City pool, Marriott Hotel bonds among topics at Hillsboro City Council meeting

Action was taken on two potential local developments at Hillsboro City Council’s March 12 meeting, as the mayor and property owner withdrew an offer to sell the former city pool, while council denied extending a promissory note for the sale of bonds for a long-discussed hotel development. 

As previously reported, members of the Hillsboro finance committee voted to tentatively recommend the purchase of property on West Main Street, which formerly housed the city pool and is currently owned by the city’s mayor, during a 2 p.m. meeting March 2. 

The site of the longtime city pool, previously owned by the Hillsboro Swim Organization, was sold June 10, 2024 at auction to Justin and Sarah Harsha for $105,000. Justin Harsha is the mayor of the city of Hillsboro. The property is a 3.572-acre lot appraised at $162,900, according to the county auditor.

The community enhancement committee previously held several meetings and were in favor of the city acquiring the pool, as they referred the matter to the finance committee for review. Pending an appraisal, the finance committee recommended the city consider purchasing the property at a price not to exceed $114,000.

After finance committee chair Gary Lewis read his minutes from that meeting to full council, Harsha asked to comment Thursday.

“I’d like to thank council members for having the meetings, but at this time, I'm going to be removing my offer to sell the swimming pool to the city,” Harsha said. “I think with all the contingency around, it’s going to be better if I just sell the property outright, just take away the city and the relationship between me being the mayor. I just want to let everybody know that I'll be putting the pool up for market tomorrow.”

Also during the meeting, safety and service director Shawn Adkins asked council for “guidance” on how to proceed with plans for a proposed Marriott Hotel project, which has been in planning stages for over six and a half years. 

As previously reported, both Hillsboro City Council and Hillsboro City Schools agreed in October 2019 to establish a tax increment financing [TIF] district for the proposed multimillion-dollar hotel project in the city of Hillsboro, near the state Route 73/Harry Sauner Road intersection. At the time of that approval, bond counsel Richard Spoor said that it would offset the cost of infrastructure, then estimated at $3 million.

An ordinance approved by the city in 2019 declared a five-acre tract at 1308 North West Street (state Route 73) “to be exempt from real property taxation” and “requiring annual statutory service payments in lieu of taxes.” The ordinance also creates the TIF fund for “the deposit of the balance of such statutory service payments.”

Council voted in May 2025 to suspend the three-reading rule and to approve and adopt an ordinance providing for the issuance and sale of not to exceed $3 million of special obligation development revenue bonds, series 2025 (Leo Capital/Hillsboro project), of the City of Hillsboro under Chapter 5709 of the Ohio Revised Code for the purpose of paying the cost of certain public improvements; authorizing a pledge of and lien on certain service payments to secure such bonds; authorizing the execution and delivery of a trust agreement to secure such bonds; and authorizing and approving related matters.

Then, in August 2025, council authorized the execution of bonds through the Southwest Ohio Regional Development Port Authority.

Adkins told council Thursday that the bonds are “still out for sale,” but the city’s promissory note “is up” as of March 31.

“I request guidance from council on what direction they want us to head in, if they want us to cancel the promissory note and request our money back, or do they want to extend the promissory note for the hotel?” Adkins asked.

Lewis immediately made a motion to “cancel the promissory note,” which passed by a 6-0 vote.

None of the hotel developers were present for the meeting Thursday, so it is unclear what will happen now that bonds have failed to sell. In May, one of the developers had told council that the next step toward construction was “getting the TIF bond to be able to be issued in order for us to get the funding in place,” and that “based off of the TIF bonds being issued, we're contingent upon that with our construction lenders.”

In other action:

• Council approved four out of the five pieces of legislation presented Thursday, with some protest by Lewis, as three items were finance-related.

First, an ordinance making supplemental appropriations in the amount of $70,750.26 in the Wages line item, in order to appropriate funds received from Hillsboro City Schools for the city’s School Resource Officer for the duration of January 2026-June 2026, passed by a 6-0 vote.

Before voting, Lewis asked if the city had already received the payment.

