County Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning and welcome to the Lorain County Board of Commissioners Friday, August 14, 2026 meeting. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Commissioner Moore?

Here.

Commissioner Gallagher? Here. Commissioner Riddell? Here. We have a quorum. Under resolutions number one, investments.

Move to approve.

Second. Discussion?

Yes. Just want to bring note to the different sizes of the interest payments. Sometimes that has to do with the size of the note that they're involved with, but in general, it shows the continuing trend that has lower interest uh loans or uh investments are paid off we're reinvesting the money and that's why you see the 26 000 and the 83 000 is we continue to uh to reinvest at better rates anything further commissioner moore aye mr gallagher aye mr riddell aye number two appropriations move to approve

Second. Discussion? Commissioner Moore? Aye. Commissioner Gallagher?

Aye.

Commissioner Riddell? Aye.

Number three, transfers. There were none. Number four, advances, repayments. There were none. Number five, requisitions.

We only have one page today. Move to approve. Second.

Discussion? Commissioner Moore? Aye. Commissioner Gallagher? Aye. Commissioner Riddell? Aye. Number six, travel.

Move to approve.

Second.

Discussion? Commissioner Moore? Aye. Commissioner Gallagher? Aye.

Commissioner Riddell?

Aye. Number seven, bills.

We have five pages of bills today. Page two, please. Page three, please. Page four. Page five, please. Move to approve pages one through five.

Second discussion. Mr. Moore. Aye. Mr. Riddell. Aye. Mr. Gallagher. Aye.

We don't have any execs to move on. Okay. We have no public comment.

And there's no public comment. Is there any old business? Do you want to talk about anything under old or no? Wait till new.

I'll wait till new on this.

Okay. Board business. Nine. Approve and waive the reading of the County Commission meeting minutes of August 11th.

Move to approve.

Thank you. Discussion. Mr. Moore.

Aye.

Mr. Riddell.

Aye.

Mr. Gallagher. Aye. Job and Family Services 10 authorized JFS to transfer $226,980.53 from the Public Assistance Fund to CSEA Fund in order to utilize these funds for state fiscal year 26. Fiscal year 26 in accordance with the Ohio Administrative Code 51019605 provides authority to transfer the funds to CSEA to cover any ceiling excess for the state match.

Move to approve.

Second. Discussion? Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Riddell? Aye. 11, authorized JFS to transfer $314,536 from public assistance fund to CSEA fund. In order to utilize these funds, CSEA performs allowable TANF or income maintenance activities to assist low-income non-custodial parents to increase stability to meet their child support obligations, and when it exceeds, there is access to community and protective service allocations for public assistance.

Move to approve.

Second. Discussion? Mr. Moore? Aye. Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Riddell?

Aye.

Stormwater 12 awarded contract to Marks Construction Inc. Valley City in the amount not to exceed $82,374.92 that includes a contingency for any unforeseen site conditions for Elyria Township Martins Run Lateral Stream Restoration. Five bids were received, this being the most responsive compliance specifications and will be paid from the Stormwater account.

Move to approve.

Second. Discussion?

I see something in there, Marty. You can see five bids.

Oh, I know that. I wasn't going to say a word.

I was looking at Don and I'm going, all right, let me make sure this is good. Just for the public's information, do we want to post that, the bid tab?

Do you have the bid tab?

Nice work, Don.

Anything further? Mr. Moore?

Aye.

Mr. Gallagher? Aye. Mr. Riddell?

Aye.

Children's Services 13, reappoint members to Lorain County Children's Services Board. One, Roberta M. Davila, effective retroactive July 27th to 26th through July 26th of 2030. And two, Lee Armbruster, effective retroactive to August 5th to 26th through August 6th of 2030. Move to approve second discussion.

Yeah, we still need some more board members. If anybody is interested in serving on children services, it's a great board, so just let you know we'd still need some participants so.

Mr. Moore. Aye. Mr. Gallagher.

Aye.

