BLANCHESTER — The Clinton County Commissioners made a friendly visit to the Blanchester Village Council meeting on Thursday.
Commissioners Kerry Steed and Mike McCarty — Commissioner President Brenda Woods was unable to attend — informed councilmembers and locals about some the economic developments, a legacy fund, and township grants.
“The interests of the Village of Blanchester are the interests of mine as a county commissioner,” said Steed. “We’ve come around a number of times the last 18 to 24 months to try to fill you in things have been happening on a county level that may involve things here in the village and vice versa.”
Steed said the outreach commissioners have been doing with all the townships and villages has become invaluable.
One of the things Steed talked about is economic development in Clinton County.
“I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” he started. “The bad news is, unfortunately, the lines at the DMV, the grocery store, and traffic lights are all going to longer. And that’s because we’ve got jobs coming to this community.”
He went to say there more jobs are coming in than can be filled with businesses like Amazon coming in as well as Blanchester’s Allen Company expanding.
With its operation starting within four to six weeks, according to Steed, Amazon is looking at employing 250 to 300 people.
For the Allen Company, commissioners had recently approved an expansion.
Blanchester’s own American Showa recently celebrated being at full employment, with Steed adding they’ve become “the example that other Showa companies want to be like.”
Steed concluded with highlights of how far Clinton County has come since 2009 when DHL officially closed operations at the Wilmington Air Park and how Clinton County has moved on since then.
“We got more jobs than we can have, we’ve got people who are moving to this community, we’ve got the lowest unemployment (rate) in probably 20 years … housing is at its lowest inventory level,” said Steed. “It’s time for the next chapter of Clinton County.”
Commissioner Mike McCarty spoke about the county legacy fund. Back in January, commissioners put $10 million into an endowment with the Clinton County Foundation.
“What’s neat about it is that you can sit there and spend money on day-to-day things … once that money is invested it can be distributed to nonprofits. So, think about projects you’d want to get money for,” said McCarty, adding the money can grow over time.
McCarty added that Commissioner Brenda Woods has been working on grants to the county’s townships.
