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STEUBENVILLE -- Wayne Township has withdrawn from the Jefferson County Port Authority's Appalachian Community Grant planning process, choosing instead to participate under the Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District's umbrella.
Township officials notified Jefferson County commissioners Thursday of their decision, saying they'd discussed it "in length" at a May 16 meeting.
"Chair Richard Davis and Fiscal Officer Candy Newburn attended a meeting held at the Tower on May 5," board members said. "The report that was brought back to the trustees was that the meeting produced no answers and little progress. They both went hoping for answers and felt they received none."
The township's projects "follow more closely along the lines with the ones that Jefferson Soil and Water is submitting," their letter pointed out.
Wayne Township is seeking ACG funding to develop a trail project, a helicopter pad and pollinator area, and wants to turn the old Unionport school into a trail head location.
Soil and water's Aaron Dodds told commissioners it was township officials who approached them about joining their planning process.
"It fits in nice with ours, with the hellbender and the trail going out that way," he noted. Dodds said nine Ohio counties have already joined JSWCD's planning process and five others are considering it.
"One of the major components of the grant is regionalization," he said afterward. "The (administration's) goal is to see projects that have at least four counties involved, so we've exceeded that."
If their application is successful, JSWCD would distribute the funds to its sub-applicants.
"A lot of the projects we're working with are almost shovel-ready," Dodds said. "They've been long in the works, but lack of funding has been the main hurdle, just like with Piney Fork trail: Before covid, estimate was we could get it up and running for about $100,000, and now we have estimates just on the bridges for $800,00 to $200,000 apiece. Other entities have run into this, too, and the (grant planners) are allowing us to potentially bring their projects to fruition and conquer some covid-related increases and dilemmas."
The port authority had not received a copy of the township's letter, so no one could comment Thursday.
Commissioners, though, said they don't see it as a problem.
"I did not hear great things about the meeting that Wayne Township was talking about, I heard it was a lot of repetitive and they weren't the only ones that didn't get a great takeaway from it stuff," Commissioner Dave Maple said after the meeting. "So it doesn't surprise me. And you know, soil and water has good things going on, it kind of lines up nicely with (their projects). But like we've said before, wherever it is or however they do
it, we're supporting all of the projects. We want them all to be successful, so if they think they're going to be more successful (with JSWCD), that's all right."
Commissioner Eric Timmons agreed, pointing out both groups will be asked to attend a future meeting in to deliver an update.
"However it gets done, I don't care," Timmons said. "I just want to see the money come to Jefferson County. However it gets done, I'm fine with it."
Commissioner Tony Morelli said even without the Wayne Township and JSWCD projects, the port has plenty of work to do -- by some counts as many as 22 projects remain on the JCPA sightlines.
"Jefferson Soil and Water sent us a letter a few weeks ago, and they're going to apply themselves," he said. "There could possibly be other ones that would want to -- the Grand Theater is a good example -- they may find that it's more beneficial to them to team up with some other theaters not in this area and go that way.
"I think I heard commissioner Timmons say it and I think it's unanimous: We just want the money to come here, so we're going to support Soil and Water with their projects and we're going to support the Port Authority and their projects -- and if any new ones come along, we'll support them, too."
In other business, Assistant Prosecutor Shawn Blake told commissioners revenue from oil and gas leases can be used for county purposes, opining that the board of commissioners "has broad discretion to determine whether a particular expenditure serves a county purpose."
"(Commissioners) may expend revenues ... for a township or municipal corporation public improvement within the county so long as the board of county commissioners concludes, in the reasonable exercise of its discretion, that the expenditure constitutes a county purpose," Blake concluded.
The county has accumulated about $364,000 in oil and gas revenues, and several weeks ago commissioners discussed using some of it to assist the townships and municipalities most inconvenienced by oil and gas activity with recreation projects, but decided to ask Blake if it would be legal before moving forward.
"We have some discretion to determine if it's a county purpose," Maple said. "But we still need some clarification if it's a county purpose ...we have other legal opinions that we can't give funds to townships to run their business. It's not well defined."
Before they do anything, all three commissioners agreed they need to ask Blake what constitutes a "county purpose."
Morelli said the language "is kind of vague."
"If we have a county of 65,000 people and we make one of them happy, is that a county purpose?" he asked.
Maple said he'd like to use the oil and gas money "to help folks with recreation a lot more."
"Oil and gas, in some sense, has been disruptive, and if there's some way to give back to communities that have had that disruption, it would be nice to be able to do it."
Commissioners also agreed to pay back taxes for a 0.3116-acre parcel next to the Reed's Mill pumpstation that they acquired in 1989. Through an oversight, paperwork for a tax exemption was never filed. Before the papers can be submitted now the bill needs to be paid.
Commissioners only learned the taxes were delinquent after leasing the parcel to Ascent Resources in February, Morelli said.
Ascent contacted us saying (they) can't honor this lease until the taxes are paid, which is the same thing that would happen if it were your personal property," he said.