Sewer project to serve 60 homes

A second state grant
will assist with road improvements near a new school building in Girard.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — A $1.9 million sewer project for one of the poorest areas of Howland Township will provide sewers to about 60 homes on eight streets on the west side of state Route 169 in the next two years.

On Wednesday, Trumbull County commissioners authorized the county planning commission to apply for state capital improvement program funding to pay $380,000 of the cost. A Trumbull and Mahoning County committee approved that funding in December, however.

Alan Knapp, planning commission director, said the District 6 Public Works Integrating Committee selected the $380,000 effort as a “bubble” project — meaning that the funding will be provided in either July of this year or July 2009. Construction will take place shortly thereafter, he said.

That money will be added to $150,000 from Howland Township, $600,000 from state Community Development Block Grant money the county expects to receive in 2009 and $744,873 from assessments to the property owners, Knapp said.

The project will serve the streets of Elizabeth Avenue, Athens Drive, Barder Avenue, Harvey Avenue, Stanley Avenue, Bolin Avenue, Williams Street and Candace Avenue.

The streets are just south of the Warren city limits and just north of Deforest Road.

Knapp added that he will be talking to the county health department about including the neighborhood in a map of areas getting sewers in the next two years, so that homeowners there with failing septic systems will not be ordered to upgrade them.

Meanwhile, commissioners gave approval to the county engineer’s office so that it can apply for $288,924 in state capital improvement money for a $418,730 project to improve Shannon Road in Liberty. The project is being done in preparation for Girard schools’ building a 130,000-square-foot seventh- through 12th-grade building there on 22.6 acres.

Mike Sliwinski, project manager for the county engineer’s office, said the District 6 Public Works Integrating Committee also designated the funding for this project on the “bubble,” so it will also be funded this July or July 2009. The work will most likely occur in 2009, Sliwinski said.

The grant will be added to $129,806 in county engineer’s funds to create a turn lane into the school, install a traffic signal near Beaver Street and add school zone warning signs, pavement markings and a student crosswalk.

runyan@vindy.com