St. Clairsville service director Scott Harvey provides council with an update on the bike trail project.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE – City council is eyeing the possibility of applying for grants to make the city’s main reservoir ADA compliant during its regularly scheduled meeting.

“I would love to see a platform for handicapped people to fish,” council member Don Vincenzo said.

Mayor Kathryn Thalman said that the city has searched for grants for the reservoir but agrees with Vincenzo that she would also like to see it become ADA compliant.

“We have tried to get a grant and we didn’t get it last year, but it was to extend the bike to come down Reservoir Road and asphalt around the reservoir so people can ride your bike,” Thalman said. “It is beautiful, it absolutely is. And we have a nice shelter there where we have a turn around for the bike trail.”

She added that several fishers have been at the reservoir as the weather temporarily reached spring temperatures before returning to snowy conditions.

Thalman said that, regardless if a grant is secured or not, council could always make a motion to have a ramp built to allow residents with disabilities to safely enjoy the reservoir and fish.

In other matters, council member J.C. Trash asked police chief Matt Arbenz about his opinion on the city potentially allowing ATVs, golf carts and side-by-sides to become street legal.

“If this is something that council wants to see done I’m willing to work with you guys by giving my suggestions,” Arbenz said. “Coming simply from a safety point of view, I’ll never say that I’m for it 100% just because I can perceive the future of injuries but I can help try to make it safer.”

He added that he has reached out to Shadyside Police Chief Don Collette due to the village recently passing an ordinance that allows golf carts on its roads.

Arbenz invited Thrash to a police committee meeting to further discuss the possibility of allowing the vehicles to become street legal in the city.

Service director Scott Harvey provided an update of the bike trail tunnel project.

He said that despite the harsh winter the area experienced, the project is still on plan to be completed in June.

The $3.3 million project is being handled by Shelly and Sands Co. It entails a 90-foot extension to the south side of the tunnel added along with the addition and replacement of retaining walls, slope failure correction, development of a trailhead and trail resurfacing. The steps on the north side of the tunnel will also be reconstructed so that residents will still be able to access the bike trail from the roundhouse gas station.

Constructed in the early 1900s originally as a railroad bridge, it was later turned over to the city as part of the “Rails to Trails” program, making it the only rail trail in Ohio with a tunnel.

Also, council member Mike Kasper mentioned that he saw that WVU Medicine recently announced plans to open a small-format hospital in St. Clairsville.

Despite it being in the greater St.Clairsville area, it will not be inside of city limits.

Kasper said that he was under the impression that the city and WVU Medicine were in deep talks about opening the small-format hospital on the east side of the city.

Planning and Zoning Administrator Tom Murphy replied that he wasn’t involved in any concrete plans about WVU Medicine coming to the east side of the city but believes it was Trinity Health System who expressed potential interest.

“I was never directly involved in that, but I don’t think it was ever WVU. Trinity was interested in locating there and kind of teaming. But I never heard WVU too,” Murphy said.

Thalman added that the first she heard of the $50 million small-format hospital coming to the St. Clairsville area was at the St. Clairsville Area Chamber of Commerce’s annual awards dinner last week when WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital CEO Doug Harrison made the surprise announcement.

“Trinity being here is kind of an impetus for them to say we need to do it too. But I have not been in any kind of privy contact with them,” Thalman said. “I just think if they do that, it’s going to be good for our Valley, because I’ve been to the emergency room there twice, [Wheeling Hospital] and it’s like Dante’s Inferno. It’s just so crowded, so opening a new hospital here could only be good.”