Maple Heights residents want rulings enforced

I am responding to your April 18 editorial “Dueling Neighbors,” calling for mediation of the dispute between Chukky Okobi’s Mansion at Maple Heights and its neighbors. If only there was something to mediate!

Over the last five years, Mr. Okobi’s batting average is .214 (1½ hits in seven attempts). He has struck out the last four times up, including once before the city’s zoning board, once on appeal to Common Pleas Court, most recently (a month ago) in Commonwealth Court and once when a Common Pleas judge declared his operation to be a nuisance.

One might reasonably ask, “How or why is Mr. Okobi still operating?” The short answer is that, despite losing, he keeps scheduling events far into the future. Every time Mr. Okobi appeals, he begs the court to show mercy on the brides who are counting on the venue.

Judges, who are human beings with a heart, grant a stay while they consider (and reject) his baseless appeal. In its most recent decision a month ago, Commonwealth Court rejected his last-gasp arguments and sent a clear signal to brides that they should not be counting on the future availability of the Mansion at Maple Heights.

As your editorial correctly observed, the mansion is a “beautiful property for the neighborhood ... serving as a guesthouse for visitors to the city.” That is all it is: a beautiful B&B, not a wedding venue. I speak for the bulk of my neighbors in this peaceful oasis of more than 50 people in four dozen homes, not just two disgruntled plaintiffs. We and our families have endured unbearable traffic, earsplitting noise, verbal abuse and more for over four years. Let this nightmare cease! PATRICIA S. LEMER

Shadyside