Improvements to fairground horse barn, Clay Township Park, recycling program discussed at commission meeting

Highland County commissioners Brad Roades, Terry Britton and David Daniels received a request for improvements to a barn at the Highland County Fairgrounds and provided brief updates on several ongoing county projects during their Wednesday, March 26 meeting.

Silver Spurs 4-H Club adviser and Highland County Junior Fair Horse Barn Superintendent Donna Griffith met with commissioners to ask the county to consider contributing funding toward upgrades to the horse barn at the fairgrounds.

“

You probably know it was built in 1960, and very little upgrades have been made to the barn since then,” Griffith said. “We’ve had new electric put in, some metal on the front of the barn, but other than that, it's the original barn. The stalls are in terrible shape.

“I’m not here to ask for money for a new horse barn. I love that barn. I love the history of that barn. What I'm asking for is help to make some upgrades and improvements, make it safe for the horses, make it a nice-looking barn for people to walk through during the fair, and something the kids can be proud of, to show their horses off in.”

Griffith said a donor has discussed “potentially donating up to $20,000 to help us get started on this project,” and she is meeting with area businesses, as well as the Senior Fair Board, seeking additional donations.

“Every year, we go in and fix boards. We've never asked for money for that,” Griffith said. “We've always paid for that out of our pocket or out of the 4-H club’s pockets. We’ve always done all the work ourselves, never asked the Fair Board for anything.

“I just wanted to see if there was anything you guys could do to help us out. I'd appreciate anything you could do for us.”

Britton asked what type of improvements Griffith wanted to make, and she said that upgrades would take place in phases due to the “limited amount of time before the fair,” beginning with new “all-steel stall fronts” this year.

“They're going to last,” Griffith said. “They're not going to get kicked apart or fall apart. They have sliding doors instead of the doors we have now that open out into the aisle way, because that's kind of the safety factor when you have all those horses and people during the fair. The sliding doors would be a lot safer.

“We're thinking down the road, also, we'd like to replace the side walls and maybe continue putting metal on the outside of the barn, to make the outside look nicer, too.”

Britton asked what the “upfront cost” would be for the first phase of the project."

“They’re $1,100, but the guy was going to give us a discount because there’s 59 stalls in that barn, so that's a pretty big amount,” Griffith said. “He said he would give us at least a 15-percent discount, but possibly more, so we were going to talk to him again when we find out how much money we’re going to get and see if we can get a little bit more of a discount.”

Griffith added that the contractor has advised “he could start on them in a couple of weeks, and it would take him about four weeks to build them all, so we could get it done before the fair.

“Our club members or parents would do the installation, so we wouldn't have to pay for that,” she said.

Daniels asked Griffith if she had obtained pricing for “the entire unit” as opposed to just the fronts.

“We haven't even looked into the side walls yet because we had a couple different options, if we were going to go with a solid panel, or do the two-by-six boards or whatever,” Griffith said. “If we could get all the money up front, that would be great, but I don't really have a good idea on cost on the side walls. I know it probably wouldn't be as much.”

Griffith offered to get more concrete pricing at Daniels’ suggestion, and Roades said they would “take a look and see if” the county could assist.

In other discussion:

• Britton gave a report on improvements to the Clay Township Park in Buford.

As previously reported, the county received $250,000 for the demolition of the former Buford school, which has been completed, and subsequent renovations. The state has granted an extension to June 30 to complete the work.

“The park is just about finished, as far as what we're need to do down there,” Britton said. “The weather caught us, and we have a little bit of painting to do on the playground equipment, and then there was some blacktop sealing that had to be finished. Other than that, as soon as it gets warm enough where they can get that stuff applied, then that project will be done.

“I haven't talked to the contractor for a couple weeks, so some of this might already be started, but the last time that we went down to do the punch list and go through everything, those two things had to be finished.”

Highland County ARPA funding coordinator Nicole Oberrecht added that the community is excited and looking forward to being able to utilize the park this year.

