WILMINGTON — If a proposal that grants the Board of Elections (BOE) 10 weeks per year exclusive use of the County Annex’s community room is carried out, two groups whose meetings and events will be affected are 4-H youth and senior citizens.
Clinton County Health District Director of Nursing Monica Wood, who noted the diverse age brackets that utilize the community room, was one of several Annex officials who met with county commissioners Wednesday. Their appointment came in the wake of a July 24 commissioners session where a BOE move to the Annex facility was a focus of discussion.
Things remained up in the air at the end of Wednesday’s meeting at which BOE officials also were present.
Clinton County Commissioner Patrick Haley said he would like the BOE, which has a special meeting on the topic scheduled for Friday, to come up with a recommendation. Clinton County Commissioners President Kerry R. Steed told BOE officials a vote against the proposed Annex relocation would leave the BOE “right where you are.”
Presently, the BOE is cramped for space and, during early voting seasons, has voting machinery set up in a first-floor courthouse hallway.
The plan being considered on July 24 — for the BOE to move its entire operation to the Annex — would mean the county departments currently at the Annex would for 10 weeks not have access to the community room, which has dividers to partition it into three spaces, and also would lose access to the building’s larger conference room which would become BOE space.
Extension Educator in 4-H Youth Development Tracie Montague said that in effect, four gathering spaces in the Annex would be lost during the time periods when the community room is a voting area and, as such, must be locked down for elections security purposes.
She said that scenario would adversely affect the training and large meeting space of Extension and the Health Department to do their jobs to the fullest, be it diabetes workshops or training 40 teens to be camp counselors.
A smaller Annex conference room that would remain available can hold eight to 10 people, officials said.
As for county departments using alternative spaces when the community room is unavailable, OSU Extension Office Director Tony Nye said he gets charged whenever he uses the large room in Expo Hall located on the county fairgrounds. An official with Clinton County Soil and Water Conservation District (a legal subdivision of the state under the Ohio Department of Agriculture), a tenant at the Annex, said they paid $700 to use Expo Hall for an event.
Steed said the Clinton County Job & Family Services building on South South Street (U.S. 68 South) has a large room, and the County Administration Building on East Sugartree Street has meeting space.
Dale Hertlein with the Farm Service Agency (FSA), an Annex tenant, said the FSA has, since it initiated a lease with the county in 2002, paid more than $1 million in rent. He said there was a “tacit acknowledgement” that the agency would have ample meeting space available.
If the BOE moves its operations to the Annex, the FSA may hold its meetings in other counties, said Hertlein.
Clinton County Commissioner Brenda K. Woods said secure storage of the BOE’s elections equipment was recently the basic item to decide, but now the question includes moving the BOE office functions, too. That statement led Montague to ask whether there was not a way to go back to a BOE relocation decision that involved storage only.
Clinton County BOE Director Shane C. Breckel said the four-person elections board was split on the question of relocating to the Annex.
He said one option that had not been discussed with commissioners is the Ohio Revised Code allows a bond issue to build a BOE facility to go on the ballot. An estimate is it would take a 0.1-mill tax issue to raise the funds, said Breckel.
Steed said he would be hard-pressed to support asking taxpayers for added money “when we have [space] resources available.”
Of the Annex option which involves remodeling in addition to the community room restrictions, Haley said the government offices currently housed in the Annex “are happy, content, and functioning.”
Clinton County Health Commissioner Pam Walker Bauer said there has been talk previously that if a natural disaster were to strike the county, the Annex community room could serve as an operations center.
Steed said commissioners are trying to balance the needs of the county departments that need more space. Those include the Common Pleas Court’s Adult Probation Department and the County Auditor staff, as well as BOE.
In other county government news:
• Five financial institutions made bids to serve as a depository of public funds for the county. Those institutions are LCNB, PNC Bank, First Financial Bank, Peoples Bank, and Wilmington Savings Bank. Commissioners indicated they will be reviewing the institutions’ proposal packages, which were all opened Wednesday morning during an opening of sealed bids.
Reach Gary Huffenberger at 937-556-5768.
