Officials to allot utility’s grant

County commissioners also approved $1.5 million in road-paving projects.

WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners will share $755,000 of a $1 million grant from First-Energy Solutions Corp. with the 23 townships that are part of the program.

The county will retain the remainder of the money and use it for green-energy projects at the county level. Liberty is the only township that doesn’t participate in the county aggregation program.

None of the money has any “strings attached,” though the intent of the money was to use it on energy-related projects, Commissioner Paul Heltzel said. The amounts range from $119,538 to Howland Township to $5,826 for Gustavus Township.

The money was part of an agreement commissioners reached with FirstEnergy Solutions in the fall that included an extension of the county electric-aggregation program for six more years, through March 2018.

Voters in the areas outside of the cities and villages in Trumbull County approved the county aggregation at the polls in November 2008.

The county’s aggregation program involves buying electricity from FirstEnergy Solutions as a group, which lowers the rate for customers. The electricity is still delivered by Ohio Edison.

The program lowers the price for residential customers by 6 percent in 2010, 5 percent in 2011, 4 percent during the first three months of 2012 and at least 6 percent through March 2018, according to the contract.

Tom Bellish, president of Buckeye Energy Brokers of Twinsburg, which brokered the contract, said FirstEnergy Solutions and Ohio Edison, which are sister companies, each sent out about 20,000 letters to customers in July regarding their choice to “opt out” of the program.

The companies recently sent out letters to about 8,000 additional Ohio Edison customers explaining their choice to opt out of the aggregation within the next couple of weeks.

Bellish said the 8,000 additional customers are primarily people with all-electric homes, people who were missed in the first mailing and people who have recently moved into a home in the area.

People with all-electric homes are newly included in the aggregation program, Bellish said, explaining that the aggregation will benefit those homeowners by providing a 6 percent discount in 2010 over whatever rate they would have received through Ohio Edison.

Bellish noted that Ohio Edison has filed a request with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to eliminate the discount that all-electric homes receive.

Commissioners also have approved several road-repaving projects totaling $1.5 million that will be done in 2010 using federal stimulus money.

They are $580,000 to resurface Trumbull Avenue from the Girard limits to state Route 193 and West Liberty Street from the Mahoning County line to the Girard city limits; $325,000 to resurface Austintown-Warren Road in Warren Township from Burnett East Road to the Warren city limits; and $543,500 to resurface and repair Austintown-Warren Road in Weathersfield Township from the Lordstown village limits to Carson Salt Springs Road, Carson Salt Springs Road from the Lordstown village limits to Austintown-Warren Road, and Bedford Road in Brookfield from state Route 82 to Warren-Sharon Road.

County Engineer David DeChristofaro said that if any other communities are unable to use their stimulus paving money in time, his department will try to secure enough of it to pave Tibbetts-Wick Road from U.S. Route 422 to state Route 11, a $500,000 project.

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