“I know the Lynchburg softball group has been in contact with the trustees down there to try to get to use the field this spring,” she said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

• On an unrelated note, Oberrecht told commissioners she would be “drafting up RFQs for engineering firms to submit their proposals for us to take a look at” for a long-discussed new MARCS (Multi-Agency Radio Communication System) tower for the county.

Commissioners have been seeking a suitable location for the tower since receiving state funding in June 2022. In February, commissioners selected a 5.11-acre parcel on Butters Road in Brushcreek Township, which came into commissioners’ possession in September after being forfeited in a high-profile drug trafficking case, as the location.

• Commissioners talked about local recycling, after bins were recently removed from a location on West Main Street in Hillsboro. Currently, the only recycling bins within the city are at the Hi-TEC building’s parking lot, and that is causing “an overflow problem,” Roades said.

As has been previously discussed, Daniels referred to the recycling site in Fayette County, which he said he would like to replicate in Highland County.

“Fayette County, through their recycling program, put up a mega site, and they found a site that was big enough that they chain linked it in, put a gate on it so that, if you want to be a recycler and want to do the recycling, you apply to them,” Daniels said. “They give you a key pass so that you can get in the gate, then go in and put your recyclables in there. They’ve cut down on the trash. They’ve cut down on illegal dumping. They’ve cleaned the site up.

“They're actually pulling people in from out of the county, out of Fayette County from Madison, from Greene and a couple other contiguous counties that are going out there and using that site.”

Daniels said they are seeking “a site that would satisfy this exact same thing” in Highland County to combat the ongoing issues with dumping and abuse of the bins. Britton said they don’t need a particularly large space, as Fayette County’s site is “maybe 150-foot square,” and that they could potentially apply for funding with the Ohio EPA as Fayette County did to get a site established.

“I think they've got four Dumpsters up there, and the site is not much bigger than what would allow a packer truck to come in and dump those Dumpsters,” Daniels said. “You're looking at a pad that’s probably not even as big as the county parking lot.

“We can't continue to have the garbage pile up. You can understand why the people that have allowed us to use these sites are frustrated, when they come in and there's trash and garbage flowing all over the place.”

• Due to upcoming renovations to the Administration Building, commissioners announced a meeting location change for the coming months.

Weekly commission meetings will be held Wednesdays at 9 a.m. at Southern State Community College in Room 306 starting April 9 and continuing until approximately Aug. 1, 2025.

Commissioners also notified the community that construction on the Administration Building will continue throughout 2025, with offices being displaced or relocated during that time frame. Commissioners and other offices on the top floor — the Tax Map office and Human Resources office — will be the first areas affected as they will be moving into the basement.

On another construction-related note, Roades announced that “nine architect/engineering firms” submitted proposals for renovations to the Highland County Courthouse.

• Via resolution, commissioners voted 3-0 to approve a request from the Board of DD for an additional appropriation from unappropriated funds within the 2500 DD Development Fund in the amount of $335,166.47.

“In the past three months, we've received $106,714.32 for the sale of our Glenavy property,”Highland County Board of DD business director Lori Moore said. “We sold the art studio, which is out on 50, for $69,180.63 cents, and then we received money back from the state for 301 East South Street, the new build, for $151,000.

“We just ask that we bump our appropriation up to the $33,166 because we need to make a payment to Highland Housing for $31,000, and our original appropriation, we had $8,271.”

• Roades announced that the state has announced an increase to their reimbursement for indigent defense.

“We were getting paid 78 percent,” Roades said. “The state is raising it to 93 [percent], which for the fiscal year will make it an average of 83 percent of what will be paid.”

According to the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, “The Office of the Ohio Public Defender issued its quarterly update memo on indigent reimbursement rate [this month]. In it, OPD informed CCAO and other stakeholders that the reimbursement rate for the final four months of FY 2025 reimbursement payments (January through April), the reimbursement rate will be 93 percent, up from the 78 percent that OPD had been reimbursing thus far in the fiscal year.
 
