MANSFIELD — The Richland County Land Bank has selected three contractors to handle five projects each as the group moves forward with $1.35 million of work funded by the Ohio Department of Development’s Lead Safe Ohio Program.
The unanimous vote during a special meeting came after Matthew Spiess, a residential revitalization specialist for the Ohio Department of Development, assured board members they were following the guidelines created for the grant.
Contracts were awarded to Workman Home Improvement of Mansfield, American Homestead Exteriors of Lexington and Hudson and Roth Outdoor Living of Mansfield.
The board also selected Allegiance Equities of Mansfield as an alternative contractor, if needed.
Money from the state Lead Safe program can fund exterior rehab projects at homes and other facilities across the county, including replacing siding, windows, exterior doors, roofs, downspouts, gutters, exterior trim, fascia or soffit, as well as repairing or replacing porches.
But any work done must mitigate the presence of lead.
Land Bank board manager Amy Hamrick said 57 applications were received, including 43 owner-occupant houses, 12 investment houses and two shelters.
Other grants would be used for cleaning contractors, lead-clearance technicians and demolitions.
The board agreed April 3 to delay its selection process after two local contractors questioned its “round-robin” plan to award 15 total projects to three developers, rather then seek individual bids for each.
“With regard to the round-robin approach, it is being used in several other communities around the state,” Spiess said. “So it is a tool that we made available and provided ample training for, and it is certainly allowed (under the grant).”
Spiees also addressed an April 3 question posed by local contractior Jeff Bryant regarding potential minority set-aside requirements in the state grant.
“There are not specific provisions in our guidance from Lead Safe Ohio requiring minority set-asides,” said Spiees, who attended the meeting via Zoom.
Thomas Miller, who owns Marminos Services, also attending via Zoom, repeated his questions posed April 3, asking why more local contractors are not being included in the program.
“You’re giving five bids (each) to three contractors. You have a few of us contractors in the community, more than three, who are trying to work in our own communities.
“We’re working around other communities, which is great, but we’d like to be able to do work in our own community, where we live right here,” Miller said.
Land Bank board member Jeff Parton said there is a deadline of May 31 to have 75 percent of the state grant funds “obligated.”
“At this point we need to start somewhere, where we want to select the contractors that completed their application 100%, that was turned in by the deadline, which eliminates many of the contractors that did have part of an application in,” Parton said.
“And then based on the references and the work that we’ve seen, we’ve selected the top three right off the bat. That way, once we do this, we can get started with it and be grant-eligible. And that’s the reason that we we’re starting with this.
“That doesn’t mean that we can’t add qualified contractors at a later date. We think that there’ll be more money coming, but we have to start somewhere. We’re out of time.
“If we don’t start with this process and be under control with this process, which is why we’re using the round-robin with a limited number of contractors, that’s going to give us the ability to control this process,” Parton said.
Hamrick said April 3 that 17 contractors applied for the rehab work. Of those, she said, nine submitted all required information and agreed to the board’s pricing list.
Each of the 15 projects to be awarded was estimated at $40,000, which means the three selected contractors would each receive $200,000 for their work.
On Friday, the board also selected Landa Page as a cleaning contractor for projects and R&D Excavating for any required demolitions. In October, the board had previously approved Chem-Tech as a certified clearance technician for the projects.
Hamrick said she would have a list of projects to be awarded at the next board meeting.
Monitoring wells planned near former Swan Cleaners
The Land Bank board on Friday also agreed to allow Mannik and Smith Group to install two 50-foot deep monitoring wells near the site of the former Swan Cleaners building at 165 Park Ave. West.
The Land Bank received a grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in 2019 to clean up the site, which housed dry cleaning and laundry services from 1946 to 2014.
An environmental assessment of the building’s interior air and soils beneath the building found widespread contamination of chemicals.
Much of the site has been successfully cleaned up and mitigated, including air quality at the site. But Hamrick said water tables at the site have risen and tests have revealed “some contamination” in ground water in the area.
Matthew Pesci, a senior environmental project manager at the Toledo-based Mannik and Smith, said two monitoring wells need to be done to determine the groundwater flow direction.
“Right now we only have two points on Swan cleaners and we need at least three to be able to get a direction of flow,” he said.
Hamrick asked Pesci to identify possible outcomes of the monitoring wells.
He said, “Either we find more (contaminants) or we don’t. Hopefully, we can identify which way it’s going and what those impacts are to help determine what we need to do to address them.
“The good news is right now the building is usable. The remediation system that was installed is operating like it’s supposed to and there’s no indoor air issue. in all reality, the water isn’t posing an issue because nobody’s drinking it,” Pesci said.
Hamrick said the work falls under a state assessment grant, other than the board’s required 25-percent match.