STEUBENVILLE — The Jefferson County Commissioners appear ready to answer longstanding questions surrounding the future of the former Eastern Gateway Community College property, the 84-acre campus in Steubenville’s West End that stopped functioning as an educational institution in 2024.

Commissioners have scheduled a special meeting Monday for the stated purpose of “considering the conveyance of real property from EGCC” as well as a closed-door conference with their legal counsel concerning “pending litigation against EGCC.” The meeting, which will begin at 9 a.m. in the board’s chambers, will conclude with a public discussion of any actions taken or not taken.

The school graduated its final class in 2024.

Commissioners were reluctant Friday to discuss either topic prior to the special session, saying only that while it’s time to move the community forward and find new purpose for the property, no vote has been taken and no documents finalized.

But last month, also during a special meeting, commissioners had announced a tentative deal with officials who are working to wind down the operations at EGCC–who still hold title to the building — and Youngstown State University, which early on had expressed interest in establishing a satellite campus to fill the educational void left by the demise of the financially distressed community college. At that time the commissioners indicated that under the tentative agreement they would retain all of the mineral rights as well as control of the 84-acre parcel should it no longer be used for educational purposes at some point in the future, while YSU would control and maintain the main building.

If a deal is to be finalized Monday, it remains to be seen if any of those details have changed.

But it’s because a reverter clause was written into the original 1967 deed–which had “gifted” the property to what was then the Jefferson County Technical Institute — as well as a 1995 deed that conveyed the property from Jeff Tech to EGCC–that commissioners are able to lay claim to the campus now. That reverter provision stipulated that in the event the property was no longer used for educational purposes, ownership of the land it sits on would return to the county.

In November, Common Pleas Judge Michelle Miller had ruled the reverter clauses were, in fact, enforceable. Nearly nine months later, after a breach of contract suit filed by one of EGCC’s one-time business partners was dismissed by mutual agreement, the prosecutor’s office asked the judge for summary judgment — an order granting the county control over the land based on the validity of the evidence presented without taking it to trial.

Throughout the year-long process, the current board of commissioners has praised the forethought of their counterparts from 60 years ago to ensure control over the property would remain with the county in perpetuity. In August 2024, when they decided to exercise the reverter clause, then-Commissioner Dave Maple had said that when the original deed was written, “they probably did it because the school was new and had a lot of risk. I would bet they never thought it would be needed 58 years later.”

But no one had anticipated the demise of the once-thriving community college, blamed largely on a meteoric rise in its online enrollments–from roughly 3,000 students in 2015 to more than 46,000 in 2021 — due to the union-driven Free College Benefits program. That rapid growth drew intense scrutiny from accrediting agencies as well as the U.S. Department of Education, which claimed the college was using grant money meant to help students in need pursue two-year degrees and certificates to subsidize free college benefits for union workers. DOE slowed student aid reimbursements to a trickle, sending the school into a fiscal crisis.

Indictments were secured in Jefferson County in 2023 by the Ohio Attorney General’s office against two high-ranking staff members, former EGCC President Jimmie Bruce and his one-time chief of staff, Jim Miller, alleging misuse of college credit cards, but were later dismissed without prejudice, meaning prosecutors could refile at a later date. One day after Bruce’s indictment was dismissed, the Auditor of State’s Special Investigations Unit raided administrative offices at the Steubenville campus, seizing computers and files. The target of the investigation has never been disclosed, but a number of employees subsequently reported learning from their banks, not the state, that their personal banking records dating as far back as 2015 had been subpoenaed.

Commissioners, meanwhile, had the property surveyed recently with an eye toward retaining at least some of the acreage for projects that would generate revenue for its maintenance, including an area that sits at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and John Scott Highway, as well as the stretch of land that runs along John Scott from the campus to where the Applebee’s restaurant is located.