Update on Moundbuilders Country Club Octagon Earthworks Lease Attempt
Video: Newark’s Octogon excavation via drone.
Archaeologist Brad Lepper of the Ohio History Connection describes the Newark Octagon Earthworks, a 2,000-year-old structure that houses a golf country club.
The long-awaited trial over the evaluation of the Moundbuilders Country Club’s lease for the Octagon Earthworks, which was scheduled to begin Monday in Licking County Common Pleas Court, has been canceled.
A court official told The Advocate late Friday afternoon that the country club and the Ohio History Connection had agreed to drop the lawsuit and would meet again for a status conference in about 30 days.
Neil Thompson, a spokesman for the Ohio History Connection, said Friday afternoon that he knew the trial would not proceed. Asked if that meant the organizations had reached an agreement, Thompson referred all questions about the legal proceedings to Judge David Branstool.
The legal battle between the two sides has spanned six years and began when the Ohio History Connection sued the Moundbuilders Country Club in November 2018, seeking to buy back the lease on the property.
The purpose of the lawsuit was to determine how much the Ohio History Connection, which owns the 134-acre golf course property that includes Newark Earthworks’ Octagon Mounds and leases it to the country club, must pay Moundbuilders to buy out the lease that runs through 2078.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in December 2022 that the Ohio History Connection could take over the country club through expropriation.
This is not the first time the trial has been postponed because of the appraisal. It was scheduled to begin on October 17, but was postponed after Moundbuilders’ lawyers appealed to the Ohio 5th District Court of Appeals, challenging Branstool’s pretrial decisions about who could testify. That court dismissed the appeal in January, and the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear it.
The state Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss the case cleared the way for a jury trial, which was scheduled for May 28 but was again postponed until Monday.
After initially confirming Friday afternoon that the trial would not begin on Monday, Moundbuilders attorney Joe Fraley did not immediately respond to The Advocate’s request for an interview.
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