County awarded grant for Conotton Trail
The Harrison County Board of Commissioners announced at a recent meeting that the Appalachian Community Grant Program has come through for a couple villages in the county.
According to developmentohio.gov, “This $500 million program provides planning and development grants for communities located in Ohio’s 32-county Appalachian region. Program funds are provided by Ohio’s designation of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars. The program is administered by the Governor’s Office of Appalachia within the Ohio Department of Development. Projects should be designed to bring about transformational change and be a catalyst for future development by providing generational investments in the Appalachian region.”
The program had a very short window for application and required shovel-ready, multi-county projects.
“This has been a commitment to the Appalachian region,” Commissioner Paul Coffland said. “We have been awarded $1.8 million for the Conotton Creek Trail Towns Project. This project is to make updates along the Conotton Creek Trail to improve trail access from the villages of Jewett and Scio. The project will create bike lanes, as well as add signage to direct trail users to Main Street in both villages. In addition, both villages will install enhanced amenities at their respective trail heads, such as covered seating and bike repair stations, bicycle parking racks, water fountains and restrooms.”
Mayor of Scio, James Clark said he was glad that the county was awarded any money and that more than one village would benefit from it.
Mayor of Jewett, George Bailie said, “On behalf of the Village of Jewett, just want to say thank you to the staff and commissioners. There were a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls in and out of this office. A lot of time went into this and we appreciate it. I’m looking forward to these renovations. Hopefully it will bring more people into the area of Jewett and Scio to support our local businesses.”
The Conotton Creek Trail has a committee that maintains the current trail, headed by Harry Horstman, who was present at the meeting. Horstman expressed gratitude that the grant money would improve the trail and encouraged commissioners to remain involved. He also shared the concern for ongoing costs to maintain new amenities as the committee is run entirely by donations.
