DRC officials hope for grant to impact region
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PARKERSBURG -- The county is applying for grant funding for the Wood County Day Report Center.
Wood County Grant Coordinator Toni Tiano and DRC Director Hernando Escandon appeared before the Wood County Commission on Monday to discuss the $500,000 grant application being applied through the state's Community Corrections Grant Program.
The Day Report Center is an alternative-sentencing program which offers education programs and counseling for people dealing with substance abuse issues, theft and domestic violence. If successful, people can have their jail sentences suspended. The DRC serves Wood, Jackson, Roane, Ritchie and Pleasants counties with a number of satellite offices. They also receive referrals from Wirt and Calhoun counties.
Tiano said the grant money goes towards paying salaries of case management and counseling staff at the DRC.
If approved, this will be the 18th year the county has received funding through this grant, she said.
Around 250-300 clients are served, Escandon said adding he expects the numbers to remain consistent over the next year.
"Most of them are in the Wood County office," he said.
Commission President Blair Couch said he was appointed to the Community Corrections Subcommittee on the Governor's Committee on Crime, Delinquency and Corrections which considers these funding requests.
When the Wood County DRC comes up for consideration, Couch said he will probably have to recuse himself from that discussion.
Couch said the county has been applying for $600,000 and have been receiving around $450,000 annually.
Officials said with recent surpluses of excess funds in the state, they hoped to see an increase for community corrections programs.
The committee receives around $7 million in requests and have around $4.5-$5.5 million to distribute, Couch said.
"That program saves lives," he said. "It helps get people off drugs, they do robust drug testing and it has been great."
The Wood County Commission unanimously approved the application.
In other business, the commission opened bids to clean up the property at 981 Borland Springs Road, Waverly.
The county had received a number of complaints about the property which had some dilapidated structures and debris on it.
A fire also recently went through some of the structures on the property and were condemned.
The property owners were recently before the commission and were interested in allowing the county to clean up the property having indicated to the commission they did not have the resources to have the property cleaned up.
The county will clean up the property and put a lien on it so when it sells, the county can recoup its money.
The bids were$4,760 from Jimmie Harper Construction of Vienna; $5,000 from Graham Demolition of Parkersburg; $8,500 from Aster Oilfield Services Inc of Bellaire, Ohio; $10,900 from J.C. Bosley Construction Inc. of Parkersburg; and $40,530 from Kittle Excavation Inc. of Flemington, W.Va.
The bids will be reviewed by the county administrator and the county compliance officer with the commission awarding the bid soon.