grant application approved

GALLIPOLIS - Gallia County Commissioners approved a Southern Ohio Agricultural Community Development Foundation (SOACDF) Grant Application for the Gallia County EMS Station Project during their regular meeting Thursday.

The various projects for the 2007-2008 round of funding were discussed and it was noted that Gallia County will request the funds remaining for this project after all private business projects have been funded to the levels requested by the business owners.

The total project cost will be $245,000. The application requests $51,827 in SOACDF grant funding, though a second, backup application was also submitted for approval, requesting $85,750 in SOACDF grant funding, just in case any of the other projects do not submit their applications.

Also, presented for approval was a letter of commitment of the local match that will be $43,173, or $9,250 for the backup application if the USDA RD grant/loan funding is approved, to be paid from the County EMS fund. It was noted that if Gallia County is not awarded the USDA RD Community Facilities grant and loan for this project, it will provide the local match of $193,173 or $159,250 for the backup project by a combination of County EMS Fund, County General Fund and loan from a local bank.

In other news, commissioners signed a letter of support for the Ohio Valley Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) Council during their regular meeting, Thursday.

The letter, which is to be faxed to Senators George Voinovich and Sherrod Brown, along with Charlie Wilson before March 3, is in opposition of the President's 2009 budget request for RC&D Councils across the United States that would eliminate all funding to the 375 existing programs.

Members of the Ohio Valley RC&D council located in Sardinia, are seeking help to restore this funding to a minimum of $56 million to continue service on conservation and economic development issues American communities.

According to the letter, RC&D Councils across the country, work to plan and carry out activities to increase conservation of natural resources, support economic development and enhance the environment and standard of living in local communities. Members of RC&D Councils are volunteers and include local, civic, appointed, and elected officials. They are non-profit entities that work in partnership with USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service through a Federal Coordinator.

The letter further states that the RC&D program has been able to return $7.50 for every dollar invested by the federal government to support economic development and resource protection in local areas.

Projects and services that will no longer be provided in our community if funding for this program is cut include the Southern Ohio Conservation Easement Initiative, a program working to provide direct technical assistance to landowners considering donating all or part of their land for a conservation and/or Agriculture Easement, as well as a recent project that provides foodstuffs, office supplies, and other goods to area non-profit organization and social organizations such as food banks, schools, and churches.

Commissioner's also signed a draft letter of support for Gallipolis City's Appalachian Community Economic Impact Fund grant for a map digitization project. This is a joint project, county-wide that hopes to benefit all county agencies and residents.

According to the animal shelter report for the week ending on Feb. 10, no animals were rescued or adopted, 14 were euthanized.