The Hamilton County board of supervisors approved three contracts Tuesday morning as part of the process to apply for federal grants for a possible rail port in the county.
A contract with MIDAS for grant writing assistance was approved at $50 per hour. MIDAS will help prepare the grant application for the TIGER II federal grant. The board also approved a contract with the engineering firm of JEO Consulting who will prepare a grading, site preparation and survey plan to determine the needs and costs of the potential rail port project in Blairsburg Township. The contract cost is $14,830.
"That is required for the grant application," according to Doug Bailey, chairman of the board of supervisors.
The third contract was with Smart Solutions Group for a cost benefit analysis. The cost of the preparation will be about $6,500, Bailey said.
Supervisor David Young admitted that the costs for the grant preparation work were expensive but could well be worth the cost.
"I said last meeting that this is a long shot grant. And we could just sit here, or we could move ahead," he said.
"This is just the cost of doing business," said supervisor Wes Sweedler.
The projected total cost for the wind rail port was estimated to be $12,963,000, Bailey said, and the county is applying for $11,463,112 in federal grant funds. The supervisors said S.E.E.D. Director Catherine Bergman is assisting with the writing of state grants for the project.
The renewal of the Local Option Sales and Service Tax will be on the ballot throughout the county in the Nov. 2 general election. Bailey said that each community and the county had agreed to move ahead with the renewal.
The present LOSST is scheduled to expire on June 30, 2012. Young said the two-year lead time will give the county and the cities time to get the measure passed, and or present the measure again if it should fail in any of the cities.
A public hearing was held on the present hospital property and the streets around it. With no objections or comments, the board passed a measure to have a quit claim deed prepared for the 6.47 acres on which the old hospital building is located. A quit claim deed also was approved for the portion of Des Moines Street and Ohio Street that was originally built on hospital property. The streets were deeded back to the city, and the hospital property was deeded to the Hamilton Hospital board of trustees.
County Engineer Danny Waid reported that more than 400 locations on county roads were found to have damage due to the recent high waters and heavy rains. He said there were five locations that currently were closed due to high water that would hopefully be open later this week. He urged motorists to watch for the red flags along county roads and to use caution in those areas.
"We're trying to smooth out those areas until more permanent solutions can be found," Waid said.
Contact Anne Blankenship at editor@freemanjournal.net or call 832-4350.