Photo by Linda Harris Wendee Dodds, administrator of the Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District, delivers her report during Tuesday’s State of the County Forum at Indian Creek High School.

WINTERSVILLE — Local government leaders took to the stage at Indian Creek High School Tuesday to talk about all that’s being done to make life better for Jefferson County residents.

About 70 residents were on hand for the second State of the County forum, which touched on everything from construction of a spec building at the county’s industrial park, a program to celebrate veterans for their sacrifices and a water meter update to development of a resource network to match people to the services that can help them, heightened recreational opportunities and new technology being implemented in county offices.

Organized by Commissioners Tony Morelli, Eric Timmons and Jake Kleineke, the event featured presentations by Sheriff Fred Abdalla Jr., Resource Network Community Service Director Beth Rupert Warren, Auditor E.J. Conn, Recorder Scott Renforth, airpark board member Dustin VanFossen, Engineer Eric Hilty, Clerk of Courts Andrew Plesich, Soil and Water Conservation District Administrator Wendee Dodds, SVRTA board President Cookie West, Indian Creek School Superintendent T.C. Chappelear, Wintersville Mayor Mike Petrella and Joe Luckino, local economic development and business specialist.

“It truly is teamwork, collaboration and positive attitude, things like that are what’s going to push this county forward,” Luckino told the group. “And the commissioners, making this happen today and bringing us all together, that’s half the battle, right? We have to work together.”

Luckino, the owner of Cedar One Realty, said the county is enjoying “an entrepreneurial spirit right now” that’s filling storefronts and sparking economic growth.

“We’re going through change, and it’s really good change,” he said. “Drive up and down Main Street in Wintersville, every storefront is (full.) You go into Sunset Boulevard, storefronts are filled — there are very few vacancies. There’s a resurgence in downtown Steubenville, there’s entrepreneurship — business owners, graduates from the university, people who want to invest money into downtown. That’s amazing. Our phone rings all the time with people that want to come into this area. And I’m scratching my head, thinking, ‘Where have you been the last 20 years?’ But they’re here now, right? They want to invest.”

He said top-tier franchises like Starbucks and Chipotle are coming to Steubenville, Chick-fil-A is looking for a site and they’ve found a buyer who “wants to invest $12 million in the old Huntington Bank building downtown.”

“They want to be here, they want to come to Jefferson County,” he said. “They just need the right space, the right piece of land. These people do their homework. They see optimism, they see growth, they see good people, they see (the) workforce, and I think we need to see that, too.”

Kleineke briefed the audience on the efforts of the commissioners to develop a spec building at the county’s industrial park and a Gold Star bridge program to honor those who gave their lives in service to their country, as well as a updates at the Tower building downtown and a meter replacement project that includes a “satellite image flyover” that will identify water leaks and breaks currently going undetected.

Abdalla related what his department has done to “work harder and work smarter, with the most efficiency,” including restoring the school resource officer program to solvency, which he said had been $200,000 in the red. The jail also passed inspection in 2024 “for the first time in 20 years,” he added.

“We are currently working on programs that will help to heal our community by providing different help to the inmates that come into our jail,” Abdalla said. “We want our jail facility to be rock bottom when they get booked in, and we want them to have some hope when they get booked out. Through different grant funding, we were able to start a Vivitrol trial program to help drug users get healthy and abstain from using drugs, and … we’ve worked hard to get people to the right spot. We have had a lot of (offenders) who need to be in either a mental health facility or a rehab, and that has helped to lower our jail population and save costs.”

Plesich and Renforth pointed out all that’s being done to make services more accessible to the public, and Conn talked about efforts to safeguard data from hackers and other harm-doers.

Hilty discussed roads and bridges as well as financial constraints, pointing out resurfacing a one-mile stretch of a county highway costs $190,000. Rupert Warren reported on the community buy-in to the new resource network, pointing out 72 agencies currently participate — more than twice the 32 they started out with. VanFossen highlighted the airpark’s rapid expansion, Dodds told attendees about programs and attractions that make Jefferson County stand out as well as their collaboration with commissioners, cities and townships and West reviewed the transit service’s routes and opportunities.

“All the positive things going on in the community — (it’s) the answer to our prayers,” West told the group.