Second ‘seat wall’ proposed at courthouse

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A proposed matching seat wall on the opposite side of a fountain in front of the Highland County Courthouse was one of the matters discussed at the Wednesday meeting of the Highland County Board of Commissioners.

Rob Holt, a representative from Bagshaw Enterprises, was at the meeting to detail the project.

Holt said the idea when the first “seat wall” was constructed was that they wanted to try and make it symmetrical on the north side of the wall. He said plans were drawn up that show how it would work. He said the coordinator of the fountain job is back as the general contractor, who is currently going out to get bids and make sure everything is still feasible within the budget to make it happen.

Holt said some of the things that need to be considered for the project are that some parts of the monuments currently on the front side of the courthouse grounds might need to be moved for symmetry purposes. He said one of those monuments is the Monument of the Unknown Soldier because it sits where the wall would be placed. He said the thought is that it might be moved back into the center of the radius. He also said there’s a bench next to the Marching Mothers monument, and they want to try and find a way to “incorporate” it into the design by possibly moving it a little bit to the left.

Holt said the Bagshaw family would pay for the construction of the wall as well as the new concrete, but the movement of monuments and an elevation marker would need to be funded by the city or the county.

Holt also said Bagshaw Enterprises is looking into vandalism issues on the fountain side concerning skateboarders and bikers tearing up the corner of that “seat wall” and what options there might be to “mitigate” that risk.

In other news, Noelle O’Neal, the land manager at the Cardinal Land Conservancy, said she attended the meeting to look for a resolution of support so the organization could go through the application process to have the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) fund its purchase of an easement. O’Neal said the easement they were applying for already received a resolution of support from the commissioners in 2019, but it was not selected for funding from ODA that year. She said the farm she was looking to get an easement for was in the Greenfield community with 211 acres.

O’Neal said there’s a scoring system for each place and that’s how they’re selected on whether the easement is funded or not. She said the Cardinal Land Conservancy was allocated a lot more funding than usual in 2022 and they’re “confident” it will get selected.

Th commissioners agreed to support the resolution.

Commissioner Jeff Duncan said the county has equipment that it uses for snow removal and other projects, but doesn’t have a good facility to store or work on them. He said the county is looking into the possibility of building a maintenance garage that would be located near the Highland County Sheriff’s Office. He said the commissioners asked DS2 Architects to do preliminary drawings to give them an idea of what it might entail and cost.

Duncan also said the county is getting ready to schedule construction of the new dog pound. He said he talked to the architect who said they were still putting numbers together. He also said there were still numbers being put together for the septic system from Environmental Engineering. Duncan said he hoped that everything would be finalized so they could let it out for bids by next week’s meeting.

In other news, there were eight resolutions approved by the board of commissioners:

* Res. No. 22-38 is an agreement to rescind Resolution No. 22-22 regarding an annexation hearing for the city of Hillsboro.

* Res. No. 22-39 is an agreement to adopt the procurement of goods and services using federal grant funds policy.

* Res. No. 22-40 is an approval for a self-certifying $50,000 micro-purchase threshold for use of federal funds.

* Res. No. 22-41 is an adoption to use the standard allowance and its presumption of revenue loss due to public health emergency and to use the amount authorized therein to fund government services.

* Res. No. 22-42 is an authorization for participation in the Ohio Local Agricultural Easement Purchase Program.

* Res. No. 22-43 is an agreement to rescind Resolution No. 22-34 regarding an annexation hearing for the village of Mowrystown.

* Res. No. 22-44 is authorization for a request for an additional appropriation from unappropriated funds within the sheriff’s budget for $167.

* Res. No. 22-45 is authorization for a budget modification within common pleas court for $4,000.

Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.

Pictured is Rob Holt, a representative from Bagshaw Enterprises, who attended Wednesday’s commissioners meeting to detail a proposed new “seat wall” on the county courthouse grounds.
https://www.timesgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2022/03/web1_DSC_0615.jpgPictured is Rob Holt, a representative from Bagshaw Enterprises, who attended Wednesday’s commissioners meeting to detail a proposed new “seat wall” on the county courthouse grounds. Jacob Clary | The Times-Gazette
Current monuments would likely need to be moved

By Jacob Clary

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