Ferry water funds delayed till 2009
By LINDA L. HULL, Times Leader Staff WriterMARTINS FERRY Mayor Phil Wallace told council Thursday that the city will not be getting the money for a water treatment plant and well field project application that they were hoping to get in December of 2008, until July 1, 2009, indicating it was because of a future Belmont County commissioner.
"Our project was moved down into the contingency area," said Mayor Phil Wallace. "It will be approved, but funding will not be available until July 1,2009. This project ranked 11th in our district, prior to the county and executive committee meetings."
He added, "The Belmont County Committee decided to maximize the effort by giving the fourth-rated program its maximum points which amount to 75; the third-rated program , 65 points; the second-rated program, 55 points; and the top-rated program, 45 points. What this meant was that the original lowest achieving project would now become Belmont County's top-rated program."
Wallace went on, "They believed that all four projects would be funded. This didn't hold true because the district elected to issue executive points. They chose to give 55 points to each of the district count's top-rated project. This, in turn, took our project out of being funded. Matt Coffland (due to become commissioner, starting in January), then withdrew the township's road projects, Belmont County's top-rated project, from the mix to allow both St. Clairsville and our project to enter into contingency area. The Belmont County engineer's bridge and road project then became Belmont County's top project which allowed them to get the executive committee's 55 additional points. The bottom line is that the city of Martins Ferry became the low man on the totem pole."
In other business, Councilman Paul Riethmiller commended the Martins Ferry Volunteer Fire Department for outstanding work. He said, "In a time when most small towns and communities are losing their volunteers, we are happy that we have such great and dedicated firefighters."
Riethmiller referred to the fact that the city has had two major fires recently by saying, "They worked on those fires and did an excellent job, and they did all this as volunteers - they are not paid."
Also on the agenda was John Davies, street superintendent, who told council that the city is in dire need because of their ozination system that needs to be repaired. He said, "We have a big problem with ozinator No. 2 because of holes and leakage. We have to replace the vessel, at a cost of $50,000, now."
Davies noted that the man who made the project in the first place will be the one to repair it.
Councilman Bruce Shrodes asked Davies what would happen if the other ozinator broke down, and he was told, "That's what happened, that's why we worked on it like we did."
Councilman Bill Suto indicated that $50,000 is very cheap. Suto explained that the reason the vessels are damaged is because of clorinated water that was run through them.
Davies also asked council about getting a shed to store salat and using railroad property to place the building.
He said, "We don't need a gigantic building - just about 50 ft. long, 20 ft. wide and 15 ft. high.
Stanley Stein, economic development director, asked council to announce that anyone wishing to purchase railroad property could do so at $1 a square foot by calling him at the city building.
The next council meeting will be held Dec. 4, at 6 p.m. in the city building, upstairs in the council chambers.
Hull can be reached at lhull@timesleaderonline.com.
