BELLAIRE — It’s time for property owners in Bellaire to learn more about leasing their mineral rights.

Utica Landowner Group LLC will be meeting again at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Bellaire High School cafeteria. The goal of the meeting is for residents with oil and gas rights to join its coalition so it will have more power to negotiate favorable oil and gas lease terms for both the village and its residents.

Councilman Bill Schmitt said that multiple members of council will be in attendance, and he believes that the group is a good thing for not just the village but also its residents. He added that all property owners interested in leasing their oil and gas rights are encouraged to come to Tuesday’s meeting.

Recently, the village has been in talks with a potential producer to lease the oil and gas under village property. Following the discussions, village leaders learned that a company intends to horizontally drill under portions of the community.

Once discovering the new information, it reached out to Utica Landowners Group due to a number of the village’s property owners with mineral rights also being approached to sign leases but with less favorable terms than the village was offered.

There is no obligation to sign a lease with Utica Landowners Group, no fees and no commitment required to attend the meeting.

Bellaire Mayor Ed Marling said that the more residents who attend the meeting and learn about the issue, the better chance that both the village and its residents will have in receiving a favorable deal.

“They’re not going to get $1 million, but they’re going to get something,” Marling said.

Utica Landowners Group Partner Edward Sustersic added that by uniting together, the residents shift bargaining power from the potential buyer to themselves.

“The whole concept is that when we work together, the landowners get better leasing offers,” Sustersic said.

He added that the landowners essentially have three options. They could either negotiate with the potential buyer by themselves, which he doesn’t recommend because they may not be very well educated in the matter. The landowners could unite with their neighbors and join Utica Landowners Group’s coalition. Lastly the landowners have the choice to do nothing.

Sustersic said he strongly suggests the residents don’t just do nothing because, once the potential buyer has 65% of the acreage secured, the state will allow the buyer to do what is called a mandatory pool.

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, mandatory pooling may be requested when an operator is unable to acquire the leases to meet the necessary acreage and/or distance requirements when applying for a drilling permit.

Sustersic added that the remaining acreage will not get compensation if the purchaser does a mandatory pool.

“I’m trying to get this message across to people. It’s almost like an eminent domain if they’re putting an interstate in. Some landowners might think, well, we’ll just hold out. Well, it’s not possible. Oil and gas is a natural resource. There is a public interest in regulating the extraction of natural resources. There is a public interest in seeing if we put a straight interstate in. And so, yes, the state allows the taking.”

He added that the most effective way of spreading the information is for residents to tell their friends and neighbors who have oil and gas rights within the village.