to the park.”

Rebecca Black, Butler Township solicitor, said the township acquired the 88-acre park from the Preston estate around 2010 via memorandum, after the death of Jane Preston.

She said at the packed July 6 meeting of the planning commission that if the township was going to develop the park, a land development application would have to be submitted and approved by the township planning commission and then the commissioners before a project could commence.

The only process that has taken place on the parcel is soil testing, which Black said is “very, very early” in a development process, and furthermore, did not take place on Preston Park property, but a separate parcel adjacent to the park.

“Nothing is currently before this board,” Black said at that meeting. “This potential parking is proposed as a theoretical use of the property at some unknown point in the future. This is nothing that has been definitively discussed or established."

Following the July meeting, residents have continued attending meetings at the township, sometimes speaking during the public comment section about the park, with questions of why they haven’t heard more about it from the commissioners since July.

Some speakers tell the commissioners the park is meant strictly for conservation, and they don’t want any events to take place there. Others have said the adding of more parking spaces could lead to more development of the park in the future, with a “200-space” parking lot being referenced on several occasions.

Black has reiterated at almost every meeting since that there is nothing for the township commissioners to consider regarding Preston Park.

“There is nothing to even be considered,“ Black said. ”We don’t have plans, we don’t have drawings, we don’t have anything.“

Despite speakers at township meetings saying that Frank and Jane Preston would not want Preston Park to be developed, Jane’s memorandum, which gifted Butler Township the park, actually references certain developments.

In the memorandum, which is available for viewing on Butler Township’s website, Jane Preston designated two areas of the park — “Conservation Area A” and “Conservation Area B” — as places that should be left untouched by development. Outside of those areas, Preston wrote that funds “may be distributed for the development of the recreational area such as, but not limited to, fences, ball fields, tennis courts, walking trails, running trails, exercise areas, parking lots, picnic shelters, signs, lighting, prairies, the removal of any dangerous condition on the premise and any building used for support and maintenance of the conservation and recreational areas.”

The memorandum included a $2 million trust fund for the township to use to maintain the park, but the only money that can be spent from that account is from the interest it earns. Audray Muscatello Yost, president of the Friends of Preston Park Foundation, said the interest money “barely covers the required mowing and prairie building.”

In 2019, the Friends of Preston Park Foundation was established to help raise money for park needs, according to Yost. She said the friends group hosts fundraisers and solicits donations that the township can use for regular maintenance of the park.

Yost said the foundation’s mission is to preserve the park’s history, protect its present and enhance its future so every resident can experience it.

“Our foundation is not advocating for or against development in Preston Park, especially pertaining to theoretical projects that may or my not be proposed in the years ahead,” she said.

In addition to physical and financial work to preserve the park, the foundation leads tours of Preston Park and organizes fundraisers that take place within it to get more people to the park. Some of these events include the Preston Park 5K and Dining Under the Stars. The 2022 5K had 103 participants who each paid a $25 registration fee.

Other events have taken place at Preston Park, including Shakespeare in the Park and a Halloween community event hosted by the Butler County Chamber of Commerce. If an organization charges money to attend an event at Preston Park, that organization keeps the money. The township does not charge groups to use Preston Park.

Rice said at the gathering Tuesday that the group merely wants to raise awareness about the township’s procedures relating to any potential development.

“We just want them to be up front and make the community aware,” Rice said of the township administration.

Black said there is “simply no way for the township to be more transparent than it is already being,” regarding the park, and if there were ever business to consider, it would be posted on a public meeting agenda.

“If, at some point, the township decides to move forward with developing a plan for that area, plans would be drawn up, a land development application would be submitted and the item would be placed on the agenda,” Black said Friday. “There is no plan; there has been no application; nothing is pending before the board concerning that parcel; this issue is not part of a long-term goal that has been discussed or advanced.”

Rice said he thinks the turnout of residents at township meetings and their continued resistance to development at Preston Park has made a difference.

“Preston Park is a gift to the community, to everyone,” Rice said. “We just want it to be a gift for everyone; and if they do go ahead with a parking lot at least we tried, we all had our voices heard.”