The Highland County Board of Commissioners signed multiple contracts during their weekly Wednesday meeting that finalized a Rainsboro Elementary School sewer system project.
Commissioner president Jeff Duncan said the project is estimated to be in operation by the fall of 2023.
Duncan said the proposed sewer line will come up U.S. Route 50, head down S.R. 753, and hook onto an existing line that comes out of North Shore Drive.
Commissioner Terry Britton said the sewer system project was talked about at previous meetings. He said the school district will pay a portion of the construction cost and the county will also pay a part.
Britton said the school district has had problems with its septic system and that this is the third time the issue will be addressed, with the septic system being replaced twice. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency sent the commissioners a letter saying they had to do something different, which led the school district to come to the county and get the project started.
Duncan said the commissioners signed a contract with Environmental Engineering Services to do the engineering and site work prep for the project.
In other news, Britton said that multiple projects are getting started. He mentioned a Buford project, the Rainsboro school project, which is being somewhat paid through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, and the Concord school demolition going through a CDBG Grant. He said that there will be many more more projects coming.
Duncan said he visited with Nicole Oberrecht on Tuesday and talked about ARPA funding. He said some of the criteria changed in the project. He said there could be a wider window of projects that could be addressed with the money now.
He said that’s because the criteria now states that if there is a lack of revenue, the project can be outside of the specified, water, sewer or broadband project. However, he said there doesn’t have to be proof of that lack of revenue, but that the place just needs to state that there was a lack of revenue and use that the ARPA funds on whatever that organization deems caused the lack of revenue.
Duncan said the county will get a few more requests with the changed criteria, so Oberrecht will be working on those. He also said she was putting together criteria that the board of commissioners would like applicants to fill out, which they will then evaluate and then see how that funding can be dispersed.
In other news, there were two resolutions approved by the board:
* Res. No. 22-36 is authorization for a transfer from Public Assistance to Public Children Services in the amount of $44,553.
* Res. No. 22-37 awards from the commissioners to the city of Hillsboro a tornado siren construction contract in accordance with the engineer’s letter of bid recommendation.
There were also three contracts approved:
* Contract 17 is between the commissioners and Greenfield Exempted Village School District for a developmental agreement for Rainsboro Elementary School and the Rocky Fork Lake Treatment and Collecting System.
* Contract 18 is between the commissioners and the Federal Signal Corporation for the city of Hillsboro tornado siren.
* Contract 19 is between the commissioners and Environmental Engineering Services for professional services for the Rainsboro Elementary School sewer project.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