“OPD set the reimbursement rate at 78 percent based on the projection that monthly reimbursement requests would exceed $19 million. However, monthly reimbursements have only exceeded $19 million two times over the eight months and is averaging $18.4 million. That has allowed the agency to increase the reimbursement rate for the remainder of the year, and result in an average annual reimbursement rate of about 83 percent.”

“Don't count on that being like that for the year,” Britton said. “It never is.”

• Highland County Auditor Alex Butler reminded the community of his upcoming information sessions to further discuss the 2024 state-mandated property tax reappraisal with the community.

Sessions will be held in the following Highland County municipalities: Greenfield: April 8 at 7 p.m. at the Highland County Community Action Office, 1300 Jefferson St., Greenfield 45123; Hillsboro: April 16 at 7 p.m. at the Hi-TEC building, 1575 N. High Street, Hillsboro, 45133; Lynchburg: April 17 at 7 p.m. at the Lynchburg Area Joint Fire & Ambulance Station, 8123 state Route 135, Lynchburg 45142; Leesburg: April 23 at 7 p.m. at the Highland County North Joint Fire and Ambulance Station, 200 South St., Leesburg 45135; and Mowrystown: April 24 at 7 p.m. at the Mowrystown Village Council Chambers at the Southern Highland Joint Fire District Building, 50 Maple Street, Mowrystown 45155.

• Greenfield Finance Director Gary Lewis notified commissioners that they will be receiving a small reimbursement from the village’s railroad upgrades in the coming weeks.

“We had a meeting Monday with Matt Dietrich and the Ohio Rail Development Commission,” Lewis said. “The whole project came under budget, so they'll be returning about $14,000. I think that'll be split between the village and Highland County. You'll be getting not a whole lot, but it's about $7,000 that you'll be getting returned back to you.”

Commissioners contributed $125,000 of the $1.7 million in grant match dollars for the overall $3.4 million upgrade. The grant was awarded to “repair and rehabilitate 29.5 miles of track from the Indiana & Ohio Railway connection in Midland to Greenfield in order to ensure the line’s continued existence,” an announcement in March 2020 said.

Daniels asked if there was “a signal upgrade or any electrical work that can be added on” to the project instead of the reimbursement.

“That was all done,” Lewis said. “I think the only thing that remains, and I don't know a whole lot about this, is some bridge work in a couple areas.”

However, Lewis said he would “relay to Mr. Dietrich” that the county was willing to utilize the $7,000 toward their project if possible.

• Roades encouraged the community to check out the county’s listings on GovDeals as they clean out the Administration Building.

• Commissioners held a work session with Highland County Sheriff Randy Sanders and Chief Deputy Jennifer Schinkal to discuss their reporting system.

Before that work session began, Sanders and Schinkal said they would be providing a community safety update with the Rocky Fork Lake Business Advisory Committee April 5 at 1 p.m. at the East Shore Marina Restaurant.

• Later in the morning, commissioners met with representatives of Brown/Raybourn to discuss health insurance prior to open enrollment for county employees later this year.    

Commissioners also made the following approvals, each by a 3-0 vote:

• A change order with Doll Layman, LTD in the amount of $15,060.15, with an additional 240 dates on the contract, for improvements to the Rocky Fork Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant.

“There’s some additional work that needs to be done out there that we've noticed since the construction of the new clarifiers began,” Daniels said. “There's an overflow pipe that needs to go in. There's an air leak out there in one of the areas that needs to be repaired.

“While they're on site, this would be additional to the work that we originally scheduled, but nevertheless needed. We're going to have them authorize that. They've been a good contractor to work with, and that’s a good bid.”

• The execution of an easement and right of way agreement with AEP on Bowers Avenue at the site of the new engineer’s truck barn.

• A change order in the amount of $821.16 for elevator flooring for the new records storage building.

• The execution of a pay application from Mechanical Construction Co. Inc. for phase-two Rocky Fork Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant improvements.

• A budget modification within the 1000 County General fund in the amount of $58,000.

• A request from the Auditor for a budget modification within the 1000 County General fund in the amount of $1,022.16.

• An additional appropriation from unappropriated funds within the 4010 GIS Project fund in the amount of $12,804.68.

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