“So far, we've only received one payment for January, for $11,791 and some change,” city auditor Dawson Barreras said. “The contract states that it goes until June, which would make the price $70,000, so instead of coming to council every single month to appropriate that money, we would just go ahead and appropriate it all now.”
Lewis then asked if the finance committee could be notified of such legislation in the future.

“May I ask from this point forward — and we've had this discussion — that legislation of this nature first go through the finance committee and allow us to weigh in on that prior to them being presented?” Lewis said. “Typically, the auditor does not possess the legislative authority to present legislation, and I know that it's been done quite a bit, a lot. There are circumstances where he can, and those are, pretty much all of them are emergencies, especially at the end of the year, when you have to maybe increase appropriations to make ends meet at that very last part of the last quarter and everything.

“When I saw this, I was just kind of taken aback. Here we are in March, and all of a sudden we're looking at an increase in wages for our police department of $70,000. It kind of took me by surprise, and perhaps within the finance committee that could have been explained a little bit easier, and we could have done that.”

As Lewis formerly served as city auditor, Adkins asked Lewis, “When you were the author, did you run this through the finance committee when you asked for appropriations?”

“Yes,” Lewis said.

“You actually had meetings with finance committee to do appropriations?” Adkins asked.

“As long as I could get them to meet with me, yes, indeed,” Lewis said.

An ordinance making supplemental appropriations in the amount of $23,200 in the Pro Services line item for water office software updates was also passed, 6-0.

“I will admit, during the budget process, this money was brought to me to appropriate originally, and I made the mistake of appropriating the money in the Pro Services line from last year's budget instead of what was requested from the water office this year,” Barreras said. “I was a little bit short, so that was my mistake.”

The other finance-related matter is the only legislation that did not pass. A resolution authorizing the city auditor to transfer money from the General Fund to the Miscellaneous Government- Pro Services Department, pursuant to ORC 5705.14(E), was introduced as an emergency, but no vote was taken after the three-reading rule was not suspended.

Barreras said that this legislation was in response to the city contracting with Hannah Bivens as law director, following the resignation of former director Randalyn Worley. 

“When we budgeted, we have a law director department,” Barreras said. We obviously don't have a law director that was elected, so we had to go under contract with our new law director, so in order to pay that contract, we need to move that money out of the law director wages into the miscellaneous government fund to pay the actual contract for our new law director that we have under contract. 

“The money's already budgeted. It's been budgeted. We're just moving it from one department to the other, within the general fund.”

A vote to suspend the three-reading rule in order to take action failed 5-1, with Lewis voting no, as a unanimous yes vote was required for suspension.

Also on Thursday, an ordinance to close a portion of an alley traveling north and south from Main Street to the alley parallel to Main Street and lying between 137 West Main Street and 141 West Main Street was approved and adopted as an emergency, following suspension of the three-reading rule.

“This is to create around 54 public parking stalls for the citizens in the uptown businesses,” Adkins said. “The reason for the emergency is so we can get it started and completed before the America-250 event and the Festival of the Bells, so they will have some more parking uptown.”

Adkins and Harsha had discussed the proposal at the February council meeting, as Harsha said that closing the alley at the former Parker Hotel site would “still maintain a thoroughfare, but get parking going both directions and get twice as much parking.”

In response to a question from Mathews, Adkins added that the city is “not vacating the alley, we are closing it and relocating it to the center of this parking lot, so [traffic] will still be able to go through.” 

The legislation also specifies that “the closure of this portion of the alley will not deny sole access or off-street parking to adjacent property, will not result in any property being landlocked, will not result in a use contrary to the policies of the City of Hillsboro, and the alley is not necessary for actual or potential rear access to residences or adjacent business[es].”

A resolution authorizing the safety and service director to enter into a contract between the city of Hillsboro Ohio and DLZ Ohio, Inc, for sanitary sewer rehab design was passed as an emergency.

In February, council passed a resolution authorizing the city to enter an agreement for design of the project, after the utilities committee met to review the city’s I&I (inflow and infiltration) study.

“This is to get the design and engineering completed for the I&I problems we are experiencing all over town, tackling the worst areas first,” Adkins said of Thursday’s resolution. “We put out RFQs [requests for quotations] for the general engineering for projects that we might do this year. The mayor, public works superintendent and myself graded, and the first-place firm was DLZ. They had the highest score. The reason for the emergency is to meet several potential grant deadlines. 

