JEFFERSON – Ashtabula-area businesspeople sat down over coffee and cookies Tuesday afternoon, June 9, as the Ashtabula County commissioners talked about the areas of responsibility they’d taken on individually to help residents.
Commissioner Kathryn Whittington talked first about the upcoming STEM camps in July. There are up to five camps for students going into 5th to 8th grade at A-Tech in July.
Whittington said wanted to expand the camps to rising 9th graders to “close the gap” between elementary and high school.
There will be a girls-only “Mad Science” camp, as well as camps focusing on robotics and agriculture.
A-Tech hosts the camps and provides buses, the Country Neighbor Summer Feeding Program provides lunches during the camps and Gazette Newspapers/Great Lakes Printing Co. hosts Friday the luncheon at the end of the camps.
Whittington is also organizing the Ashtabula County Dog Shelter, a nonprofit organization set up to make it easier to coordinate volunteers and solicit donations. As of the meeting, the application paperwork for nonprofit status was still pending, she added.
The dog shelter is partnered with the small animal care program at A-Tech for wellness checks and vaccinations but is looking for another partner for microchipping and spay/neuter services.
Commissioner J.P. Ducro IV talked about rural broadband access and securing investment in the county to expand the fiber optic network to allow residents in rural areas to have high-speed Internet access.
Ducro said there are still a few “Swiss cheese” access holes, and the county is still working on affordability.
The installation of sanitary sewers at the I-90 interchange in Kingsville Township will boost exiting businesses there and help to fuel economic growth, according to Ducro. The project should break ground in six months, with customer tie ins in late 2027.
Commissioner Casey Kozlowski said he was especially pleased that the sewer project at I-90 and State Route 193 will be completed without having to levy assessments.
Kozlowski focused on the new public safety center, with funding for the jail project comes from several sources:
• A $15 million capital grant
• $15 million in savings
• $10 million in federal ARPA funds
• $5 million in additional savings from investment income
• $250,000 from the state capital bill
• $5 million for fiscal 2027 community projects through U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce’s office
The balance is to be paid through the sale of bonds.
One of the project’s main goals is to build the proper number of the right kind of beds, with flexible space for programs to help inmates with mental-health and/or substance use disorders.
Once completed, the expanded jail will have 172 beds in dormitory and bed cell units, with another 46 in a special housing unit. Construction documents are planned to be submitted in July.
Granger Construction has been selected as the project’s construction manager at-risk (CMR), a project delivery method where a construction manager acts as a consultant during design and assumes contractual risk, specifically a guaranteed maximum price, for completing construction.
The jail expansion project has an anticipated 24-month construction timeline, working in multiple phases and tentatively beginning in February 2027, with a completion date March 2029.
Plans are to be out for bid in September.
One of the ancillary projects is the demolition of the environmental services department office on West Walnut Street to make room for an expanded parking lot for the expanded jail. A new 5,142-square-foot, $1.8 million office building is to be built on Erie Street.
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