Holmes County hopes to join new group for salt purchasing

When wicked weather rears its ugly head in Holmes County every winter, it is up to the Holmes County Engineer’s Office to provide the salt for the county and make hazardous roadways a little easier to traverse.

Purchasing that salt takes a commitment, and during the department’s recent presentation at the weekly Holmes County commissioner’s meeting, salt was the center of discussion.

The commissioners adopted a resolution authorizing the Holmes County Engineer’s Office to join the Community University Education Purchasing Council of Governments.

The commissioners listened to a report from Steve Sommers, Holmes County Engineer’s Office engineer technician, who was working on the grant. It is Sommers who does all of the county’s purchasing of salt.

Sommers said the grant centers around the county’s salt-purchasing capabilities.

The new cooperative group referred to as CUE is a purchasing group that will allow the Holmes County Engineer’s Office to purchase salt for its roadways, in addition to fuel and other vehicles or goods determined by the CUE board.

Holmes County had formerly been a part of a cooperative with Stark and Carroll counties and several other municipalities, which also will dissolve and join the CUE, which includes many municipalities in Stark and Summit counties, Copley, and several school districts.

Through the Stark County cooperative, the county annually bids out 40,000-45,000 tons of salt each year, and Sommers said the hope is this new cooperative effort will allow the county to increase its annual purchase of salt, which was 4,000 tons last year.

Sommers said the CUE cooperative’s annual salt tonnage is more than 80,000 tons.

“We’re hoping that with the addition of the extra 40,000 tons, it will give us a better base and offer us a better price on purchasing salt,” Sommers said.

He said because of the variance in winter weather over the years, with some ranging from little salt usage to years of heavy usage, the county has run into issues procuring salt in the years with heavy snowfall.

The hope is this eliminates that.

“The salt would end up going to different places around Ohio and surrounding states when the weather got really nasty, and they can only pull so much salt out of the ground,” Sommers said.

Sommers said with the proposal submission, the county must now await the CUE board’s approval, something he felt positive would take place soon.

The next CUE meeting will take place in February.

In past years the county has been involved with a cooperative with Ohio Department of Transportation but elected to go with CUE instead.

Commissioner Dave Hall inquired about someone from Holmes County sitting on the board should Holmes County’s proposal be accepted by CUE, and Holmes County engineer Chris Young said that would be a role he would assume should the opportunity arise. Sommers would be the alternate.