“On March, 4, 5 and 6 of this year, we had 3.64 inches of rain. In those three days, we had 17.76 million gallons of water go through our plant. Our plant superintendent was watching the weather. He was able to empty the plant out for the majority, so we still had an overflow of almost 500,000 gallons that went out into stream that wasn't treated. We already have an NOV [notice of violation] in place for overflows. On the reporting, the EPA wants to know what our remediation plans are for these issues.”

In other reports:

• Hillsboro Police Department lead dispatcher Pam Angelus was recognized with a proclamation by Harsha during the mayor’s report. 

Harsha invited Angelus to stand and be recognized as he read the proclamation to “hereby recognize and honor Pam Angelus for her 35 years of outstanding and dedicated service to the Hillsboro Police Department and the citizens of our community.

“Throughout her distinguished career, Pam Angelus has demonstrated unwavering dedication, professionalism and integrity, while handling countless emergencies and non-emergency calls with skill and compassion,” Harsha read from the proclamation. “Her knowledge, experience and steady presence have played a crucial role in supporting law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMS, personnel and the citizens of Hillsboro.

“Her commitment to excellence has made a lasting impact on the department and to the community, earning the respect and gratitude of colleagues and residents alike.”

• During his report, Adkins announced that the city will no longer be operating the yard waste site on Selph Road.

“The EPA reporting requirements are extensive,” Adkins said. “They started a new reporting process this year that we couldn't figure out how to do it, so we asked our engineer to do it. He tried it, and he still couldn't get it figured out.”

Adkins said the city’s recommendation is for “people just to put it into their trash pickup.”

Adkins also briefly discussed the various pending construction projects going on, including the $5 million grant-funded Crossroads Park renovation.

“Most of the water and sewer infrastructure has been installed,” Adkins said. “Rebar and steel has been ordered, and we’re waiting on the weather to break to start construction.”

In addition, Adkins said crews are waiting on weather to improve before working on the Rails to Trails project, while the construction of the aforementioned new parking lot on West Main Street “will begin shortly.” The Ohio Department of Transportation is still in the process of completing their repairs to the Clear Creek bridge on the north side of town on U.S. 62.

Adkins reported that 17 building permits, including 10 commercial and seven residential, were issued in February. For an update on the Hillsboro Planning Commission, Adkins said that one variance and one alley closure were approved at their most recent meeting.

At Adkins’ invitation, Bivens also discussed ideas for a new social media policy for the city during the safety and service director’s report.

“We've been having a lot of interaction with our Facebook page, and it is a limited forum for engagement with the community, but it's also a page that's there for informational purposes to reach a different citizen that wouldn't normally get reached to the normal means of communication,” Bivens said. “Most municipalities in the state of Ohio have some sort of policy about content-neutral type of restrictions, making sure that we don't have people on there harassing each other, making sure we don't have any overstepping of the First Amendment rights. 

“We're going to look at formulating some sort of social media policy for our Facebook page and then presenting that to the appropriate committee and council for review.”

Eichinger referred the matter to the community enhancement committee for further discussion.

• Chair Cody Mathews discussed the Feb. 25 meeting where the community enhancement committee had recommended the finance committee review the potential pool purchase. The group also continued discussions on a potential holiday lights display partnership with the Highland County Fairgrounds this winter. 

In other discussion:

• During citizens’ comments, Jerrod Clark approached the city about removing a tree that is on city property but impacts his yard. 

“I’ve been promised three different times at least, and not one limb has been touched except by me,” he said.

Eichinger referred the matter to administration for further review.

• An executive session was held to discuss pending litigation, at Adkins’ request.

• At the start of the meeting, council voted 6-0 to excuse the absence of council member Adam Wilkin.

Publisher's note: A free press is critical to having well-informed voters and citizens. While some news organizations opt for paid websites or costly paywalls, The Highland County Press has maintained a free newspaper and website for the last 28 years for our community. If you would like to contribute to this service, it would be greatly appreciated. Donations may be made to: The Highland County Press, P.O. Box 849, Hillsboro, Ohio 45133. Please include "for website" on the memo line.