Hocking County approves $120,000 in CDBG allocation matches for Laurelville, Logan grant applications

The Hocking County Board of Commissioners approved using the county's $120,000 Community Development Block Grant allocation to match two competitive grant applications on behalf of the Village of Laurelville and the City of Logan.

Nathan Simons, community development coordinator with HACAP, told the commissioners the county had $120,000 in CDBG allocation funds available and recommended allocating $82,400 to match a Laurelville application for a critical infrastructure (CI) grant and $37,600 to match Logan’s Neighborhood Revitalization Grant (NRG) application. "We would recommend that the county provide the requested allocation match to the village of Laurelville," Simons said.

The recommendation was presented by HACAP representatives Jeff (community development coordinator) and Nathan Simons, who outlined competing applications and timing. HACAP said Laurelville’s CI project is estimated at $582,400; the CI grant program has a $500,000 ceiling, so Laurelville is requesting the $82,400 from the county to make the project’s budget viable. For Logan, HACAP recommended using the remaining $37,600 as the county match for a maximum $750,000 NRG application the city intends to submit through the county program.

HACAP staff cautioned that competitive grants are not guaranteed and proposed an alternate use of county allocation funds in case the applications are not funded. As an alternate, HACAP suggested a scalable parks-and-recreation project in Logan (Mango Park) so the county could expend the allocation on a single local project if needed. The commissioners did not adopt the alternate at the meeting.

Commissioners asked procedural and timing questions. HACAP said the state application portal had just opened and applications were due to the state on June 11. HACAP also said the county must have final project lists and public-notice language ready in time to place ad copy in the Logan Daily by May 27 for required publication; a second community meeting and public hearing are required by the NRG process to document community participation. "The NRG program relies heavily on community participation," Simons said, describing surveys, two community meetings and engineer feasibility reviews that narrow a long list of community priorities to a short list for the final application.

Commissioners discussed whether the county’s grant administrator role could be performed in-house; HACAP said the county may administer CDBG in-house if it has the capacity, but the county has historically used HACAP for administrative capacity. Commissioners also confirmed that projects included under the county allocation must meet program rules — for example, funds set aside for the county’s CDBG allocation cannot be used to fund a stage in the courthouse parking lot that falls outside an NRG target area; allocation funds must be applied to eligible projects in eligible areas unless the city explicitly approves otherwise.

A motion by Commissioner (unnamed, mover) to approve the recommended funding — $82,400 for the Village of Laurelville’s critical infrastructure application and $37,600 for the City of Logan’s neighborhood revitalization application — was seconded by Commissioner (unnamed, seconder) and approved by voice vote. The commissioners did not record a roll-call tally in the meeting transcript.

If the county and municipal applications are funded, HACAP said the county allocation could leverage substantially larger grant dollars for the projects. HACAP noted prior CDBG awards: Laurelville last received CDBG funds in program year 2019 and Logan last received funding in 2017 for development of East Park.

Votes at a glance: The Board approved the use of the county’s $120,000 CDBG allocation as follows — $82,400 to match a Village of Laurelville critical infrastructure grant application and $37,600 to match a City of Logan Neighborhood Revitalization Grant application. The action was approved by voice vote with no recorded roll-call tally in the transcript.

The county and HACAP staff will proceed with required public-notice steps, two community meetings for the Logan NRG target area and submission of the competitive applications before the state deadline. If the competitive grants are not funded, commissioners discussed retaining an alternate, scalable parks project in Logan as a possible use for the allocation.