STEUBENVILLE — Jefferson County commissioners say they will exercise the reverter clause built into a deed executed 58 years ago to ensure a 75-acre parcel in the heart of Steubenville reverts back to the county should it cease to be used for educational purposes, pointing out no one could have predicted all those years ago how important that provision would turn out to be.

The Eastern Gateway Community College board of trustees in February halted enrollments beyond the spring semester. Then, last month, trustees announced that, without a significant influx of cash before May 31, the college would cease to exist.

At a special meeting Tuesday, commissioners said they need to be “proactive” to ensure taxpayer interests are protected should trustees conclude in May they have no other recourse than to pull the plug on the cash-strapped college, a development widely seen as inevitable.

Their motion, which passed unanimously, authorizes the prosecutor’s office “to take any and all action necessary to put that property back into taxpayer hands,” Commissioner Dave Maple said.

“It’s been beaten almost to death that when they stop using that building for educational purposes, the deed comes back to the county,” Commissioner Tony Morelli said. “This gets us ready to pull the trigger if that happens.”

Commissioners also voted to hire Bricker Graydon, a Columbus-based law firm, to research other issues surrounding the property – not least of which is who would be saddled with EGCC’s debt in the event the college dissolves.

They said it’s imperative that they find out exactly what their exposure might be – particularly since commissioners had no say in board appointments nor was the school’s annual audit in their purview.

“We authorized our county auditor (E.J. Conn) to hire outside counsel to determine what that number is,” Maple said. “We’ve heard big numbers, we’ve heard small numbers but remember – EGCC is multi-county, so we don’t know what Jefferson County’s piece of that will be. We’ll argue that it’s not our taxpayers’ piece, regardless, but if that debt did go into the value of the building, arguably taxpayers could be left with that bill.”

Maple said there’s “some language” in the Ohio Revised Code “about community colleges and what happens after dissolution, that’s why E.J. and his team are pretty concerned.”

“Hopefully we’ll be able to negotiate with a new school, a different school and still have education back out there. And if that doesn’t happen, at least taxpayers will have the value of the property and be able to develop it in another way,” Maple said.

Commissioner Eric Timmons characterized the twin decisions as a common sense approach.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions, but the taxpayers of Jefferson County are what we’re really thinking about in this situation,” Timmons said. “We want to protect ourselves and them.”

Prosecutor Jane Hanlin said being prepared to lay claim to the land is the first step. She said they’re still hopeful that, if EGCC dissolves, “it will continue to serve as some type of educational facility, but if it doesn’t, we have an obligation to secure that property for the citizens of the county. That’s what today’s meeting was about.”

“I think it’s everybody’s goal to have some type of higher education in that location, whatever form it may take,” Hanlin added.

Steubenville City Manager Jim Mavromatis said EGCC’s collapse is “clearly a loss from a revenue standpoint, but, more importantly, from an education standpoint. I always say, where else in this valley could you find two great high schools, a four-year college and a community college?”

Conn said county officials are “definitely going to do what we need to do to make sure our taxpayers are protected.”

“The debt the college accrued is not, in my opinion, the taxpayers’ responsibility,” Conn said. “It has been disturbing to see and it shouldn’t have happened, but it did. Now going forward, we need to make sure the right things happen.”

Morelli said that’s why they called the special meeting.

“After the meetings we’ve had it looks obvious to us the school is going to close, and when that happens there is action we can take,” he said. “But don’t think we have all the answers – we’re as uncertain about some of this stuff as you are.”

But Timmons pointed out the county prosecutor’s and the auditor’s offices have been “talking about the ramifications of the EGCC issues for months, and we have been updated by (them) numerous times.”

“Our responsibility is to the taxpayers of Jefferson County and we will continue to represent their best interests, be transparent and be proactive – unlike those in positions of power who made the decisions that cost good people their jobs, thwarted economic development, and hampered the education of our local students.”

Commissioners, meanwhile, praised the foresight of the elected officials in the mid-1960s who “gifted” the property to what was then the Jefferson Technical Institute with the proviso that it would be returned to taxpayers if it were no longer used for educational purposes.

“At the time they probably did it because the school was new and had a lot of risk,” Maple said after the meeting. “I would bet they never thought it would be needed 58 years later.”