A Lafferty family recently filed a police report accusing the Highland County Community Action Organization (HCCAO) of forgery, according to Nicklas Lafferty at a Wednesday meeting of the Highland County Board of Commissioners.

Lafferty said he was in attendance because he emailed the board of commissioners of the forgery and hadn’t yet received a response.

Highland County Board of Commissioners Chairman Dave Daniels said that the matter of the forgery was for the local sheriff to investigate.

“We have no jurisdiction over that,” Daniels said. “Understand that. That is completely within their authority. So, if you’ve got an issue about that, you need to talk to the sheriff.”

Lafferty said that the family had already filed a police report and they hadn’t heard anything regarding the claim, saying that “they won’t handle it.”

The Lafferty family previously visited commissioners multiple times regarding an issue they had with HCCAO and its Community Housing Impact and Preservation (CHIP) Program.

In an article from The Times-Gazette posted on the newspaper’s website on April 19, 2023, Mark Current, HCCAO housing director, said the Lafferty family filed a complaint about the program three years after the program’s completion on the family’s property.

“After the complaint, [Current] said, multiple people from HCCAO visited the property as well as someone from the state CHIP program and that there was not any ‘real validity’ to the claims,” the article said. “He also said the Laffertys were accusing the program of multiple things like putting snakes in their home and causing Radon, a naturally occurring radioactive gas, inside it.”

During the April 2023 meeting, Current and the commissioners agreed to move to an arbitration process between the family and HCCAO. Current also leveled claims that he was being stalked by the family and commissioner Dave Daniels told him to report it to law enforcement. Current said he would, but it is unknown if he did or did not.

In other news, Highland County Economic Development Director Julie Bolender reported that she was looking into ways of improving the industrial parks in Highland County, specifically mentioning the Leesburg Industrial Park.

Kirk Seeling, a representative at Utility Pipeline, said that the park’s current gas capacity is 20,000 million cubic feet (MCF), or about 28 MCF per hour. He said to get more than that, the company would need to go back around 20 miles to Sabina to get on another line.

“It will be pretty costly too to do an upgrade from Sabina all the way to Leesburg, just to be upfront,” Seeling said. “It’s gonna be multimillion.”

Bolender said this is something that they’re looking at and thinking they should be proactive about and “increase now.”

Daniels said he’d like to get a number pinned down because throughout state government, there’s money for projects “the likes that we’ve never seen before.”

Seeling said he could try and put some numbers together.

Hunter Ellis, elections administrator at the Highland County Board of Elections, was in attendance to request its normal allocated line items as well as $47,000 extra for the purpose of replacing its poll books.

Ellis said the poll books are all iPads, which have a six to seven-year lifespan. He said the ones they have now were manufactured in 2018. He said that means they’re nearing the end of their life cycle and will be out of support in accordance with the Ohio Secretary of State’s security directive.

He said that he believed House Bill 36 gave an additional allocation for county board of election organizations to replace poll books and reimburse 85 percent of the cost.

For the new poll books, Ellis said the board of elections would probably use them for the first time in the November general election. However, he also said they try to not make any “big changes” during a presidential election year because of the increased turnout.

“But as long as we have them in place, they’re all updated and synced and ready to go, we should be able to use them by the November election,” he said.

The board of commissioners approved the painting of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles for $1,346 by Ultra Pro Professionals Painting.

The board of commissioners also made two authorizations to execute, the first being a contractor’s application for payment to Doll Layman, Ltd. for the Rocky Fork Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the second being the 2023 County Highway System Mileage Certification to the Ohio Department of Transportation.

There were four resolutions approved by the board including:

* Res. No. 24-32 is the informing of the commissioners by Highland County Engineer Christopher Fauber of a new load rating requirement. This is an authorization for the reduction of load limits of structures listed with a percentage of reduced loading for each structure. The commissioners granted the county engineer to post the said bridges accordingly.

* Res. No. 24-33 is an authorization for the county engineer to purchase one 2024 Ford Truck F-350 Super Duty 4WD Crew Cab XL SRW from Mt. Orab Ford, with the price to not exceed $60,165.

Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.