Mr. Riddell. Aye. Prosecutor 14, Authorized County Prosecutor's Office, LETF, to apply for and utilize a credit card amount not to exceed $2,500 in accordance with Ohio Rise Code 301.27 and Commissioner's Credit Card Policy for Olivia Herbert, Office Administrator, and Billy Joe Bletcher, Chief of Staff.

Move to approve second discussion.

Mr Gallagher I wish more I wish we don't I 15 of rising kind of prosecutors office for their FOJ to apply for and utilize credit card amount not to exceed 2500 in cards with the high risk of 3, 0, 1, 0.27 in commissioners credit card policy for Olivia Herbert office ministry and Billy Joe Bletcher chief of staff. Move to approve second discussion.

Yes. I want to note that this is not a error I asked yesterday. This is not a duplicate. These are two different credit cards because the funds to be drawn from are general fund. One card is for general fund and the other one is for the prosecutor's special revenue funds. So to make the bookkeeping easier, there's two separate credit cards.

Anything further? Commissioner Moore? Aye. Commissioner Gallagher? Aye. Commissioner Riddell?

Aye.

Ms. Perkins? I have no update today.

Thank you.

And the only thing I have is next Thursday, August 20th, at 10 o'clock, we'll be at our land bank meeting, and then the following Thursday, August 27th at 8 a.m., will be the Visitors Bureau meeting for correspondence.

Move to waive the reading of the board correspondence. Second. Discussion?

Commissioner Moore?

Aye.

Commissioner Gallagher? Aye. Commissioner Riddell? Aye. New business.

Go ahead.

Okay. A couple things here. Rain County Solid Waste is supporting the Ronald McDonald's House Charities by doing a pop tab collection, and they're teaming up the police and fire against each other throughout the county to get a million, or it's a million tabs, and the goal is way higher, according to Ann, but she wants multiple millions. But we're gonna have a... a press release on Monday at 1230 at the Solid Waste Center. And it's really to support the charities that they have and make awareness of it. So that'll be on Monday. Also, Solid Waste is doing a plastic bag from the grocery store, those plastic bags that are in the hundreds of thousands. It's a round two of contest, which is happening right now. During the second round, 32 schools participated, representing 13 public Lorain County school districts, two parochial schools, two charter schools, and Lorain County Joint Vocational School. Together they recycled an incredible 2,256 pounds of plastic grocery bags. That's more than a ton of plastic that was kept out of the landfills, off the roadways, waterways, et cetera. Keystone Elementary School in LaGrange came in first place with 573 pounds. Second place was Firelands High School with 227 pounds. Firelands served South Amherst, South Amherst Village and Brownhelm, Henrietta, New Russia Township, and they collected the 227. Third place was Lorain County JBS, and they raised 206 pounds. This success builds on the district's inaugural plastic bag recycling contest, which launched and America Recycles Day, November 15th, 2025, and ran through December 29th of 2025. During the first contest, 17 schools were represented, nine public school districts and two parochial. 300 pounds were collected. So it's growing momentum here. And first place at that point was Ranger High Tech Academy in North Ridgewood with 104 pounds. Second place was Avon Elementary with 73. And third place was Elyria High with 61. So we're hoping to continue that successful story and get more and more of it. And those bags are recycled. And from what I understand, they sell them to a plastic deck company to make those boards that are used for plastic decks. That's it for me.

OK. Anything else?

Oh, I do have one more.

I'm sorry, three things. First Energy.

I was saying Energizer, buddy.

First Energy has a green tree or a reforestry program, and each county can get up to 500 trees that's to be used in public grounds. And they said that they might give us an additional 500 if we have enough collaboration and enough demand for it. We think we're going to get rid of a thousand trees. We're working with Willoway Nursery that's producing the trees for the program. We emailed all the townships and the cities about it and hopefully we'll get a bunch of uh a bunch more trees in demand they will give us trees year after year in this program they will also come out and plant some of those trees but it'll be during the week and we figure that when we do it the most of people will want to do it on a weekend so it'll be crossing over multiple uh plantings that's it thank you okay no public comment okay thank you for coming in we are adjourned