Campbell windfall to go into infrastructure

By jeanne starmack

starmack@vindy.com

campbell

Campbell’s city council has yet to discuss exactly what to spend an $830,000 windfall on but agrees it will be on infrastructure, says the council president.

“We haven’t had any talks, but council is in agreement of putting it in the infrastructure fund,” Council President George Levendis said Monday.

Levendis said that if the money is put into the infrastructure fund, it will require a court order to take it out.

He said that’s one way to ensure the money is spent according to council’s intent.

The money is a signing bonus the city is receiving for signing a lease that allows Hilcorp Energy mineral rights for 167 acres of city-owned property.

Hilcorp wants the right to drill horizontally through the Utica Shale formation several thousand feet under Northeast Ohio. The drilling method, hydraulic fracturing, releases natural gas from the shale.

The council signed the lease in July. It also includes 20 percent royalties for producing wells.

Levendis said the money could be used for replacing street signs, repairing streets, building repairs and nuisance-property demolitions.

He said the money would be used as local matches for grants.

“We really haven’t had any money for grants,” he said, adding that the city has been limited in what grants it could apply for because it didn’t have matching funds.

The city will not receive the signing bonus until January.