Hocking County approves $120,000 in CDBG allocation to back Laurelville, Logan grant applications

The Hocking County Board of Commissioners approved using $120,000 of the county's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) allocation to support two competitive grant applications: $82,400 to match a critical infrastructure (CI) application described by presenters as from the Village of Laurelville and $37,600 to match the City of Logan's Neighborhood Revitalization Grant (NRG) application. A commissioner moved to approve the recommendation and the motion was seconded; commissioners responded "Aye" and the motion carried with no roll call recorded.

Nathan Simons, community development coordinator for HACAP, told commissioners the Laurelville project has an engineering estimate of $582,400 and that the CI grant has a state ceiling of $500,000, so the village is seeking $82,400 from the county to make the project viable. "We would recommend that the county provide the requested allocation match to the village of Laurelville," Simons said. Simons also explained that Logan's NRG work is still being scoped and that the county match requested for Logan would be $37,600.

The county has $120,000 available in its CDBG allocation for project funding. Commissioners and HACAP staff discussed alternatives in case the competitive grants are not funded. Simons said an alternate would be to allocate funds toward a larger parks-and-recreation project at Mango Park in Logan, which could be scaled to spend the county allocation if the competitive applications are denied.

HACAP (Community Action Program) staff outlined the timeline for competitive applications and local notice requirements. "The state just opened up their application portal yesterday," Simons said, and "the due date to have everything submitted to the state is June 11." He said project lists for the grant application must be finalized in time to place ad copy with the Logan Daily by May 27 and that project details should be nailed down by May 26 to meet notice and second-public-hearing timing.

Commissioners asked about who administers the CDBG allocation work. HACAP staff said the county historically used HACAP for administrative capacity but that the county may administer the grants in-house if county staff (identified in the discussion as "Sean") has the capacity. Staff also clarified the process for the NRG: HACAP runs community meetings and surveys in the target area, engineers help produce cost estimates, a second community meeting narrows priorities, and the city (or village) provides final sign-off before the county submits the application on the jurisdiction's behalf. Simons said the county is the formal applicant on behalf of the city or village for these state programs.

Presenters noted recent CDBG history: Laurelville last received CDBG funding in program year 2019, and Logan last received funding in 2017 for East Park development. Commissioners emphasized the desire for direct communication with city and village leadership as HACAP completes scope and cost work.

A point of record: during the meeting the mover's motion referenced the "Village of Louisville" while HACAP presenters had identified the request earlier as coming from Laurelville. That inconsistency was not corrected on the record and remains in the meeting transcript.

Next steps: HACAP will continue engineering and community-survey work for Logan's NRG target area, schedule the required second public hearing, and prepare application materials for the June 11 state deadline. If the competitive grants are awarded, Simons said the county allocation would serve as local match to leverage larger state funds; if not, the county could expend the allocation on a county-chosen parks and recreation project as an alternate.