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Trumbull officials OK monthly fee for sewer system
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The 14 property owners on Gilbert Street in Weathersfield Township got a pretty good deal on the cost of their new sanitary sewer project.
Trumbull County commissioners on Thursday approved the charge to the property owners for the cost of having the system installed.
It is $3.48 per month per user, which was about a fifth of the $18.06 the Trumbull County Engineer’s office estimated at a public hearing the engineer’s office had in May.
Each property owner also will pay a monthly usage fee.
The sewer construction cost $369,261, but $324,036 of that was paid through a Community Development Block Grant, and an additional $33,546 came from an Ohio Public Works Commission/State Capital Improvements Program.
That left only $11,679 left for the affected property owners to pay, said Rex Fee, executive director of the sanitary engineer’s office.
Because that amount was so small, it was not necessary to issue bonds. The sanitary engineer’s office used funds of its own, Fee said.
Gilbert Street, which runs west off state Route 46 just south of Salt Springs Road, qualified for the grants because it meets financial guidelines for low- to moderate-income housing.
Fee said the significant drop in cost compared to the estimate resulted from the contractor’s doing the work at a lower cost than estimated, as well as keeping change orders low and the contractor not needing to do certain things called for in the estimate.
Gilbert Street abuts a new section of the Western Reserve Greenway bike trail that passes through Weathersfield Township.
In other business, Commissioner Frank Fuda said county officials are talking about constructing a county building on vacant land at the Trumbull County Engineer’s office on North River Road to house several county departments.
The county planning commission, maintenance division, Emergency Management Agency and Local Emergency Planning Committee might all be able to relocate to North River Road, Fuda said.
The planning commission uses the county-owned former Wean building on North Park Avenue, and the maintenance division uses a county-owned building on Panther Drive near Warren Harding High School. Both buildings are expensive to heat.
EMA And LEPC, which use office space at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, need a location closer to the center of the county to house vehicles and allow better mobilization for emergencies, Fuda said.